Texas Democrats attempt to block voting bill by fleeing state

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The Texas House of Representatives is leaving the state and will fly to Washington, DC Monday afternoon to once again deny Republicans the quorum needed to pass new 26-day voting restrictions in a specially convened legislative session.

To increase the stakes in both the home legislative battle and the national voting rights debate, most House Democrats are expected to board a flight from Austin to the US capital with no set return date. At least 51 of the 67 Democratic officials – the number required to break the quorum – were about to leave, with most arriving at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport on Monday to board a charter flight. The House of Representatives is due to meet again Tuesday morning, but the Democratic absence would mean there won’t be enough members to conduct business by House rules.

“Today, the Democrats at Texas House stand united in our decision to break the quorum and refuse to let the Republican-led legislature enforce dangerous laws that would trample on Texans’ freedom of choice,” Democratic leaders said in one joint statement published on Monday.

With the national political spotlight on Texas’s efforts to further restrict the franchise, the Democratic exodus provides a platform for them to continue asking Congress to restore federal protection to colored voters. In Texas, the lifting of the camp will represent a more aggressive stance by the Democrats to block Republican legislation that further tightens state voting rules while the GOP works against thinning nationwide margins of victory.

Ultimately, the Democrats lack the votes to prevent the Republican-controlled legislature from passing new voting restrictions, along with the other Conservative priorities on Governor Greg Abbott’s 11-point agenda for the special session.

Some Democrats hope their absence will give them an opportunity to force in good faith negotiations with the Republicans who they say have largely excluded them from negotiating the referendum bill. Both chambers put their legislation forward from the party line voting committees after overnight hearings and distributed the bills early Sunday morning after hearing testimonies mostly against the proposals for hours and just days after their revived proposals were published. The bills were expected to go to a vote in the House and Senate this week.

The House and Senate proposals resemble a failed piece of legislation known as Senate Bill 7 from the regular spring legislative session – the demise of which the Texas Democrats took advantage of last month to campaign for voting on Capitol Hill.

On Monday, the Democrats announced they would renew their calls for Congress to pass sweeping federal laws that prevent substantial parts of Texas bills and restore federal oversight over elections in states with troubling budgets.

“We are now leading the fight to our nation’s capitol,” said the Democrats in their statement. “We live in Texas on borrowed time.”

Even if Democratic lawmakers stay out of the state for the next few weeks, the governor could still call 30-day sessions or put voting restrictions on the agenda if the lawmaker takes on redrawing the state’s political maps later this summer.

Monday’s mass exit follows a Democratic strike in May that prevented Republicans from passing their priority vote law at the end of the regular term. For weeks, Democrats had hinted that skipping the city during the special session would remain an option as Republicans prepared for a second attempt to tighten the state’s electoral laws.

House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, whose office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday, has signaled that he may be taking a tougher stance on his Democratic counterparts than when members left in May.

“My Democratic colleagues were quoted as saying that all options were on the table,” Phelan told KXAN-TV in an interview that aired the day before the special session began. “For me, too, all options are on the table.”

According to the house rules adopted at the beginning of the ordinary meeting, two thirds of the 150-member chamber must be present in order to conduct business. During the session of the House of Representatives, lawmakers can vote to close the chamber doors to prevent colleagues from leaving the house and instruct law enforcement to track down lawmakers who have already fled.

If there is no quorum when the House of Representatives convenes Tuesday, any member of the House of Representatives can make what is known as a House call to “secure and maintain a quorum” to consider a particular piece of law, resolution, or motion in the House Rules . This proposal must be supported by 15 members and ordered by a majority of votes. When that happens, the missing Democrats will become legislative refugees.

“All those absent for whom no adequate apology has been made can, by order of the majority of those present, be fetched and arrested by the sergeant or an officer appointed by the sergeant, wherever they are. Arms for this purpose, and their presence must be secured and maintained, ”the house rules say. “The house determines the conditions under which they are released.”

However, it is unclear what options Phelan may have to force the Democrats to return to the legislature when they are out of state.

The House of Representatives voting bill passed by the committee over the weekend would restrict local voting initiatives such as drive-thru and 24-hour voting, further tighten rules for voting by post, strengthen access for partisan election observers, and prohibit local election officials from proactively sending motions Apply for postal voting documents.

The Democrats’ departure also calls into question other items on the agenda of Abbott’s special session, including funding legislation for the Legislature. Last month Abbott vetoed part of the state budget that finances the legislature for the two-year fiscal cycle that begins September 1st. He did so in retaliation for the Democratic strike in May. If the legislature does not pass a supplementary budget before the start of the new cycle, more than 2,100 legislative staff and individuals in legislative bodies could be affected.

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