restrictions, filing a lawsuit today against texas over certain restrictive voting procedures imposed by texas senate bill 1, which was signed into law in september. the federal lawsuit contends that the law violates the voting rights act. meanwhile, perhaps you ve heard a republican was elected tuesday night for vowing to banish african american author toni morrison from virginia classrooms. a gop victory that didn t stop tucker carlson from fuming over critical race theory, whatever that is. you could say technically, tucker, it s not being taught in the sense that volumes have been written on critical race theory and it s not being handed out as a textbook, but its influence and its tenets are in those schools. i ve never figured out what a critical race theory is, to be totally honest about it after you re talking about it. of course you don t, tuckums. getting high on virginia royal, rolling out their latest can t call it racist card in newly elected black lieutenant
two other important numbers to remember today. december 27th, thursday. that s when the senate comes back. january 3rd, that s the day the new congress is seated. joining me now to discuss, former republican congressman and current cnn political commentator charlie dent. congressman, great to see you. you ve seen your fair share of shutdowns. and i m just talking about this year. does this shutdown seem different than others? yeah, this one does. i think there s a because of the president s erratic behavior, this shutdown in my view is completely unnecessary. the appropriations process actually had moved pretty well this year. five of the 12 bills were already signed into law in september. and the seven remaining six are teed up, ready to go, they could pass those today if they wanted to. the fight is over the homeland security appropriations bill, over the wall funding. all they need to do is punt that bill into the new year and do the other six now, and problem