Today, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) announced that the FBI has agreed to track down Texas state lawmakers who left the state to resist state Republicans’ efforts to ram through new gerrymandered electoral maps at President Trump’s demand.

Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, issued the following statement in response:

“When politicians deploy federal law enforcement against state elected officials simply for opposing their agenda, they attack our system and put our American freedoms at risk.

“We stand with the patriotic legislators who are resisting this authoritarian overreach. This moment represents a deep-seated threat to our democracy as we know it.”