Texas Dems Walk Out

?? Hello readers! 

We’ve got another walkout on our hands! Texas House Democrats are on the lam, denying the state’s Republican majority the quorum necessary to pass a package of voting restrictions after a marathon weekend of rushed hearings on the bills. Nearly out of options at home, they’re on their way to Washington, D.C. for another round of lobbying.
 

>>> “We are now taking the fight to our nation’s Capitol. We are living on borrowed time in Texas,” several leaders in the Democratic caucus said in a statement. “We need Congress to act now to pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act to protect Texans — and all Americans — from the Trump Republicans’ nationwide war on democracy.”
 

House Speaker Dade Phelan (R) said the chamber would use “every available resource” under the Texas Constitution and House rules to secure a quorum.
 

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Alright, let’s dig in.

Another Texas Walkout For Voting Rights
 

The news of the Texas Democrats’ walkout Monday came after a weekend of hearings on SB 3 and HB 1, the package of bills that bears some familiar markings of the national wave of such bills: 

– New ID requirements for mail-in voting
– Limits to third-party ballot collection
– A crackdown on measures that expanded voter access during the pandemic, including prohibitions on drive-thru and 24-hour voting, and on election officials sending unsolicited mail-in ballot applications
 

Republicans voted HB 3 out of committee early Sunday morning, an irony Democrats noted: “You just can’t make this up: Republicans are passing anti-voter legislation overnight to prohibit Texans from casting a ballot overnight,” House Democratic Caucus Chair Chris Turner said.

Echoes of the past: The walkout recalls a similar situation in 2003, when Democrats fled to Oklahoma to prevent state Republicans from redrawing U.S. House districts to favor the GOP. Oregon Republicans pulled a similar move in 2019, going briefly into hiding to deny the Democratic majority a quorum on a climate change bill. Though that situation was slightly more militia-tinged.
 

Voter arrested: The walkout and the package of new restrictions in Texas comes soon after the arrest of Hervis Rogers, who waited in line for hours to cast a ballot in 2020, on charges of voting while on parole. The law requires a defendant to have done so “knowingly” and so far, there’s nothing to indicate Hervis’ knowing violation of the law. For one thing, Rogers gave interviews to multiple media outlets last year about the long wait he endured in order to participate.
 

“I prosecute voter fraud everywhere we find it!” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton yipped Friday night.

Biden Set To Address Voting Rights Tuesday

It’s notable that the fleeing Texas Democrats are announcing their destination: Not Oklahoma as before, not hidden away somewhere like in Oregon, but to D.C., to lobby for federal change.
 

Their timing couldn’t be better: Joe Biden, who’s received criticism from voting rights advocates for not pressing harder on this issue, is set to deliver a speech on the subject Tuesday -- specifically “on his administration’s actions to protect the sacred, constitutional right to vote and the need to overcome anti-voter laws,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday.
 

‘Just Do It’: Clyburn wants action on the filibuster. On the federal level, two Senate Democrats’ refusal to change the filibuster means, essentially, that nothing will change. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) told Politico he thinks it’s time for a “carve out” to the procedure. Will Biden endorse the idea Tuesday? Clyburn wants presidential pressure on filibuster hold-out Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV).
 

“I don't care whether he does it in a microphone or on the telephone — just do it,” the majority whip said.

Michigan Republicans Plan To Circumvent Guv’s Veto On Voting Restrictions
 

We reported last week on Michigan Republicans’ plans to circumvent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s (D) veto pen on new voting restrictions and instead go directly to voters with a petition. If just 340,000 people sign onto the effort -- which would likely focus on new ID requirements and other changes Republicans want to make to the absentee and in-person voting processes -- the GOP-controlled legislature could then vote the statutory change into law, without Whitmer.
 

>>> “So that’s what will likely happen, is it’ll be packaged into a citizen initiative, and the citizens of Michigan will take it on,” state Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R) said earlier this month.
 

“I think the reason they’re doing this is because that’s their only hope, is to cram it through a Republican-led legislature,” Nancy Wang, executive director of Voters Not Politicians, told me Friday.
 

But so far, things are moving slowly. We first heard talk about a petition to circumvent Whitmer months ago, and haven’t heard much new until Shirkey’s recent interview. Wang figured that if Republicans wanted to get these rules in place for the 2022 elections, they’d need to collect the signatures by December.
 

“If they hit the ground tomorrow, that would be a really difficult task,” she said. “But, backed with enough money -- if they had professional, paid signature-gatherers -- that’s still possible for them to do, for sure.” 

The Latest In Audit Mania

The big news this week in the world of audit mania is out of PENNSYLVANIA: State Sen. Doug Mastriano (R), the uber Trump supporter and himself an early organizer of pro-Trump audit efforts, sent letters demanding piles of election records from three Pennsylvania counties, including Philadelphia. Both sides are ready to fight about it. Mastriano gave the counties until July 31 to present a plan to comply with his order for material, threatening subpoenas if they don’t.
 

And as Pennsylvania winds up, ARIZONA appears to be winding down -- though the schedule for any sort of report about the “audit” in the Grand Canyon state is still shaky. As of now, the audit’s Twitter account has been silent for a week. But Senate Liaison Ken Bennett told The Arizona Republic recently that there was still weeks of work to do.
 

When I asked audit leadership about two lawmakers who claimed to have some inside information about the audit’s results -- Sens. Wendy Rogers (R) and Sonny Borrelli (R) boosted a tweet claiming the audit report would show “significant discrepancies” with the original count -- I was told they were basically bluffing.
 

>>> “They have nothing of significance,” Julie Fisher, deputy state Senate liaison to the audit, told me in an email, quoting audit spokesperson Randy Pullen. 

 TPM: SC AG Strategized With Big-Wig Conservative Lawyers On Suit To Overturn Election, Records Show
 

NBC: What's keeping democracy experts up most at night? An overturned election

The Atlantic: The Biggest Threat to Democracy Is the GOP Stealing the Next Election
 

WaPo: Opinion: The Biden administration needs to take democracy issues much more seriously

Brennan Center: Partisan Election Review Efforts in Five States