In a similar move back in May, Texas Democrats triggered the end of a state legislative session and blocked voting for a GOP-backed voting reform bill when they walked out of the chamber. Governor Greg Abbott (R) responded to the move by vetoing a section of the state budget bill, effectively slashing the budgets of thousands, including lawmakers.
Dozens of Democrats in the Texas House of Representatives boarded two chartered flights bound for Washington, DC, on Monday in an effort to prevent their legislative chamber from reaching quorum to vote on a number of items, including a GOP-backed bill with voting restrictions.
“My Democratic colleagues and I are leaving the state to break quorum and kill the Texas voter suppression bill,” tweeted Democratic Texas Rep. James Talarico. “We’re flying to DC to demand Congress pass the For The People Act and save our democracy.”
The Texas voting reform legislation – Senate Bill 1 and House Bill 3 – come as Texas Republicans’ latest effort to ban ‘drive-thru voting’ and enhance restrictions on mail-in voting and other initiatives enacted across the state during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US.
Responding to the lawmakers’ departure, Gov. Abbott, a Republican, said that Democrats were inflicting “harm on the very Texans who elected them to serve.”
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott speaking at FreePac, hosted by FreedomWorks, in Phoenix, Arizona.
He also asserted that while they traveled in their “cushy private planes,” Texans in their respective districts were being left without the passage of legislation that could help them, “such as property tax relief and funding for children in the state’s foster care system.”
US Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, said on Monday that she admires the “extraordinary courage and commitment” of the Texas Democrats abandoning their duties in protest of the reform bill.
“They are leaders who are marching in the path that so many others before did,” she added. “When they fought and many died for our right to vote.”
A number of the items included in the proposed legislation were taken from Senate Bill 7, the original bill that was left behind after Texas Democrats broke quorum in May. At the time, a number of Democratic Texas lawmakers declared that many elements of SB 7 did not align with the democratic principles of the US.
“A lot of us view these efforts, the ‘election integrity’ efforts, as an attack on our democracy,” Democratic Texas Rep. Jon Rosenthal told ABC13. “That, to me, is not just an attack on democracy. If we have that going on, that’s the end of democracy.”
Voting rights activists gather during a protest against Texas legislators who are advancing a slew of new voting restrictions in Austin, Texas, U.S., May 8, 2021
Abbott slammed the Democrats’ walkout back in May, and moved to punish thousands of government-affiliated staffers by vetoing Article 10 of the budget passed by the legislature.
“Funding should not be provided for those who quit their job early, leaving their state with unfinished business and exposing taxpayers to higher costs for an additional legislative session,” the Texas governor said in a statement. “I therefore object to and disapprove of these appropriations.”
The veto was panned by a number of individuals who questioned the constitutionality of his veto. Even fellow Republicans took issue with the move.
“My concern is how it impacts staff, especially those who live here in Austin, which is not an inexpensive place to live and raise your family and children,” House Speaker Phelan, who was a former legislative staffer himself, told the Texas Tribune. “And the agencies it impacts — Sunset, Legislative Reference Library, Lege Council — I’m just concerned how it impacts them because they weren’t the ones who decided that we were gonna break quorum, it wasn’t their decision, right?”
Sourse: sputniknews.com
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