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AUSTIN — While waiting for an elevator outside the Texas House chamber, Houston Democrat Garnet Coleman leaned back in his wheelchair before trying to explain why he helped deliver to Republicans the quorum they needed to approve a controversial elections bill.
As Coleman began to speak, Republican Speaker Dade Phelan darted from his office and gave him the gavel he used to bring the House to order and end the 38-day quorum break Democrats employed to derail the elections bill.
“Thank you, sir,” Coleman said, using his arm to secure the gavel between his left leg and the wheelchair.
It’s not uncommon for leaders in the Legislature to present ceremonial gavels. But this exchange — marking the end of the six-week struggle between Phelan and the majority of House Democrats — has profound relevance for Republicans and Democrats on both sides of the quorum break.
Republicans and some Democrats are hailing Coleman as a hero who ended the winner-take-all clash that they say threatened the institution with prolonged incivility and gridlock.
At the same time, his controversial decision to break with the majority of his party exposed a fissure in the House Democratic caucus. Veteran party leaders insist that returning to the House floor to fight a losing battle is their best option. They said the quorum break has served its purpose, and they used the struggle against the coronavirus as a reason to join Republicans in the second special session.
Gov. Greg Abbott’s 17-item agenda includes COVID-19 legislation.
“You’ve got to take the fight down here,” said Rep. Armando Walle, D-Houston, who joined Coleman in returning to the Capitol. “You’ve got to fight multiple fronts. … I just felt that it was necessary — after being out 30-plus days — that the fight needed to transition down here.”
Walle and Rep. Ana Hernandez, D-Houston, accompanied Coleman as he entered the House chamber Thursday. And on Saturday, more Houston Democrats were at the Capitol, including trailblazing lawmaker Senfronia Thompson and Ann Johnson. This week more are expected, including caucus Chairman Chris Turner of Grand Prairie and Rep. Rafael Anchia of Dallas.
Clearly disappointed, a coalition of veteran and newer legislators question participating in the special session and watching as Republicans hammer through an elections bill and the rest of Abbott’s conservative agenda.
Many Democrats are returning to Washington, where they spent weeks boycotting two special sessions.
“I don’t know what it is about being in the minority party that you just feel like your only option is to please the majority, because that’s what it feels like,” said freshman lawmaker Jasmine Crockett, a Dallas lawyer who pushed the idea of a quorum break during the regular session.
Crockett, who is headed back to Washington, D.C., said Republicans will now approve bills that hurt communities of color and the economically disadvantaged. Proposed legislation includes limiting options for high school transgender sports athletes, tightening bail policies, additional bans on the teaching of critical race theory and other measures.
“I pray that my colleagues can prove me wrong,” Crockett said of the Democrats who broke ranks. “I pray that they had a level of wisdom that I just wasn’t in tune with. And I just pray that everything that I anticipate is going to happen will not happen, but something tells me I’ve seen the story play out a few times.”
The elections bill approved by the Senate would ban 24-hour and drive-through early voting, extend protections to partisan poll watchers and add restrictions to mail-in balloting.
@ErinForYall we were literally on caucus calls for 2 hours this morning and none of the defecting Democrats mentioned they were planning on helping the Republicans pass voter suppression bills. Guess what the other defecting Democrats have accomplished by going back—NOTHING! https://t.co/OuXgKt0s3M
— Representative Ana-Maria Ramos (@Ramos4Texas) August 19, 2021
Rep. Carl Sherman, D-DeSoto, is already in Washington to help lobby for federal voting rights legislation that could counter the Texas elections bill headed for approval.
He said he wouldn’t be part of the special session.
“I don’t participate in abusive relationships. I have no choice but to be here and to pray to God that there might be a Lyndon B. Johnson moment here at the Capitol,” Sherman said, referring to how Johnson was moved to champion the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Until Thursday, the quorum break had brought Democrats together in a common cause to defend voting rights. It also showcased the emergence of a new Texas Democrat, one who’s willing to confront the Republican majority with ferocious political tactics that reflect the mood of constituents. Two straight summers of upheaval related to the call for social and economic justice has blended legislating with activism.
That’s why the decision by Democrats to help Phelan achieve a quorum has dismayed progressive activists, the ministerial community and others who provided support for the quorum-breakers.
“I’m disappointed because in a marathon it requires 26.2 miles of running. They successfully ran 14 miles, and you don’t get a medal for running 14 miles,” said the Rev. Frederick Haynes III, the senior pastor at Friendship-West Church in southern Dallas. “I heard someone saying they accomplished what they set out to do. You wanted to run a 14-mile marathon? Now we’re going to faithfully have to take the fight to Washington, D.C., on a more intense level, because we can’t trust Texas.”
Phelan is happy to have a quorum, and thanked Coleman.
“Mr. Coleman. We missed you,” Phelan said last week, after Coleman gave the opening prayer and a quorum was established. “We appreciate you being here, your love for this institution. Your love for the House representatives will never, ever, ever be forgotten.”
Inside the quorum break
Despite a regular legislative session that veteran lawmakers called the worst they’ve ever seen, Democrats were resigned that a bounty of Republican red meat bills would become law.
They managed to make changes to their body’s version of the elections bill, a GOP-driven proposal that’s the Texas spice of the national Republican movement to change local elections laws. Republicans say there needs to be uniformity and safeguards against mail-in ballot fraud.
Democrats and civil rights leaders counter that “voter security efforts,” including Texas’, are designed to suppress Black and Hispanic votes. They described the GOP elections effort as a sore loser response to the 2020 defeat of former President Donald Trump, who has claimed without legitimate evidence that the election was stolen.
A day before the regular legislative session ended, a final version of the bill emerged with draconian changes to the House proposal, including limiting hours of Sunday early voting and allowing elections to be overturned on flimsy evidence. That prompted Democrats to walk out, and the hours-long quorum break resulted in the bill dying a day before adjournment.
Elated after their successful maneuver to kill the elections bill, Democrats made a victory lap to Washington, where they visited Vice President Kamala Harris to discuss voting rights. Voting rights advocates made the Texas Democrats the toast of the town.
As they criticized Abbott’s call for a special session to deal with elections and other issues, they also locked themselves into a lengthy quorum break with the rhetoric used after their first walkout. A majority of the caucus agreed that they couldn’t trust Republicans to approve an acceptable elections reform bill. Though some of the veteran Democrats had concerns about maintaining a quorum break, they saw no other option but to leave Austin.
On July 12, more than 50 Democrats bolted to Washington to thwart a quorum. That boycott lasted until the special session expired, gaining the Democrats in Washington national attention.
Their meetings with civil rights leaders and their counterparts in Congress inspired them to stay the course. A “one day at a time” plan stretched into the second-longest quorum break in Texas history.
When Abbott called a second special session, it was widely believed enough Democrats would return to establish a quorum.
It didn’t happen, at least not immediately.
Community support
Eight days ago, when many Democrats returned to Texas from Washington or vacation, they were joined on a conference call by civil rights leaders Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, as well as U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston, Haynes and other activists. Their message: Keep the faith. Hold the fort. The nation is watching and appreciates the fight.
State Rep. Nicole Collier, D-Fort Worth, chair of the Black Legislative Caucus, said Sharpton told the group that they were making history.
“He indicated that the courage that we are using to fight for voting rights is on display now and will help shape the nation going forward,” Collier said. “He said, ‘Our country will be better for it.’”
Quorum-breaking Democrats have said the call with national and local activists helped keep their resolve.
A day before the call, Texas Republicans had been lobbying various Democrats to get back on the House floor. Earlier that week, Phelan signed arrest warrants for 52 missing Democrats.
Despite the legal battle over whether Democrats could be physically arrested and brought back to the Capitol, Republicans close to Phelan said he resisted the spectacle of mass arrests, instead relying on diplomacy.
Rumors spread among Republicans — and some Democrats — that last Monday would be the day several Democrats ended their holdout.
But Republicans miscalculated the influence of quorum break leaders. Most agreed that they would return when a majority agreed to do so. A coalition of 37 to 39 members of the House Democratic Caucus became the muscle behind the boycott.
According to conversations The Dallas Morning News had with at least 20 House Democrats and operatives, 14 House Democrats who took part in the quorum break wanted to end it. That number included Coleman, whose recent right leg amputation prevented him from going to Washington. He had voiced forceful support of the July 12 walkout before souring on the tactic in the second special session.
Democrats had been able to persuade colleagues to continue the boycott with the help of activists and progressives. When rumors spread that the coalition was breaking, numerous phone calls were made to potential defectors to persuade them to stay the course.
When Coleman told The News he was headed back to Austin, he received hundreds of calls in opposition and was criticized on social media.
Coleman shifts course
Coleman has said some Democrats wanting to continue the quorum break have been bucked up by the accolades they received, not realizing it was time to shift course.
And he said he regretted that the quorum break fractured the Legislature.
“Sometimes we don’t look at what something does to an institution,” Coleman said. “I’ve been part of good things and bad things in terms of the House of Representatives. The one thing that I do feel that I contributed to is this idea that you’ve got to burn something down. I regret that because we created another standard that became very vitriolic.”
On the morning of Coleman’s return, Democrats were confident they would continue the quorum break because the count showed no more than 14 members wanting to end the holdout, leaving the House just shy of the two-thirds needed to start work.
“We keep hearing the world is watching, that what happens in Texas so goes the nation,” Collier said after hearing some Democrats were defecting. “If that’s the case, we need to show them the courage and stand against the hypocrisy, the attacks and the denial of our rights.”
Coleman told Democrats he was headed to Austin, but many Democrats didn’t know that he was bringing Walle and Hernandez with him.