‘ACT NOW’

Texas Democrats Deny GOP a Quorum in New ‘Emergency’ Session

Faced with a GOP-controlled assembly, House Democrats in Austin are fighting back against voter suppression measures.

Texas Democrats, faced with an entirely Republican controlled government, have once again blocked voter suppression measures with the only weapon in their arsenal: their absence. On Saturday, House Republicans were forced, once again, to adjourn Gov. Greg Abbott’s “emergency” legislative session when not enough Democrats showed up to grant them the two-thirds’ attendance required to secure a quorum, the Associated Press reports. The absentee legislators have spent most of the past month in Washington, D.C.—where they’ve been pushing Congress to pass federal voting rights protections against state efforts that, per the Associated Press, would make it more difficult—“and even, sometimes, legally riskier—to cast a ballot in Texas, a state that already has some of the most restrictive election laws in the country.”

Abbott has threatened the no-show legislators with arrest. Democratic state representative Jarvis Johnson has said his office received several death threats. But Democrats in Washington have reportedly remained fixated on pushing through President Joe Biden’s economic initiatives. “The desperation from Texas is growing,” State Rep. Gina Hinojosa recently told the Washington Post. “We are using every tool we have right now to protect the freedom to vote, but as the minority party we can only hold the line for so long… We don’t know how much more emphatically we can stress this: Congress needs to act now.”