Texas state House members voted 76-4 to send law enforcement to find and return absent Democrats “under warrant of arrest, if necessary,” a day after dozens of Democratic House members
fled the state in an effort to kill election legislation.
The body cannot approve legislation without a two-thirds quorum of its 150 members.
Tuesday’s state House vote came as the state Senate was preparing to consider its own version of the elections bill. Some Democratic senators were also absent Tuesday, but the body had enough members to conduct business.
Both chambers of the Republican-controlled Texas legislature,
in a special legislative session that began last week, filed similar versions of the bill, which would broadly tighten voting rules across the state. Gov. Greg Abbott called the special session after Democratic House members walked out before a voting deadline at the end of the regular legislative session in May,
denying the body a quorum needed to vote on the proposed legislation.
House Democrats staged another walkout Monday, and dozens boarded chartered planes bound for Washington, D.C., where they hope to draw national support for their fight against the bills. The legislators will have to remain out of the state for weeks to successfully run out the clock on the 30-day special session. State Rep. Chris Turner, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said in a news conference on the steps of the U.S. Capitol Tuesday that at least 57 of 67 Democrats in the chamber had formally asked for their voting machines to be locked.
In the House, 80 members who came Tuesday morning voted to approve a procedural move to record who is present, ban members from leaving the chamber without approval and call for law enforcement to track down absentee lawmakers—arresting them if necessary and forcing them to return to the chamber. A total 63 of the body’s 67 Democrats were gone, two of them with approved absences.
Rep. Matt Shaheen, a North Texas Republican, said Monday night that he and his colleagues would look at all options for getting Democrats to return to Austin. He acknowledged it was unlikely that out-of-state law enforcement would be willing and able to make them comply with the state’s legislative rules.
“Public pressure is going to get them to return to Texas-- I don’t think it will come to them being handcuffed,” Mr. Shaheen said.
The bills would limit early voting hours, place additional restrictions on assisting disabled voters and voting by mail, and make many election missteps felony offenses. The special session was also going to consider funding border security measures, banning the delivery of abortion pills and prohibiting transgender students from competing in university sports in their non-birth gender. It was also set to reinstate the pay of legislative staffers, which Mr. Abbott vetoed after the May walkout.
While Texas Democrats have promised to stay in Washington until the end of the special session on Aug. 7, Gov. Abbott could continue to call special sessions to pass the voting bill. Democrats acknowledged Tuesday that the only long-term solution was federal legislation
“We can’t stay here indefinitely,” said state Rep. Rhetta Bowers, a North Texas Democrat. “Texas Democrats will use everything in our power to fight back. But we need Congress to act now.”
In Philadelphia on Tuesday, President Biden will make the case to the public for federal legislation to curb GOP-led efforts in states to pass more restrictive election laws. Such laws have already passed in
Florida and Georgia.
Last month, U.S. Senate Republicans blocked Democrats from debating election legislation put forward by Democrats. The legislation has been a priority for Democrats, who say it would preserve and expand voter access as many GOP-led states pursue tighter laws. Republicans have called the Democrats’ push a power grab that would undercut election security.
Republicans criticized the Texas Democrats for what they called an abandonment of their responsibilities. Democrats characterized the action as a refusal to participate in creating legislation they said would suppress the voting rights of their constituents, particularly minorities. Republicans have said the election bills would make elections more secure.
State Rep. Sheryl Cole, an Austin-area Democrat, said the group planned the walkouts after the marathon hearings on the election bills over the weekend. “The decision was made after the committee met for 24 hours and none of the Democrat discussions or amendments were allowed,” Ms. Cole said.
The Texas House Democratic Caucus paid for the planes, Ms. Cole said. She said Democrats will head to Capitol Hill Tuesday to try to meet with members of Congress.
Former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke encouraged Twitter followers on Monday to “Support Texas House Democrats as they fight back against voter suppression in Texas and take the fight to our nation’s capitol.” A linked fundraising page said donations would help provide resources to block Texas voting bills. As of Monday evening, Mr. O’Rourke tweeted that Democrats had raised over $140,000.
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the Senate, said on Twitter Monday that regardless of the House Democrats’ moves he expected Senate Democrats to show up Tuesday for a first vote of that body’s election bill. Either bill would need to be passed by both chambers and then signed by the governor to become law.
In 2019, Oregon’s GOP state senate delegation
fled the state in an effort to stop a cap-and-trade bill to address climate change from passing. The bill eventually died. Oregon Republicans staged walkouts again in 2020 and 2021 to keep bills from passing the Democratic-controlled state legislature.
In Texas, House Democrats
made a similar move in 2003, when dozens fled to Oklahoma to block a Republican-drawn redistricting plan that would have meant a loss of four or five Democratic seats. More than 50 Democratic lawmakers fled the state at the time in buses, where they would be less likely to be pursued by Texas Rangers and the Department of Public Safety.
State senators then broke quorum during a subsequently called special session and legal battles ensued. Before that, Democrats last tried to bust a quorum in 1979, when a dozen state senators, dubbed the “Killer Bees” left the state to stop a bid to separate party primary days. The Killer Bees included Texas congressman Lloyd Doggett, 74, who greeted the Texas state Democrats at the U.S. Capitol Tuesday morning
Article
Now fugitives, Texas Democrats vow to stay in DC as long as it takes to protect voting rights
Texas Democrats rallied at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday morning as fugitives, with the state House voting to drag them back to Austin after they fled by chartered plane in order to stymie a GOP bill they says would impede minority voting rights.
They vowed to stay in the nation’s capital for as long as it takes to block the Texas House from considering the measure, weeks at least, by depriving the chamber of a quorum.
“We are not going to buckle to the ‘Big Lie’ in the state of Texas.… We said no during the regular session and we are saying no during the special session,” said state Rep. Rafael Anchia of Dallas, chair of the Mexican-American Legislative Caucus, referring to baseless claims from Donald Trump and many of his allies that the election was stolen – justifying, they say, strict new election rules.
Soon afterward on the nearby floor of the U.S. Senate, Sen. John Cornyn accused them of a “highly orchestrated and ethically dubious act of political theater.”
Many of the same Democrats from the Texas House staged a dramatic walkout in May to block the measure in the final hours of the regular session.
More than a dozen then came to Washington, where they met with Vice President Kamala Harris, who leads the Biden administration’s efforts on voting rights, and lobbied Congress to resurrect the landmark Voting Rights Act and a more controversial bill to overhaul campaign finance rules and set national standards for how elections are run, trumping 19 state laws that restrict voting by mail.
Senate Republicans have vowed to filibuster the measures.
Gov. Greg Abbott insists that “election integrity” is an urgent priority in light of doubts about the outcome of the 2020 presidential contest. He called the Legislature into special session last Thursday to try again.
On Tuesday morning, the remnants of the Texas House still in Austin voted 76-4 to approve a call of the House, and by the same margin to direct the sergeant at arms to retrieve the absent members – “by warrant of arrest, if necessary,” said Speaker Dade Phelan.
State Rep. Chris Turner, D-Grand Prairie, chair of the Democratic caucus in the Texas House, shrugged off the threat.
“Well, best I know, Texas law enforcement doesn’t have jurisdiction outside the state of Texas,” he said outside the U.S. Capitol and, for now, the reach of the sergeant at arms.
At least 55 Texas Democrats fled Austin and most were at the U.S. Capitol to dramatize the skirmish, along with two Texas Democratic congressmen.
Anchia said whatever hope Republicans might have had for a collaborative effort to curb election fraud “was poisoned” when Abbott pressured legislators to relent on the GOP bill by vetoing funding for their $7,200 annual salaries.
“When you start the process in such a coercive way… you have poisoned the entire process,” Anchia said. “We are sad for democracy in the state of Texas.”
Abbott likened Democrats’ walkout to a filibuster and called it the “height of hypocrisy” for them to urge the U.S. Senate to eliminate its own filibuster rule to clear a path for the pending elections bills.
“They were not elected to run and hide. They were elected to make arguments that are best for their constituents and then cast votes,” Abbott said on the Chad Hasty radio show. “They’re just escaping with a case of Miller Lite, going up to Washington D.C. to party on the dime of the Texas taxpayers and Texas taxpayers will hold them responsible in the upcoming election.”
U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, one of the federal lawmakers assisting his state counterparts, called them “courageous.”
“You can come up with these little clever sound bites, and say `Texans don’t cut and run,’ ” he said. “Good Texans don’t discriminate against other Texans.”
A case of Miller Lite was visible in a photo of the fugitive Democrats heading to the airport.
It’s unclear what Abbott means by asserting that Texas taxpayers are subsidizing their excursion, though.
Their hotel and travel expenses are being covered by campaign donations.
Abbott had already eliminated their legislative salaries.
Many left behind other jobs. At least two brought children to Washington because of childcare issues. Many emphasized the personal financial sacrifices they were making.
“If anybody is wasting taxpayer dollars, it’s him and he’s lying,” said state Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, noting that in addition to the GOP-backed election restrictions, “We’re killing anti-trans kids legislation, we’re killing stupid bail reform that is going the opposite direction. We’re killing a ton of bad bills.... You wanna talk about people wasting taxpayer dollars? It’s not us.”
The Legislature meets in regular session every two years. Abbott vowed to keep calling one-month special sessions until his entire 11-item agenda is passed, even if that means going through the 2022 election.
Sweat dripped from the brows of state and federal Texas lawmakers and a large media contingent, with stifling humidity pushing the heat index to 100 well before noon. But neither that heat nor Abbott’s, they vowed, would deter them from this rare and dramatic course.
“We need a Lyndon Johnson moment…. We need the president and the vice president and every Democrat in this Senate working together to preserve American democracy,” said Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin.
Doggett was one of the famous “Killer Bees” who staged a 5-day walkout from the Texas Senate in 1979 to block Texas from holding its presidential primary earlier, and another bill changing filing fees for candidates.
Turner said his group will use the 24 or so days remaining in the special session to implore Congress to to restore federal oversight of states with a history of discriminatory election rules.
It takes 2/3 of the 150-member Texas House to conduct business. Turner said that at least 57 letters were delivered to the House clerk on Tuesday to make sure their voting machines are locked while they’re away.
“Our two US senators wrote the book on publicity stunts,” Turner said, rejecting criticism from Sens. Cornyn and Ted Cruz about their tactics.
Cornyn insisted that Republicans only want to avert fraud and protect legitimate ballots.
“It’s disingenuous and downright false to claim that any effort to prevent fraud is a veiled attempt at voter suppression,” he said. “We should be making it easier to vote and tougher to cheat.”
He and other Texas Republicans deride the Democrats as “cowards” for fleeing Austin – a course that would certainly result in their defeat.
“They turned their backs, hopped on a private jet, and ran from this fight,” Cornyn said.
House Democrats arrived at Dulles International Airport on Monday night, holding a short news conference in a parking lot to explain their actions.
“We have courage, conviction and a little bit of defiance,” said state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer of San Antonio said. “We are here today to rally the nation, and we hope that the U.S. Senate will hear us, and we hope that they will pass the [For] the People Act before the Aug. 6 recess.”
The Texans planned to lobby holdouts in Congress to advance HR 1, the For the People Act, and to press President Joe Biden to put the full weight of the White House behind the effort.
The sweeping legislation aims to overhaul campaign finance rules and set national standards for how elections are run, trumping 19 state laws that restrict voting by mail, and forcing states to accept a sworn statement in lieu of the IDs required by 27 states, including Texas.
The bill cleared the Democrat-controlled House. It has stalled in the 50-50 Senate, where a Republican filibuster would require support from 60 senators.
