O’Rourke, Protestors Begin Nearly 30-Mile Texas Voting March – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth
[ad_1]
When Rebecca Flores set out on a 30-mile suffrage march to the Texas Capitol on Wednesday, she remembered another long journey: her parents’ drive from the outskirts of the city in the 1950s to cast her vote after taking a poll in Had paid $ 3 in VAT.
“They just want to keep us in our place,” said Flores, 78, a San Antonio activist. “And to be honest, I’m tired of it. Because of that, I’m here.”
As for the protests against stricter electoral laws, the march in Texas, which began with more than 100 people shuffling out of a suburban church parking lot in Austin before dawn, isn’t the biggest. Organizers said they limited the size due to COVID-19 precautions and asked attendees to provide proof of vaccination.
But it was full of symbolism and political intent amid an urge by the GOP to put restrictions in place after former President Donald Trump falsely claimed the 2020 elections were stolen. Black church leaders and Democrats headed for the three-day demonstration to compare the civil rights era and Alabama’s groundbreaking suffrage march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. The new movement is an extension of this struggle, they say.
Republicans angrily opposed comparisons to the new laws as Jim Crow-style restrictions. The additional ID requirements, restrictions on postal voting and mailboxes, and the new controls on local election officials are designed to protect against fraud and restore trust in the system, they said. There was no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 elections.
The march was led in part by Beto O’Rourke, the former Democratic congressman and presidential candidate who hasn’t ruled out running for governor of Texas in 2022. O’Rourke and protesters closed the main street of Interstate 35 rush hour in the morning, funneling between restaurants and cutting a path from red statehouse districts to blue ones.
It was the Democrats’ latest attempt – and one of the longest – to maintain pressure on the vote if the prospect of Congressional action does not just wane. Also national attention around the Texas Democrats, more than two weeks after they fled to Washington to block new electoral laws backed by Republican Governor Greg Abbott.
When the walk began on Wednesday, the quorum-breaking Texas Democrats continued to visit members of Congress but are not yet committed to a meeting with President Joe Biden.
If they stay out of Texas by next week, the Democrats’ clock will be up for the current special session and the latest GOP voting bill – but Abbott has already promised to call another immediately.
“You can only hold out that long,” said O’Rourke. “So it’s really not up to the Texas Democrats anymore. It’s up to President Biden and it’s up to the US Senate. “
O’Rourke began the march at the end of the line when Rev. William Barber, national co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, led the group with signs like “Pass All Provisions of the” from Christ Lutheran Church in Georgetown For the People Act ”- the stalled federal legislation that would affect virtually every aspect of how elections are conducted.
Police blocked the interstate front road as the slow-moving crowd headed for Austin. About a mile after takeoff, Barber held up the crowd to use a megaphone to remind them to stay socially distant. When a woman in an SUV stopped abruptly in the middle of the street in front of a hotel to yell at the group – and said the choice was open to all – the crowd broke into chanting to drown them out.
It was started by Marcel McClinton, a 20-year-old Houston activist, clutching a half-empty water bottle around the 6-mile mark under a bright sun with no shade. He dropped $ 2,000 on summer classes this week to attend the march after taking a few extra walks home to improve his stamina.
The temperature had risen to 90 degrees, but it was Biden who got him hot for not pushing to get rid of the filibuster in the U.S. Senate.
“President Biden thinks we can organize the repression of Jim Crow voters,” he said. “This is a historic moment. And if he can’t keep up today and fight for people like me, then this country will go under. “
In the late morning the march had grown smaller; some of the early risers have been replaced by a new wave of hikers. Eugene Howard, a 37-year-old educator, said he slept less than two hours after driving with his wife and 5-year-old daughter out of suburban Houston, where he says he is running for Congress next year.
He let them sleep in the first stretch in the hotel, but said they would join them at some point.
“It’s so important. I think that will be remembered, ”he said. “And hopefully this will call the nation.”
[ad_2]
