Joe Biden weighs in on voting
US president calls GOP push to restrict rights the biggest test since Civil War
While Democratic legislators from Texas hunkered down en masse in Washington in a bid to derail restrictive voting legislation pushed by Republicans in the southern state, President Joe Biden on Tuesday condemned the efforts by the GOP as “the most dangerous threat” to democracy in the US.
“We are facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War. That’s not hyperbole — since the Civil War,” Biden said at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. “To me, this is simple. It’s election subversion. It’s the most dangerous threat to voting in the integrity of free and fair elections in our history.”
It seems that the Democrats in the Texas legislature took to heart what Chinese strategist Sun Tzu said in his book On the Art of War: “Of all 36 strategies, decamping is the best”.
As many as 67 Democratic members of the Texas House of Representatives were estimated to have boarded two chartered planes in Austin, landing in Washington on Monday night, in order to break the needed quorum and block the Republican bill. Critics say it is aimed at making it harder for African American and other minorities to vote.
Texas law requires that 100 of the 150-member House be present for it to conduct business.
“This decision was not made lightly, but we had no other option to protect the sacred freedom to vote for millions of Texans. It is the only thing we could do to stop Abbott and the Republicans’ attack on our democracy,” Texas Representative Gene Wu said in a statement.
US Representative Dan Crenshaw, a Texas Republican, countered on Twitter: “These delinquents are doing this to kill a bill that does things like make voting hours across counties the same. There isn’t a single thing in these bills that is ‘voter suppression’. This a giant charade. Texans should be furious, and vote all of these children out of office.”
The intensified focus on restrictive voting legislation in Texas follows similar legislation enacted by Republicans in Georgia in March. Republicans in Arizona have also come under fire for advancing legislation in the same vein.
Texas Democratic lawmakers walked out of the regular legislation session in May to successfully block Republicans’ bills.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, called for a 30-day special session beginning July 8 with 11 items on the agenda that mostly appeal to conservatives, including the voting bills.
The revised Republican voting bill is similar to the aborted bill. It would ban drive-through and 24-hour voting options, provide easier access for partisan poll watchers, prohibit local election officials from actively distributing applications to request mail-in ballots and place more restrictions on voting-by-mail, such as with new ID requirements for absentee voters.
Shortly after they landed in the US capital, the Texas Democrats said they intend to remain out of the state until the special legislative session ends on Aug 6. That move would effectively put passage of any bills for the special session on hold.
The Texas House of Representatives on Tuesday voted to allow for the arrest of Democrats who have fled to Washington.
“So 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,” the governor told Austin’s KVUE-TV network. “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.”
A spokesperson for the NAACP, which represents African Americans, told CNN on Tuesday that the organization will offer to pay bail for Texas Democrats if they are prosecuted.
Jon Taylor, professor and chair at the political science and geography department of the University of Texas at San Antonio, said the Texas Democratic lawmakers’ move accomplishes several things.
“It brings national attention to this controversial bill.”
Biden said the US needs to prepare to face “a new wave of unprecedented voter suppression and raw and sustained election subversion” in 2022.
Separately on Tuesday, US Senate Democrats announced that they had reached a budget agreement that envisions spending of $3.5 trillion over the coming decade to enact most of Biden’s economic agenda without Republican support.
The top-line figure is significantly less than the $6 trillion pushed by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders.
The agreement will allow Democrats to send a budget resolution to the Senate floor containing instructions for a tax and spending bill that would require just 50 Democratic caucus votes plus Vice-President Kamala Harris’s tiebreaker to pass, according to Bloomberg News.