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WASHINGTON — Having fled Texas to block a GOP bill they say would impede minority voting rights, Democrats from the state House rallied at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday as defiant fugitives and pressed Congress to step in.
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.
President Joe Biden lauded their courage. Vice President Kamala Harris cleared her calendar and huddled with them Tuesday afternoon at the American Federation of Teachers headquarters near the Capitol.
“I know what you have done comes with great sacrifice, both personal and political,” Harris told them. “You are fighters.”
In Austin, Gov. Greg Abbott fumed that the Democrats were engaged in dereliction. And those left behind in the Texas House voted 76-4 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.
At least 55 Texas Democrats fled Austin in two chartered planes on Monday night.
Most converged on the U.S. Capitol to dramatize the skirmish, along with two Texas Democratic congressmen. Many met with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other allies.
On the floor of the U.S. Senate, Sen. John Cornyn accused them of a “highly orchestrated and ethically dubious act of political theater.” He accused the Texas Democrats of peddling false allegations depicting efforts to bolster public trust in elections with voter suppression.
Asked if he’ll meet with them, he said, “Not if I can help it.”
Texas Democrats staged a dramatic walkout in May to block the measure in the final hours of the regular session. About 15 came to Washington a few days later to meet with Harris, who leads the administration’s efforts on voting rights, and lobby Congress to resurrect the landmark Voting Rights Act, which was neutered by the Supreme Court in 2013, and the more controversial bill to overhaul campaign finance rules and set national standards for how elections are run.
Senate Republicans have vowed to filibuster the measures.
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.
Biden denounced the Texas proposal as “odious” and “un-American” and claims about fraud in the 2020 election bogus, noting that more than 80 judges, many appointed by Donald Trump, rejected such claims.
“In Texas,” he said in Philadelphia, where he was pitching the Democratic election bills, “the Republican-led state legislature wants to allow partisan poll watchers to intimidate voters. … They want voters to drive farther [and] … wait longer to vote. … They wanted to … make it so hard and inconvenient that they hope people don’t vote at all.”
The fact that election deniers inspired by Trump breached the Capitol on Jan. 6 “should alarm you,” Biden said. “In America, if you lose, you accept the results. You follow the Constitution. You try again. You don’t call facts fake and try to bring down the American experiment just because you’re unhappy. That’s not statesmanship. That’s selfishness. That’s not democracy. It’s the denial of the right to vote.”
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 election 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, defended his state counterparts.
“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, which is brewed in Fort Worth, is visible in a photo of fugitive Democrats on a bus heading to the airport that Cornyn showed magnified during his floor speech.
It’s unclear what Abbott meant by claiming the excursion is subsidized by Texas taxpayers, though. His office did not respond to a request to elaborate.
Their hotel and travel expenses are being covered by campaign donations. And Abbott had already eliminated their legislative salaries, by vetoing funding for their $7,200 annual salaries.
Many left behind other jobs. At least two brought children to Washington because of child care issues.
“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.”
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.
The fugitives insisted they can and will hold out as long as it takes.
“We’re going to be here for the duration. It is worth the sacrifice,” said state Rep. Alma Allen, D-Houston. “Not only does it wake people up in the Senate. It wakes up the general public as to what is going on. You’d be surprised how many people don’t know what is going on in politics.”
Nine of the 13 Democrats from the Texas Senate were also at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday to urge federal lawmakers to enact the two bills that have stalled in the 50-50 Senate, where a Republican filibuster requires 60 votes to overcome.
The John Lewis Voting Rights Act would restore Justice Department oversight of Texas and other states with a history of discrimination against non-White voters. The For the People Act would 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.
“These lawmakers are brave. And they’re simply fighting for the right of every Texan to vote — what could be more all-American than that?” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said after meeting with more than a dozen of the Texans. “These folks are going to be remembered on the right side of history. The governor and the Republican legislators will be remembered on the dark and wrong side of history.”
The Texans emerged confident in Schumer’s support.
But he’s not the obstacle. Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona oppose demands to eliminate the filibuster that Republicans are using to block the bills. She co-sponsored the For the People Act. He opposes it.
At a protest outside the Texas Capitol, James Slattery, a senior staff attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project, called on them to honor the Texas Democrats’ audacity.
“They’re willing to risk arrest and leave their homes for months to save democracy in Texas,” he said. “Isn’t it the least you can do to vote to end the filibuster and pass voting rights legislation? The people of Texas are begging you.”
Senate Bill 7 would have empowered Texas judges to toss out an election without evidence of widespread fraud, a provision nicknamed the “Trump amendment.” It also would have empowered partisan poll watchers, which critics say invites voter intimidation; created penalties for election clerks who send mail-ballot request forms without being asked; and cut back Sunday voting hours valued by Black churches.
At a show of force a few hours earlier, outdoors, 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.
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, one of the so-called “Killer Bees” who staged a five-day walkout from the Texas Senate in 1979.
By 76-4, Texas state representatives approve a call of the House. By same margin, members ask sergeant at arms to go get missing members, ‘by warrant of arrest, if necessary,’ @DadePhelan says. #txlege pic.twitter.com/GNAJ5QQZH2
— Bob Garrett (@RobertTGarrett) July 13, 2021
It takes two-thirds of the 150-member Texas House to conduct business. Democrats delivered at least 57 letters to the House clerk on Tuesday to make sure their voting machines are locked while they’re away, Turner said.
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, echoing a GOP refrain that the Democrats who fled Austin are cowards.
“They turned their backs, hopped on a private jet, and ran from this fight,” Cornyn said.