Letters from an American – August 19, 2025 – by Heather Cox Richardson

Refusal to sign the commitment meant risking arrest.

Representative Nicole Collier, a Black woman who represents a majority-minority district in Fort Worth, refused to sign. As Joe Sommerlad of The Independent reported, Collier said: “I refuse to sign. I will not agree to be in custody. I’m not a criminal. I am exercising my right to resist and oppose the decisions of our government. So this is my form of protest.” She said: “My constituents sent me to Austin to protect their voices and rights. I refuse to sign away my dignity as a duly elected representative just so Republicans can control my movements and monitor me with police escorts.” Noting that officers policing Democratic lawmakers were not on the beat, she suggested that loss made the public less safe.

Told she could not leave the Capitol building without being arrested, Collier spent the night inside the House chamber. When demonstrators showed up to support her, state troopers arrested them.

Texas state senator Roland Gutierrez posted a video of people outside the chamber chanting “Let Her Go!” to social media with the heading: “This is full-on authoritarianism.” In the video, he said: “This is the kind of bullsh*t that’s happening right now in the Texas legislature. Dustin Burrows has locked up Nicole Collier because she won’t sign some bullsh*t permission slip to be followed around by a DPS escort—that’s a cop following around for the next three weeks to make sure that she comes in and votes for this bullsh*t Donald Trump redistricting bill.”

“What’s going on in Texas is absolutely 100% wrong and locking up members of the legislature because they won’t sign your bullsh*t document: it’s just wrong. It’s wrong. We need more people up here fighting. We need more people up here fighting alongside state representative Nicole Collier who’s doing this protest because she must. And we all must. We must fight against Donald Trump and all of this madness that’s happening in this country and fight against his constant grab for power in the United States.”

Today, Collier filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus to force the Texas House of Representative’s Sergeant-at-Arms to end her “illegal confinement” immediately.

Under pressure from a deeply unpopular president to rig the 2026 elections to keep MAGA Republicans in power, the Texas governor has called the Texas legislature into session to rewrite congressional district maps to create five new Republican-dominated districts. When Democrats tried to stop this power grab, Republican legislative leadership responded by assigning state troopers to make sure they showed up to let that power grab go through. When one refused to enter police custody to perform her job as an elected legislator, the Republican leadership took away her liberty.

On the road to authoritarianism, this is a whole factory of red flags.