Texas Senate Overrules Dems, Passes Voting Bill After House Democrats Leave State
The GOP-led Texas state Senate overruled the Dem lawmakers who fled the state and will be arrested when they get back to Texas and passed the new voting legislation Tuesday anyway.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott reminded the Dems who was boss earlier saying: “If these people want to be hanging out wherever they’re hanging out on this taxpayer-paid junket, they’re going to have to be prepared to do it for well over a year.
“As soon as they come back in the state of Texas, they will be arrested, they will be cabined inside the Texas Capitol until they get their job done. We can and will continue to call a special session after special session after special session all the way up until election next year.”
From The Texas Tribune:
Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, the elections bill’s author, pushed back against Democratic criticisms of the bill as a means of voter suppression and said his legislation included “common sense reforms” to ensure the integrity of elections.
“This bill is about making it both easy to vote and harder to cheat,” he said, and blamed criticism of his bill on a “horrible, misleading, false national debate coming out of Washington.”
Senate Democrats said they flew to Washington to put pressure on Congress to pass elections legislation to protect voting rights, which Republican legislatures across the country have targeted after former President Donald Trump baselessly claimed there was voter fraud in last year’s presidential election.
Texas Republicans made changing the state’s election laws a priority issue during the regular legislative session earlier this year.
“Rather than continuing to fruitlessly debate Republicans who refuse to legislate in good faith, Texas Senate Democrats decided to take matters into their own hands in order to secure the voting rights of Texans — especially voters of colors, seniors and those with disabilities — and work with our partners at the federal level to pass voting rights legislation that would rein in discriminatory voter suppression laws and unfair redistricting practices,” the nine senators who left Austin said in a joint statement.
Texas Senate passes voting bill that caused Democrats to flee state https://t.co/mgGQDK2TXT pic.twitter.com/awd3llVNQz
— New York Post (@nypost) July 14, 2021
Just in: A Texas senate aide tells me that a number of Texas Democratic senators have also left for Washington, but not enough to break a quorum in the senate.
— Nick Corasaniti (@NYTnickc) July 13, 2021
A Republican Texas senate aide says that a quorum is expected and that they will likely take up SB1 today.
Texas Senate Passes Voter Integrity Bill As Democrats Flee State To Subvert Democracy https://t.co/StxfHwSqX0 pic.twitter.com/2AKLZKfBSV
— The Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) July 14, 2021
Fascinating to see U.S. Senate Democrats very interested in the legislative minority rights of Texas Senate Democrats while they keep clamoring to steamroll our own Senate rules and seize total power for themselves. pic.twitter.com/Ta7gWst6z2
— Leader McConnell (@LeaderMcConnell) July 13, 2021