Texas voting law: Hyperbole is drowning the facts
Texas | July 16, 2021
It took five days into a special legislative session in Texas for all hell to break loose. And we’re not even into the redistricting process yet.
National Democrats are hailing their state counterparts as heroes for taking off to Washington, D.C., on Monday in a last-ditch effort to block Republican voting legislation that they say would impede minority voting rights. And President Joe Biden upped the ante in a speech Tuesday by lumping Texas in with other states that have implemented voting changes.
Of course, there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in Texas or across the country. And Gov. Greg Abbott’s insistence that this legislation sit at the top of the state legislative agenda is nothing if not political theater, but so is the Democrats’ overreaction to the Republican bills under consideration in Austin. The rhetoric attacking the Texas bills has gone far from where the legislation stands now.
Flights on chartered planes, a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol, a vote to drag fugitive lawmakers back to Texas — these are all ingredients for a great drama. Texas Democrats say they will stay in Washington through the end of the special session to lobby for federal voting legislation that appears to have no realistic chance of passing Congress as written.
At this moment, there is no foreseeable path to victory here. As Democrats know, Abbott can keep calling special sessions….
(Excerpts from the Dallas Morning News)