Democrats Stage Walkout From House Chamber To Halt Republican-Backed Voting Bill

On Sunday night, Texas Democrats boldly decided to stage a walkout from the House chamber to stymie a vote on legislation backed by the GOP. The Democrats broke quorum in protest of Senate Bill 7, which they consider "racist" and "Jim Crow 2.0." for its improvements regarding voting efforts.

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The bill largely tackles controversial new voting methods, such as drive-thru voting and vote-by-mail ballots, pushed by liberal groups. S.B. 7 also grants Texas judges permission to void elections if a total number of illegal votes were to exceed a margin of victory.

Republicans favor the bill because they say it will restore election integrity by requiring a valid ID to vote and preventing illegal votes from pouring in via mail without accountability. Democrats, recycling the same tired criticisms, have countered that this bill attempts to impose voting restrictions on minority groups, even though all voters have widespread voting options and no specific ethnic community has been harmed by these basic voting requirement. 

"The provisions apply equally across the state. They are not limited to a particular group or particular area," said Sen. Bryan Hughes in defense of the bill.

According to the Dallas Morning News, Carl Sherman, a Democrat representative from District 109, provided his own justification for the unorthodox walkout on Sunday night. “Unfortunately, it looks like that the only option we have, according to a senior member of the Republican Party who said we would not have an opportunity to speak against the bill.” Sherman also added, "That’s not a democracy to me. I guess they were sick and tired of hearing our views on this. They decided they were going to ram this down our throats.”

According to the report, Sunday evening's exit from the chamber is only the fourth instance of Texas lawmakers dramatically exiting a session to halt voting. It has been roughly two decades since the last instance.

Voting on the bill faced a Sunday midnight deadline, which had previously been extended by careless, liberal bureaucrats.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott released an official statement to address the walkout and to offer possible next steps now that the defeated Democrats have played out the clock Sunday and killed the legislation.

"I declared Election Integrity and Bail Reform to be must-pass emergency items for this legislative session. It is deeply disappointing and concerning for Texans that neither will reach my desk. Ensuring the integrity of our elections and reforming a broken bail system remain emergencies in Texas. They will be added to the special session agenda. Legislators will be expected to have worked out the details when they arrive at the Capitol for the special session."

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As part of his response to the reckless political theater from the Democrats, Gov. Abbott has called for a special session in the coming days which will tackle the bill once again and, hopefully, bring it to pass so that Abbott can sign it into law. However, Democrats may pull a similar hijinks and potentially delay another session.

Chair of the House Democratic Caucus Chris Turner is confident that Democrat defiance won't end on Sunday. “Democrats are going to continue to use every tool in our toolbox to slow them down, to fight them, to stop them. What that looks like weeks or months down the road, I can't predict at this point, but we're going to fight with everything we've got.”

As tensions continue to rise between the Senate and House in the final hours of the session, Republicans remain ready to scrap their way back to the negotiation table to get the bill through and help restore confidence in election results, a matter pertinent to all Texans who want their votes to count.