Voting rights advocates wrap up four-day march Saturday with rally at Texas Capitol

AUSTIN — Voting rights advocates cap their four-day March for Democracy with a rally Saturday at the Texas Capitol they hope will be attended by thousands and be a passion-packed message to Washington about public support for federal action to block making it harder for Americans to vote.

Organizers said Friday they’re trying to empower President Joe Biden with a popular groundswell of support for passage of legislation in Congress to block Republican efforts to impose more restrictions on voting rights in Texas and other states.

“He has more power than he’s using,” the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II said of Biden.

Barber, who is a co-chairman of the Poor People’s Campaign, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson said they also are participating in a National Moral Monday event on Monday in Washington, D.C.

“We intend to meet with President Biden if we can next week … to talk to him about the urgency” of congressional action on voting rights, said Jackson, the civil rights leader who ran for president in 1984 and 1988.

The March for Democracy that began in Georgetown on Wednesday is pushing for a higher federal minimum wage and protections of undocumented immigrants. But its top goal is to pressure the U.S. Senate to waive its filibuster procedure on election legislation. That would allow the Senate to pass the For the People Act and a measure restoring the 1965 Voting Rights Act after Supreme Court decisions that have eroded protections for minority voters.

Luci Baines Johnson, the younger daughter of former President Lyndon B. Johnson, who demanded and signed the Voting Rights Act, will be a special guest at Saturday’s Austin rally and the event on Monday at Union Plaza in Washington, Barber said.

“We cannot let states’ rights and states’ retrogression take over our country,” said Barber, referring to laws proposed in Texas and other Republican-led states that he said threaten the early voting and mail-ballot options that 56 million Americans used to cast votes last year.

“These laws are not just against Black folks,” he said. “These [state] legislators are … trying to take away access to the ballot that people have already been using, even before this year. That’s retrogression.”

Speaking with Barber, Jackson and others at a news conference at University Baptist Church in Austin, former El Paso congressman Beto O’Rourke said the U.S. Senate has made exceptions to its filibuster rule to allow a bare majority of senators, 51, to vote to ratify fast-track trade agreements, approve budget deals and confirm federal judges for life. It should do so for voting rights, he said.

“We are trying to give the president the power he needs to make this his undying, unyielding, uninterrupted focus until we pass the For the People Act, get voting rights in this country and protect American democracy for the next generation,” O’Rourke said.

“That’s what we’re here to do.”

Saturday’s concluding rally at the Texas Capitol in Austin begins at 10 a.m. and will include a performance by songwriter and progressive country music star Willie Nelson.

In Washington, the Democrats who fled Austin to block GOP elections legislation said they believe they had a “banner week of progress.” They reflected Friday on their week of meetings with high-profile politicians and activists, and on their testimony before a congressional subcommittee Thursday.

“This week, we have seen positive movement here in our nation’s capital as we have continued to push for change,” said Rep. Chris Turner of Grand Prairie, chair of the House Democratic Caucus.

The Democrats have been trying to set up a meeting with Biden since arriving almost three weeks ago, and their frustration made news last week. Turner said Friday that members met with Pelosi Thursday to “express to her the urgency of federal action in light of what we are facing in Texas.”

Pelosi, Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer met Friday and agreed on the continued “moral imperative” to get federal legislation passed.

Turner said the Texas Democrats would obviously still welcome the opportunity to meet with Biden, but they’re grateful for the meetings they’ve had with other Democratic leaders.

On Thursday, Reps. Senfronia Thompson of Houston, Nicole Collier of Fort Worth and Diego Bernal of San Antonio testified before the U.S. House on the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties subcommittee, answering questions and explaining problems they see with the GOP-backed voting bills in the Texas Legislature.

“If you watched Chairman [Jamie] Raskin’s hearing yesterday, then you know our work, which is hard, here in Washington is making a real difference,” Collier said Friday.

In another meeting with congressional lawmakers, members of the Texas delegation discussed the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, a key voting rights bill for the Democrats, with members of the House Judiciary Committee.

U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, set that meeting up. She was later arrested Thursday outside of the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington for leading a march of Black voting rights activists to protest the Senate’s inaction on the For the People Act.

On Thursday, the Texas Democrats also met with Bill and Hillary Clinton and Stacey Abrams in the latest series of high-profile meetings they’re using to draw national attention to their quorum break in the state legislature.

“It really just fired us up — not that we were in the dumps, but it’s just always inspirational because you don’t always realize the impact of what we’re doing,” Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer of San Antonio said after the meetings.