Texas Democrats are taking a stand—and setting an example their colleagues in other states and at the federal level should follow. In May, pro-democracy lawmakers in the Lone Star State staged a walkout to temporarily prevent the GOP from enacting legislation that would have imposed some of the harshest voting restrictions in the country. On Monday, as the Republican majority prepared to pass the draconian voter suppression laws in a special session called by Governor Greg Abbott, Democrats did it again, this time leaving the state entirely and heading to Washington, where their counterparts at the federal level have struggled to defend the franchise with the same urgency that Republicans are attacking it.
The move will almost certainly not kill the Texas GOP’s legislation—just delay it—but the message these state-level Democrats are sending is clear: If the party truly wants to protect Americans’ rights, it’s time to get out of its comfort zone to do so. “We are now taking the fight to our nation’s Capitol,” Texas Democrats said in a statement Monday. “We are living on borrowed time in Texas.”
In a Fox News interview Monday, Abbott threatened to arrest the lawmakers when they return. “Once they step back into the state they will be arrested and brought back to the Capitol and we will be conducting business," he said. But the Texas Democrats appear undeterred, stressing the importance of taking their message to Washington. “We need Congress to act now,” Chris Turner, chair of the House Democratic caucus, said as the group arrived in the nation’s capital. “The clock is ticking. They’ve got to act before the August recess.”
It’s a call national Democrats would be wise to heed. Across the country, Republicans have rushed to enact anti-voting legislation on the basis of Donald Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him. (Citing those same bogus fraud claims, they have also sought partisan “audits” of the results, campaigned to oust those who refused to go along with the former president’s efforts to overturn his loss, and worked to erode confidence in the democratic process among their base.) Democrats have been vocal in their opposition to the rollbacks. But to this point, they’ve been unable to effectively wield their majority against them, thanks to intraparty disagreements over the sweep of the House-passed For the People Act and especially to the existence of the filibuster, which Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have said they will not eliminate or weaken.
With the stakes sky-high, particularly after the conservative Supreme Court dealt a devastating blow to the Voting Rights Act last month, party leaders are redoubling their efforts to protect the franchise. The walkout by Texas Democrats, denying their GOP opponents quorum, came just ahead of a speech by President Joe Biden, in which he is expected to condemn Republicans’ anti-voting crusade as “undemocratic, un-American, and unpatriotic,” and to urge a “new coalition” to fight back against it. Meanwhile, a top Biden ally, House Majority Whip James Clyburn, added his influential voice to the growing chorus of Democrats demanding the filibuster be abolished or amended. “The filibuster is not a law,” he wrote Monday. “It’s not in the Constitution. It’s a tradition that’s been misused throughout history to deny civil and voting rights.”
“Our constitutional rights ought not be subject to the filibuster,” Clyburn added.
Clyburn’s message was aimed at Senate Democrats, but also at Biden, who has suggested the filibuster could be reformed but has not forcefully demanded any changes. “Pick up the phone and tell Joe Manchin, ‘Hey, we should do a carve out,’” Clyburn told Politico. “I don’t care whether he does it in a microphone or on the telephone — just do it.” It’s one thing for Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, whose expansive portfolio includes the White House’s efforts to protect the franchise, to express their commitment to Americans’ voting rights and their condemnation of those who are seeking to take them away. But the pro-democracy bills they promote won’t amount to much so long as Mitch McConnell can filibuster them to oblivion. Biden’s options may be limited, but his bully pulpit could carry a great deal of power. “I hope that the president gets a little more aggressive,” Democratic Congressman John Yarmuth told Politico.
Even if he does, though, there’s no guarantee that’ll sway Manchin or Sinema, who insist on playing nice with a party that is openly hostile to democracy and whose election strategy is centered on the very voter suppression measures Democrats are trying to prevent. That’s a stark contrast from the sense of urgency on display by the Texas Democrats, who have gone above and beyond to protect their constituents’ rights from GOP attacks—even as Abbott threatens them with arrest. It’s past time for national Democrats to show the same political courage and urgency. If the GOP’s crusade amounts to an “existential threat” to democracy, as they say it does, then it’s time that all of them start acting like it. “They’re putting their lives on hold to protect the voting rights of every American,” Julián Castro wrote of the Texas Democrats Monday night. “They need Congress to do the same.”
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