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Texas House Votes To Arrest Democrats Who Fled State To Block Voting Bill [forbes.com]:

Topline

The Texas House voted Tuesday to send law enforcement after Democratic legislators who left the state to block the chamber from passing restrictive voting legislation—and issue warrants for their arrest if necessary—a measure that will likely have little effect while the lawmakers remain out of state, but could be used to eventually pass the legislation whenever they return.

Key Facts

Fifty-seven Democratic House lawmakers left the state [forbes.com] on Monday and traveled to Washington, D.C., in order to prevent the chamber from having the quorum necessary to pass a restrictive voting bill and other Republican-led legislation during its 30-day special session.

The remaining members of the Texas House voted [texastribune.org] 76-4 Tuesday to issue a “call of the House,” which prevents members from coming or leaving the chamber, and then in a separate vote authorized the sergeant-at-arms to “send for all absentees...under warrant of arrest if necessary.”

The sergeant-at-arms doesn’t have jurisdiction outside of Texas, however, meaning Democratic lawmakers are likely safe from arrest and cannot be forced to come back to the House as long as they remain in Washington, D.C., and law enforcement there doesn’t cooperate with Texas’ warrants for their arrest.

The lawmakers could face arrest whenever they return to Texas, with Gov. Greg Abbott saying Monday the Democrats “will be arrested” and “cabined inside the Texas Capitol until they get their job done” as soon as they return to the state.

Abbott has vowed to continue to call special sessions of the state legislature until the legislation is passed, telling KVUE [kvue.com] he “will continue to call a special session after special session after special session all the way up until election next year” and Democrats would have to stay out of Texas for “well over a year” to ultimately block the legislation.

Texas Democrats are meeting with federal lawmakers while in D.C. to push for national voting rights legislation that could thwart the Texas restrictions bill, and Democratic state Sen. Royce West told the Washington Post [washingtonpost.com] the Texas Democrats are “buying time” by leaving the state while “hoping that something gets done at the national level.”

The Texas Senate has not lost its quorum even though eight lawmakers fled the state with their House counterparts, and the chamber approved [texastribune.org] the voting bill Tuesday in a 18-4 vote that broke along party lines. Even though the legislation has passed the Senate, however, it still cannot move forward and become law as long as the House lacks a quorum.

“This is not a vacation,” Texas state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer told the Post Monday about lawmakers’ trip to D.C. “I don’t want a single U.S. senator to go home for the August recess thinking that everything is completely fine with voting rights in America. We’re here to present the case that it is not.”

Texas Democrats previously blocked [forbes.com] the legislature from passing its restrictive voting bill in May, as lawmakers staged a walkout that left the chamber without the quorum it needed to pass the bill before a midnight deadline. The sweeping voting legislation [texastribune.org] being considered in Texas would impose such restrictions as banning drive-through voting and 24-hour voting, voter identification requirements for absentee ballots and bans on sending voters absentee ballots unsolicited, among other measures. The Texas bill is part of a broader nationwide effort [forbes.com] by Republican state lawmakers to enact new voting restrictions in the wake of the 2020 election, and new laws have already been passed in states like Georgia, Florida and Arizona. President Joe Biden decried [forbes.com] the new wave of voting restrictions Tuesday as “the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War,” and Congress is considering legislation [nymag.com] that could require states like Texas to get federal approval before changing their voting laws—though that legislation is a long shot to pass as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has opposed [cbsnews.com] it.

Texas Lawmakers, Dueling 1,300 Miles Apart, Map Out Next Voting Moves [nytimes.com] (New York Times)

Texas Democrats Planning To Flee To D.C. To Block GOP-Backed Voting Restrictions [forbes.com] (Forbes)

Texas GOP Could Soon Pass Voting Restrictions As Abbott Announces Bill For Special Session [forbes.com] (Forbes)

What's in the new voting restriction legislation introduced in the Texas House and Senate [texastribune.org] (Texas Tribune)

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