Texas Democrats leave the state to block restrictive voting

Good for them

It's unclear whether the house members can be compelled by law enforcement to return from DC.

Here's a rundown of today's events and a background on the voting bill they're trying to kill, for anyone who is interested: www.texastribune.org/2021/07/12/texas-democrats-walk-out-voting-bill/?utm_campaign=trib-social&utm_content=1626137452&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR2YR0TwXpZ3Fdaj9ptRRh5wmhYFCOV_I8Z2bpHSBzt4bnLveQuR_3_27wY

The bill in question is specifically targeting Harris County, Texas' most populous and most diverse county, where a Democratic county executive and elections administrator expanded voting in ways that increased voter turnout even during a pandemic, and particularly increased turnout among people of color. There have been zero instances of voter fraud linked to the expanded access, such as drive-through voting and having one night where a polling place was open 24 hours during early voting.

I hate that it’s come to this and that our elected leaders cannot work together and compromise. But this is the precedent that Mitch McConnell has set. It’s time that Democrats stop playing nice and take a page from Senator Turtle’s book.

Gov Abbot has threatened to cut funding for them - their salary and the salary of the assistants and workers. I thought that was so totally wrong. Yet he is willing to call a special session just for the changes in voting rules. Special sessions are supposed to be only for new things that come up that need state legislation on an emergency basis. This is not a new item, nor it is an emergency.

This is going to be interesting to see how it ends.

Cruz is not that stupid that he doesn’t know there is a difference between the two.

But what he and others who make ridiculous comparisons like this one are hoping for those who lack critical thinking skills will become outraged by the double standard the Democrats are using. And therefore support whatever dumb idea the Republicans are offering. You know to “own the libs”. IMO

And he’s trying to imply that Democrats in Texas are against voter ID in this law. We already have a voter ID law - one of the strictest in the country. This isn’t and has never been about that.

Extreme gerrymandering has ensured that Republicans are very over-represented in our state house and senate relative to the percentage of the vote they get, just like Republicans on our US house and senate.

They’re willing to “win” by cheating that way, but OMG if Democrats do the one thing in their power to stop a series of bad bills from becoming law.

Yes, that’s Beto’s get out the vote organization and it’s legit. Thanks for helping out!

Still, I’d bet that almost none of them are actually living on that.

Lol, it’s not quite that bad in my district, but maybe in the smaller towns.

Oh absolutely. Republicans here are terrified of the large, urban counties - Harris in particular. And Ken Paxton's voter fraud task force website even says that they're only investigating 44 counts of fraud, which are mostly incorrect addresses and not even all from the 2020 election - that's out of the millions who voted.

I was listening to a local community organizer on NPR this morning who talked about the voting bill's provision to do away with drive-through voting because supposedly it is "less private" and people in the same car might influence each other's vote. But apparently it's fine for a car full of people to drive to the polls together and talk politics the whole way, then go into a building to do the same exact thing. The guy pointed out that the people most likely to use drive-through voting in 2020 were the poor and/or disabled, who could easily catch a ride with someone and not have to stand in line. Of course the Texas GOP doesn't want poor people voting! (Unless they're poor, white people in rural counties, and then that's totally OK.)