HOUSTON — A 38-day Democrats’ strike in the Texas House of Representatives effectively ended Thursday when three previously absent members arrived at the Capitol, paving the way for Republicans to establish a quorum and pass restrictive voting rules.
Despite Democrats’ attempts to maintain a solid blockade, even though most returned from Washington this month, the three Houston representatives decided to return together, an apparent attempt to fend off criticism from their peers or liberal activists. to ward off.
The House was adjourned without a vote until 4 p.m. Monday, but hearings were set to take place over the weekend. The adoption of sweeping voting restrictions — to reverse last year’s expansion of voting access in places like Houston and empower partisan pollsters — seemed quite likely in the coming days.
“We have brought the fight for voting rights to Washington, DC,” the three Democratic lawmakers, Garnet Coleman, Ana Hernandez and Armando Walle, said in a joint statement, adding, “Now we are putting the fight on the floor of the House forth.”
The three arrived at the Capitol as a group, with Mr. Walle pushing Mr. Coleman, who has severe diabetes and underwent a lower leg amputation this spring, into a wheelchair.
“It is time to move past these partisan legislative calls and come together to help our state mitigate the effects of the current Covid-19 wave,” they said in their statement.
When it started on July 12, few believed the Democratic strike would last that long.
More than 50 representatives, cheered by activists and voting rights groups, flew chartered planes to Washington, met top officials in the Senate and with Vice President Kamala Harris, and managed to conclude a special session of the legislature convened by Governor Greg. . Abbott, a Republican, to pass new laws on voting and other grassroots priorities for his party.
The absent Democrats ran back the clock of the 30-day special session, and Abbott immediately convened a second one. But the Democrats stayed away from the Capitol.
Dozens of lawmakers began to return to Texas this month, albeit without the fanfare associated with their departure from Austin.
The political atmosphere had grown more charged by the day as a majority of Democrats remained in Texas, where they were vulnerable to possible arrest by state law enforcement agencies. Only a small number remain out of state.
Seemingly on the run, a Democratic “refugee” in the eyes of his Republican colleagues, Gene Wu this week sat cross-legged on the couch in his living room in Houston, handling calls from voters and occasionally glancing at his phone. to watch surveillance video from a camera on his front door.
Some of Mr. Wu’s colleagues have been jumping back and forth between locations in Texas, fearing that if found, they could be detained and dragged to the Capitol. Others were back at home and in their jobs, which most lawmakers keep in a state where the legislature meets regularly only once every two years.
“If they think they have a right to arrest me, they won’t have a hard time finding me because I’m at work,” said Ramon Romero, a Democrat who represents Fort Worth and runs a 40-person company that works. build swimming pools. and sell stone.
The strike over voting rights was reminiscent of a strike the Democrats staged in 2003 to block Republican reclassification. That year, Democrats in the State House went to Ardmore, Oklahoma, for four days, denying the quorum needed to pass the bills. Then their colleagues in the state Senate went to New Mexico for about 40 days, until one of them broke down and returned to Texas, ending the protest. (The only state senator to return, John Whitmire, received scathing criticism from fellow Democrats for the decision.)
This time, Republicans, increasingly furious, called for arrests. The House sergeant-at-arm distributed arrest warrants — signed by Speaker Dade Phelan — to members’ offices, their email inboxes and, in some cases, their homes.
“They came to the door, rang the bell,” said Jon Rosenthal, a Houston representative, who described a surveillance video of the sergeant’s officer who delivered the warrant to his home Tuesday. “No one answered, so he folded it in half and put it in the door frame.”
The Texas ballots, part of a nationwide effort by Republican-led state lawmakers to tighten rules around ballot access, would roll back changes made during the 2020 election to make voting easier during the coronavirus pandemic. to make. The proposed changes would also increase the authority of partisan pollsters, which voting rights groups and Democrats say could lead to intimidation and oppression of voters.
Mr. Abbott, who convened the special sessions, also put priorities on the agenda of his Republican base, such as rules about how racing could be taught in schools and restrictions on transgender athletes. He also added some that have broader appeal, such as more money for retired teachers.
The standoff led to calls for vigilantes to track down the Democrats. Outside groups offered rewards of up to $2,500 for information leading to the Democrats’ arrest, with the support of some Republican representatives.
“If you know where a missing legislator is, submit a tip,” Briscoe Cain, a Houston-area Republican who chairs the House Elections Committee, said in a TikTok video this week, pointing a gun to the gun. wall behind him.
Democratic representatives said they were more concerned about individuals potentially coming to their homes than about the Public Security Department officers arresting them. Indeed, several members have reported offers of “bodies” or other threats to the same government agency. (A state police spokeswoman declined to discuss “operational details”.)
Donna Howard, a Democratic Representative from Austin now back in Texas, said it was the “vigilantes” who worried her most. She has contacted her legislative staff online, avoiding all but the most necessary travel outside of her “undisclosed location.” The only time she gets into her car is to quickly pick up something from a store.
Democrats and activists had been working to keep the group together and held a daily check-in on Zoom. The roll was taken and if anyone was absent there was a system to get in touch.
But debate had erupted over recent morning talks between a majority who wanted to maintain the strike and a smaller group who wanted to return, according to several people who took part in the phone calls. “Every morning we have this exercise, the same four or five people who want to go back,” said one member, who requested anonymity to discuss the private meetings.
And so some Democrats were caught off guard on Wednesday when Mr. Coleman announced in The Dallas Morning News that he would be returning to the Capitol. He explained that he felt return was the “right thing to do” for the establishment of the legislature.
“We need to have someone in there fighting,” Coleman said on Thursday. “My voice on the outside makes no difference.”
Speaker of the House, Mr. Phelan, told the chamber before the adjournment on Thursday that it was “time to get back to the affairs of the people of Texas.”
Democrats involved in the strike who remain absent from the Capitol gathered online late Thursday to discuss their next steps as Republicans prepared for a flurry of legislative action next week over the long-stalled bills.
Houston’s representative Mr. Wu said he was “anxious” about how the Democrats would now continue their struggle and “where this will take us in the coming days.”
“We knew this day would come,” he said. “It was just a matter of how and when.”
