05/21/2026
🚨 FIRST AMENDMENT ALERT 🚨
Angel Carroll, Jessica Cohen, and Jill Van Voorhis were arrested at the Texas Capitol last August during the redistricting fight. The Travis County Attorney looked at the charges and refused to prosecute. Case closed, right?
Wrong.
The Texas State Preservation Board slapped them with one-year criminal trespass bans from the entire Capitol Complex anyway — no charges, no hearing, no appeal. They can't enter the building Texans built with their tax dollars to petition the people Texans elected. Now they're suing Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick, and the Preservation Board in federal court.
This is what a prior restraint on political speech looks like. The First Amendment guarantees the right to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances. The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees due process before the state strips that right away. Both got steamrolled.
The LPTexas says it plainly: the Capitol belongs to the people, not the politicians. You don't lose your constitutional rights because you embarrassed the powerful. No prosecution, no punishment — and no secret banishment list either.