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Some Texas Democrats have decided to stay in Washington, D.C. in protest as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called another special legislative session in an attempt to pass a GOP voting bill.
"A vast majority, enough to break quorum, have committed to each other to not be in the Capitol when the second called session happens," Democratic state Representative Eddie Rodriguez said Wednesday.
Others who plan to eventually return to Texas have said they will not return to the Texas Capitol to attend any future special sessions called by Abbott.
By remaining in Washington, Texas Democrats are attempting to pressure President Joe Biden and Congress to pass new federal voting rights legislation that will lessen the effects of the GOP bill in Texas.
For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below.
Abbott ordered a third attempt at passing a voting bill on Thursday, calling another special legislative session to begin this weekend as Democrats who left the state weeks ago in protest still remain in Washington.
The announcement was expected and comes as more than 50 Democrats — who scrambled to fly out of Texas on July 12 — were on the cusp of running out the clock on the current special session and torpedoing the sweeping voting package for a second time since May.
"I will continue to call special session after special session," Abbott said.
He ordered the new 30-day special session to begin Saturday and made a new elections package one of 17 items he instructed the GOP-led legislature to consider, which includes other items sought by conservative activists, including new border security measures and rules over how race is taught in public school.
The cross-country exodus marked the second time that Democratic lawmakers staged a walkout on the voting overhaul, which they say would make it harder for young people, people of color and people with disabilities to vote. But like the first effort in May, there remains no clear path for Democrats to permanently block the voting measures, or a list of other contentious GOP-backed proposals up for debate.
Abbott, who is up for reelection in 2022, made the decision to begin a new session immediately, as Democrats in Washington had been weighing their next steps. They left Texas under the threat of arrest for breaking quorum in the state House of Representatives and have not committed to when — or whether — they planned to return home.
The group has been working for weeks with their counterparts in the U.S. House to develop a narrower approach. But even with a retooled bill, they would still face the same challenge as before: a filibuster by Senate Republicans, who overwhelmingly oppose the measure. Overcoming that hurdle would require changes to Senate procedural rules, which many moderate Democrats oppose — denying the party the votes to change the rule.
