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The Democratic lawmakers are, in other words, throwing a wrench in the workings of democracy. Republicans won control of the Texas House by an 83 to 67 margin. Democrats do not have the votes to stop the bill. So they are trying to blow up the system to have their way.
And here is the kicker: They are frustrating the will of the majority, and the rights of Texans whose votes made Republicans the majority -- in the name of voting rights!
The move is part of a Democratic scheme to use any means necessary to block the voting bill in Texas while Democrats in Washington work to pass S.1 -- the For the People Act -- that would in essence federalize elections under terms favorable to Democratic candidates. So the Texas Democrats flew to Washington, DC, where they will hang out for the next few weeks and urge national Democrats to pass the bill.
"We are living on borrowed time in Texas," Chris Turner, head of the Democratic caucus, said in a statement. "We need Congress to act now to pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act to protect Texans -- and all Americans -- from the Trump Republicans' nationwide war on democracy."
Turner made sure to include all the Trump-war-on-democracy talking points. But the Democrats' opposition to the Texas bill is hysterical and out of proportion to what the Republican bill would actually do. Here's what I wrote about the bill in early June, when Democrats first abandoned the legislature in an effort to stop it:
The Republican bill would, among other things, outlaw 24-hour voting and thrive-thru voting in Texas. Are those long-lived election traditions in Texas that Republicans are suddenly trying to kill? Not at all. They were enacted by one county -- Harris County, home of Houston -- last year in response to the Covid pandemic. Republicans reasonably believe that 1) the policies would be impractical statewide, and 2) election procedures, set by the legislature, should be consistent throughout the state.
That is what Texas Democrats have shut down the legislature to stop. And it is part of a national effort of Democrats to paint reasonable efforts to recalibrate voting procedures, after the extraordinary measures taken during the pandemic, as "the return of Jim Crow." President Joe Biden even called it "Jim Crow on steroids." And now, it is what Texas Democrats have stopped the democratic working of the state legislature to block.
One last note: They're doing it in style. The Washington Post reports that when Democrats decided to flee Texas on Monday, they gathered at a local union hall and then boarded buses to take them to a private air terminal, where two private Embraer jets were waiting to fly them to Dulles Airport outside Washington. Pro-democracy activists don't fly commercial. (The expensive flights, according to Politico, were paid for by the Texas House Democratic caucus.)
The Democrats say they plan to stay in the Washington area, or at least out of Texas, until August 7, when the current special session of the state legislature ends. If they do that, then Republican Governor Greg Abbott will call another session, and perhaps then another, until the legislature can finally act. (By the way, the Democratic maneuver means that lots of other proposals are stranded in the legislature, too.)
One thing appears certain: S.1, the bill the Texas Democrats fled to Washington to promote, does not have the votes to pass in the United States Senate. National Democrats know their latest election plan will not become law. But the Texas bill will become law. By fleeing the state -- using anti-democratic means -- to try to stop it, state Democrats have hurt their own cause.
(COMMENT, BELOW)