Right now the texas legislature in texas is in session. The republicanled house and the republicanled senate in texas, they re trying to pass legislation that would make it t significantly harder to vote in texas in a state where it is e already not that easy to vote. The ways they are trying to change the voting laws in texass would disproportionately affect voters of color and poor voters and with disabilities in particular, and so texas democrats have bolted from the state. They left texas entirely tonight in a lastditch effort to try to stop this bill from becoming law. Now, those two planes i mentioned carrying texas democrats, those two planes have just landed at dulles airport just outside washington, d. C. They ve landed just in the last hour. Si it is 51 democrats from the texas state house onboard the two planes. We are told at least seven other texas democrats are making their way to d. C. As well separately. E if this sounds at all familiar to do, texas democrats pulling a
Want the senate to hear us, and weea want them to act, and we nd them to pass the for the people act to preserve democracy in this country. f do you and your colleagues have any expectations in terms of how long you are going to have to stay outside of texas? obviously you are there to make your case that we need federal f voting rights as you just said to pass the for the people act but you are also there as part of a tactical maneuver to blockr republicans from passing what they are otherwise planning on passing in the state of texas. how long do you all think you will have to stay out of texas in order to accomplish the second goal?av well, you know, we re dealing with ae really obstinate goverr who wants to, i guess, run his primary campaign on the backs of taxpayers at our experience. we re not going to put up with that. i think every man and woman on this bus packed their biggest suitcase and stuffed as much clothes as they could and we re united. we have grit. we have resol
Would get rid ofil all the innovations that happened in the last year or two to try to increase texas turnout because texas republicans didn t like what they saw when more texans turned out to vote. this weekend on saturday both the house and senate held hearings on the voter restriction bill that is now up and it wasn t just democrats giving forceful speeches against the bill.inbi forceful speeches that would go on to gather dust on the shelves of the public record. it was texas democrats but also hundreds of members of the public who showed up to say don t do this. they really threw everything they had at the bill this weekend to try to stop it, try one more time to stop it.as ea democrats and we had a little forewarning of this at the end of last week when one of the texas democrats came on the show and talked about the fact they were going to offer as many amendments as they could to try to slow this thing down.
thank you, rachel. thank you. democratic texas state representative trey martinez fischer i will get you on the union roster for that little bir of camera work there. thank you. i appreciate it my friend. fascinating. texas democrats, again, more than 50 of them, have left the n state of texas tonight. it is a tactic that, listen, texas democrats did this in 2003 ahead of a radical partisan redistricting of the state of texas.ctmo they left the state and as i said, governor at the time sent state troopers after them and i was a huge stand-off and it was a big deal and ultimately the redistricting plan went through but the eyes of the nation were upon it. in this case they haven t just fled the state because that denies the quorum. they have fled the state specifically to come to a washington because washington ie the one place this disaster in texas and this disaster in every other state where republicans are rolling back voting rights
To a month left on the clock, and according to texas house rules, lawmakers, at least theoretically, can be compelled to come backre to the state capitol if they are not present during the session. in other words, republicans maybe can sic the state capitol public safety office on them to track them down and round them all back up and, what, force them back to austin? in 2003 when texas democrats staged a similar protest out of state the texas governor ordered state troopers to go find the democrats and bring them back t texas. that said texas state troopers can t arrest somebody anywhere outside of texas including in washington, d.c.d t neither can the capitol public safety officer for that matter. that s why democrats left the state.ic that s why democrats fled texas this time. to indefinitely deny republicans a quorum in an effort to block these voting restrictions from becoming law. nbc news is reporting tonight that before texas democrats picked d.c. as their safe harbo they had o