HOUSTON — A 38-day-old strike by Democrats in the Texas House of Representatives effectively ended on Thursday as three absentee members arrived at the Capitol, paving the way for House Republicans to establish a quorum and restrictive new voting rules and other Republican priorities to approve .
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 House is adjourned until 4 p.m. Monday, and hearings are expected to take place over the weekend.
“We have brought the fight for voting rights to Washington, DC,” the three Democratic lawmakers from Houston, Garnet Coleman, Ana Hernandez and Armando Walle, said in a joint statement, adding, “Now we continue the fight on the floor from the house.”
They added: “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.”
When it started on July 12, few believed the Democratic strike would last that long.
The representatives, cheered by activists and voting rights groups, flew chartered planes to Washington, met top Senate officials and 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 of 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 “fugitive” in the eyes of his Republican colleagues, Gene Wu this week sat cross-legged on the couch in his living room in Houston, handling phone 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.
Republicans, increasingly outraged, 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 seeing surveillance video he made of the sergeant’s officer who delivered the warrant to his home on Tuesday. “No one answered, so he folded it in half and put it in the door frame.”
Mr. Abbott, in declaring the special sessions, 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 proposed vote changes would increase the authority of partisan pollsters, which voting rights groups and Democrats say could lead to intimidation and oppression of voters.
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, an assault rifle visible on the street. wall behind him.
Democrats and activists had been working to keep the group together and held a daily check-in on Zoom. The roll is taken and if someone is absent, there was a system to get in touch.
But during the recent morning calls, debate had broken out between several camps, a majority wanting to keep their strike, and a smaller group wanting to return, according to several who were on the 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 there to fight,” Mr Coleman, who has severe diabetes and had a lower leg amputation this spring, said in a telephone interview on Thursday. “My voice on the outside makes no difference.”
