Texas Democrats can’t beat election bill, so they’re running to Washington for bailout

Texas Democrats can’t beat election bill, so they’re running to Washington for bailout
Ryan J. Rusak, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Mon, July 12, 2021, 12:48 PM

Like so many failed enterprises before them, Democrats in the Texas Legislature are heading to Washington in search of a bailout.

Democratic House members are reportedly fleeing Austin and the special session that Gov. Greg Abbott initiated last week, aiming to stop an election-law bill even as it gets more innocuous by the day. If they do, the House will lack enough members to operate under its rules, and if they like their accommodations enough to stay for a few weeks, they could kill the session entirely.

For nearly three decades, in election after election, Texas Democrats haven’t been able to stop Republicans at the ballot box. So now, they’re asking the masters of dysfunction in DC to do it for them.

There’s irony, of course, in soliciting federal Democrats for relief from the alleged abuses of a legislative majority. Democrats who control the U.S. Senate by one vote and the U.S. House by five see a mandate to remake the entire nation, spending trillions of dollars the country doesn’t have and federalizing election laws.

Republicans and some courageous Democratic moderates who are thinking beyond the next election cycle will use the filibuster to stop them. To progressives, that’s a grotesque violation of our democracy.

But shutting down the entire work of a whole branch of state government? Heroic.

House Democrats did this at the end of the regular session, which is how we got here. But leaving the state is replaying the greatest hits of 2003, when groups of lawmakers fled again and again to stop Republican redistricting.

Nostalgia is a helluva drug, so that episode is often cast as a heroic stand against a power-hungry regime of Republicans that had been swept into power for the first time in more than a century. But those Democrats were defending the right of Democrats to control most Texas’ seats in the U.S. House in a state with a clear Republican majority.

To put it another way, they were for gerrymandering before they were against it.

It didn’t work then; Gov. Rick Perry kept calling lawmakers back until the work got done. Abbott will relish doing the same. And by setting him and the Republicans in the Legislature as the bulwark against Washington overreach, Democrats might as well be on a false-flag mission to sustain the Texas GOP majority.

Any time legislators are fighting over the mechanics of elections, it’s about power, period. Democrats believe they need the broadest possible voting rules to have a chance to win in Texas. Republicans pushing the new bill seem to believe that more turnout dooms their chances, even though the last couple of election cycles disprove the case, and academic research disputes the notion that more votes is automatically better for Democrats.

What’s more repugnant, of course, is the fantasy spread by a certain former GOP leader that huge vote-rigging operations are undermining our democracy and must be rooted out. Bottom line: The Texas elections bill is largely unnecessary.

But it’s also, at this point, pretty mild sauce. Republicans appear to have abandoned the truly noxious provisions from the Legislature’s regular session.

By fleeing, Democrats lose any high ground. Rhetorically turning two weeks of early voting and reasonably flexible mail-ballot rules into Jim Crow Redux strikes all but the most intense partisans as overkill.

And shutting down the Legislature — again — means Democrats own at least some of the fallout. Abbott has vetoed the funding for the legislative branch as a leverage play. If lawmakers don’t stick around and vote to restore it, thousands of staffers will be furloughed on Sept. 1, when the new state budget year begins.

Some may see Abbott’s hardball as unfair, but that’s politics. The solution for Democrats is to win more elections.

Maybe then, they’d finally stick around and do their jobs.

"Biden is a Shameless Liar" due to Biden's latest comments on election laws & Texas Democrats

3 Texas Democrats test positive for COVID-19 in Washington, DC
Nicole Cobler and Madlin Mekelburg, Austin American-Statesman
Sat, July 17, 2021, 3:08 PM·

WASHINGTON — Three Texas House Democrats have tested positive for COVID-19 in Washington, D.C., according to Texas House Democratic Caucus leadership.

They're among nearly 60 lawmakers who fled the state Monday to break quorum in the House, part of an effort to block the passage of a GOP-led elections bill. Most members are staying in the same hotel.

One member found out about their positive test result late Friday evening, but they do not have symptoms, caucus officials said. All House lawmakers were alerted and received a rapid test immediately following the member's positive result.

Two additional members tested positive in a rapid test Saturday morning and one has mild symptoms, the caucus said.

The three who have tested positive on the rapid tests will receive a PCR coronavirus test, a more sensitive and accurate version of a COVID-19 test. The positive members will isolate for 10 days.

The three members are vaccinated. The caucus did not release their names.

There was a notable increase in the use of face coverings among lawmakers and Democratic staffers at their hotel Saturday morning. Since members arrived late Monday, masks have been used sparingly as they moved through the lobby and held meetings around the city.

“The House Democratic Caucus is following all CDC guidance and protocols," Rep. Chris Turner, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said in a statement. "This is a sober reminder that COVID is still with us, and though vaccinations offer tremendous protection, we still must take necessary precautions. We are in touch with public health experts in Texas to provide additional guidance. Our caucus will follow all recommendations from public health experts as we continue our work.”

The delta variant, a highly contagious mutation of the coronavirus, has become the dominant strain of COVID-19 in the United States. On Thursday, Travis County slid back to tightened restrictions after four cases of the variant were confirmed in the Austin area.

Unvaccinated people remain most at risk of contracting the coronavirus and having a more serious illness. All Texas House Democrats have been vaccinated, the caucus said.

Rep. Donna Howard of Austin is a former critical care nurse and consulted a public health physician to determine safety protocols for Democrats on the ground in Washington.

She said lawmakers have followed CDC guidelines throughout their trip – which state that fully vaccinated individuals do not need to wear masks or practice social distancing unless required by law or private regulation – and they continue to follow public health guidelines now that three positive cases have emerged within their ranks.

“We have been following CDC guidelines and what we are seeing from this is that, as we've been told, the delta variant is more highly contagious, and can actually infect people who are fully vaccinated,” Howard said in an interview. “The good news is that you shouldn't have much of a problem, even if you test positive, if you're vaccinated. It also reminds us why it's so critically important that everyone gets the vaccination.”

As of July 14, the average daily case rate for the past seven days in Washington was 3.75 cases per 100,000 people and the city continued to be at the lowest phase of spread, according to the city's coronavirus tracker.

Texas Democrats have met with a slew of Capitol Hill Democrats this week, including U.S. Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Vice President Kamala Harris also met with them on Tuesday.

Texas lawmakers dealt with multiple positive COVID-19 cases throughout the regular session in the Capitol. The first COVID-19 positive case came three days after the Legislature convened, when Rep. Joe Deshotel, D-Beaumont. tested positive three days.

Temple wrote:

This thread is not about Trump. It's about election laws & Texas Democrats.

Temple wrote:

The Wise And Powerful wrote:

''This thread is not about Trump. It's about election laws & Texas Democrats.''

[size=16]you'
"Biden is a Shameless Liar"
due to Biden's latest comments on election laws & Texas Democrats''

You called Biden a liar-
I responded as to Trump being a liar..

///

I never mentioned Trump. Do try to pay attention to the topic.

It's Officially a 'Super Spreader': More Runaway Texas Dems Test Positive
By Nick Arama | Jul 18, 2021 10:45 PM ET

I think we can officially call the runaway Texas Democrats flight to Washington, D.C., a “super spreader” now.

They announced on Saturday that three people had testing positive for the Wuhan coronavirus.

Then today, it was announced from the Texas House Democratic Caucus that two more have now tested positive, including Trey Martinez Fischer, who represents San Antonio’s 116th District. So that’s five total of the group, so far. The only other person of the five identified at this point has been Celia Israel of Austin, who said she was having mild symptoms of the virus. The rest of the five similarly were described as having no or only mild symptoms. Martinez Fischer said he would quarantine until he tests negative. All of them were allegedly fully-vaccinated.

They have all been traveling a lot together, in addition to being all over Washington, D.C., meeting with all kinds of politicians and other people — including at least two meetings with Kamala Harris. Harris announced that she was going to Walter Reed Hospital for a “routine” checkup after having met with the Texas Democrats on Tuesday.

Because you always schedule ‘routine’ appointments with doctors on a Sunday morning after you met with people with a virus.

She then tweeted out that the Delta variant was “no joke” without further explanation. She did not respond to an inquiry from Fox News as to whether she was having any symptoms of the virus.

Now, this is obviously problematic, given that they are all claiming to have been fully vaccinated. It seems like an awfully big sample in a relatively small, concentrated group of about 60, to have five test positive. They may have been that exposed to the Delta variant and then just spread it to each other. But that may mean that the vaccine is not particularly effective against that variant. In fact, the state of Israel has reported that the Pfizer vaccine is “significantly less effective” against the Delta variant.

They had been traveling and visiting people without masks until this was announced, then one of them — Gene Wu– said he thought that a national mask mandate should be “re-instituted.”

There has never been a national mask mandate, because the federal government doesn’t have power over the states and could not impose one. But this Texas Democrat didn’t understand the structure of our government enough to understand that. Even though he wants to impose one on all of us, neither he nor the rest of them adhered to it themselves. And you know what’s ironic? Even the Super Bowl held in Texas they claimed would be a super spreader event, wasn’t.

It’s fair to say that the performance drama has deteriorated into a real mess. And all for a ridiculous, lying political stunt. And shouldn’t they all be in quarantine at this point in some nice, Texas jail cells — not still running around D.C.?