locking republican attempts to interfere with and take over elections. joining us now is colin allred from texas, a voting rights and democratic state representative gina in a hotel. thank you for coming to the last word. let me start with you. what do you expect, with the republicans when you come back into session, now that warm has been established? let me first make clear for the record that quorum has not lawfully been established, has not legally been established and in fact what has happened is there weren t a sufficient number of members on the floor and they were probably 12 to 15 member shy of reaching the constitutionally required quorum. notwithstanding, they declared it. and have proceeded with business unlawfully and illegitimately. and so yes, absolutely.
celebration of pride month elicited almost no shock or outrage from republicans. don t want to overstate the case, but that s quite a progression from the 2004 presidential election, when george w. bush concept campaigned on a constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage. the union of a man and woman deserves an honored place in our society. i support the protection of marriage against activist judges. [applause] that banning same sex marriage wasn t as part of the republican party platform. it was the party platform. and it s a progression from even a decade ago, when zach wahls, then a 19-year-old college student spoke about his two mothers as he condemned in iowa bill that aimed to end civil unions in the state. i m not really so different from any of your children. my family isn t so different from yours.
of watching that speech myself. and how scared and how isolating it felt at that time watching those words being said. and it s good to know that the secretary and chastain s child won t have to listen to that. senator wahls, do you see any evolution in the republican stance on lgbtq issues? there are republicans out there who support lgbtq equality, but the party at large has not evolved as much as the nation. certainly not. and what you are seeing of course is republican leaders responding to where the american public is. they know that the american people support marriage equality. the polling is extraordinarily clear on this. and that s because advocates were able to make the case successfully and to defend families like mine. however, the war is far from over. right here in iowa, we saw 15 anti-lgbt bills in the most
oh, okay. way so i think we need to break drop the breaking news banner here. representative hinojosa, what you ve just announced to us is that despite why texas republicans are saying, there is no quorum, no quorum has been met? they are 12 to 15 members shy of meeting a quorum? that s correct. they did not have the sufficient numbers present on the floor of the house to conduct business. they ignored that constitutional requirements. they declared quorum present and they have proceeded with business illegitimately, unlawfully. so at this point it is clear that we are now dealing with a whole new ball game here. these republicans have tried to rig our elections by passing these voter suppression bills, now they are rigging the system
that deadly day. instead that measure failed earlier today after only six out of 50 republican senators voted yes. nine republicans and two democrats didn t even cast a vote. in moments, we ll have more of our conversation with sicknick s mother and partner. but first let s go to cnn s manu raju live on capitol hill for us. manu, what kind of reaction are you hearing from both parties after the vote to form this commission failed? reporter: democrats are is that rightly criticizing republicans, saying they re trying to suppress the truth about what happened here, given that this commission, if it were to be created, would have been ten commissioners selected evenly between the two parties with equal subpoena power, having to report by the end of this year, looking at what happened at the capitol and the outside influencing factors that led to the attack, what democrats are saying is that republicans simply did not want to shine a negative spotlight on their own party, on donald trump