The Democratic Texas Representatives who staged the Senate Bill 7 walkout last month traveled to Washington D.C. to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris June 16.
During the May 30 87th legislative session, Texas Democratic lawmakers walked out of the Capitol to deny the House a quorum and effectively blocked election integrity measure Senate Bill 7 from being passed, according to Texas Tribune.
GOP leaders said the bill is necessary to safeguard elections while critics argue that the bill is part of an ongoing attempt by Republicans at voter suppression that disproportionately affects black and Hispanic voters.
“We have seen exactly what we feared when that case came down in 2013,” Harris said, according to Texas Tribune. “Because that case was an opening of a door to allow states to do what otherwise we have protected against, which is states putting in place laws that are designed, in many cases quite intentionally, to make it difficult for people to vote. And so this is what we’ve seen over and over again, and what’s happening right now in Texas is, of course, a very clear and current example of that.”
The Texas Democrats met with Harris to discuss the possibility of restoring federal oversight of elections and push for the For the People Act and John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act — two federal bills that could potentially preempt significant portions of the Texas legislation, according to Texas Tribune.
“The many Democratic legislators here today in Washington, D.C. are the latest in a long line of Texans who have come to our nation’s capital to fight for election access and equality and to ask for federal oversight in order to protect the right to vote,” state Rep. Senfronia Thompson (D-Houston) said in a statement, Texas Tribune reported. “Two weeks ago, in our state Capitol, Texas House and Senate Democrats stood united to stop a harmful voter suppression measure from becoming law. We’ve done our part. Now, we need Congress to do theirs.”
If the bills were passed, Texas would be required to offer automatic and same-day voter registration, loosen eligibility requirements for voting by mail and the state’s election laws would be placed under federal oversight.
State Rep. Jessica Gonzalez (D-Dallas) led the discussion between the Texas lawmakers and Harris.
“Thank you Vice President Kamala Harris for meeting with Texas Democrats today to discuss our fight against voter suppression,” Gonzalez wrote in a June 16 Twitter post.
Texas State Rep. Jeffrey Curtis “Jeff” Leach (R-Plano) has criticized the late May walkout as a “losing strategy,” according to the Dallas Express.
