I’ll bust AWOL Dems
Texas gov blasts vote-bill runaways
Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said he would arrest Democratic lawmakers who fled the state to block a bill setting out voting rules.
Dozens of Democrats skipped out on a special session at the state capitol, chartered private jets to Washington, DC, and performed an off-key rendition of the civil-rights anthem “We Shall Overcome.”
Back in Austin, the departure meant the Texas House of Representatives no longer had a quorum to consider any legislation, though they did vote 76 to 4 Tuesday to direct the sergeant-at-arms to send for all absentee members by “warrant of arrest if necessary.”
Republicans say the reforms set out in the bill — which requires ID for voting by mail and also includes ending 24-hour polling places and banning ballot drop boxes — are designed to ensure the integrity of the vote by preventing voter fraud.
Democrats say the legislation is meant to prevent poor and minority voters from casting ballots.
Vice President Kamala Harris praised the fleeing Democrats Tuesday.
“Defending the right of the American people to vote is as American as apple pie,” said Harris, who went on to compare the lawmakers’ actions to women’s suffrage and civil-rights marches.
Abbott vowed Monday that he will continue to call “special sesspecial sion after session after spethe cial session all way up until [the] election next year” until the legislation is passed.
“If these people want to be hanging out wherout ever they’re hanging on this taxpayer-paid junket, they’re going to have to be prepared to do it for well over a year,” the governor told KVUE.
“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.”
The Texas Democrats have said they will use their time in Washington to push lawmakers to support two election-reform bills: the For The People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
A spokesman for Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a moderate Democrat who stoked progressive outrage last month by coming out against the For The People Act, said Tuesday that Manchin also will meet with the legislators.
Harris previously praised the Texas Democrats’ “courage and commitment” at an event in Michigan on Monday, saying: “I applaud them standing for the rights of all Americans, and all Texans to express their voice through their vote, unencumbered.”