Governor vows to arrest Democrats who fled Texas for blocking voting restrictions | Texas

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Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott has vowed to arrest Democratic lawmakers who have fled the state in a bid to stop election reform they say harms the right to vote, especially for communities of color.

Private jets carrying more than 50 Democrats left Austin for Washington, D.C., on Monday, bypassing the city just days before the Texas House of Representatives was expected to give early approval to wide-ranging new voting restrictions in a special legislative session.

The move deprived the Republican-led legislature of a quorum, leaving it with very few lawmakers present to do business. This means that she cannot, at least for the time being, vote on the bill.

In response, Abbott told Austin Television that he would simply continue to call special sessions of the legislature until next year if necessary, and raised the possibility that Democrats could be arrested when they return home.

“Once they’re back in Texas, they’ll be arrested, and they’ll be held inside the Texas Capitol until they get their work done,” Abbott said.

The mass immigration across the country was the second time Democratic lawmakers have orchestrated a withdrawal from voting reform, a measure of their fierce opposition to proposals they say will make it harder for young people, people of color and people with disabilities to vote.

But like last month’s efforts, there is still a clear path for Democrats to permanently block voting procedures, or the list of other controversial GOP-backed proposals up for debate.

Texas bills would ban polling places 24 hours, ban ballot boxes used to deposit mail-in ballots and empower partisan poll monitors.

These measures are part of a campaign by Republicans across America rushing to enact new voting restrictions in response to former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. More than a dozen states this year passed stricter election laws, but only in Texas have Democrats put up this kind of fight.

Texas Democrats, who had been out of power in the state capital for decades, last fled the state in 2003 to thwart a redistricting plan. They lost that battle in the end.

Trump won Texas easily in 2020 and it is already one of the hardest places to vote in the United States. It does not contain online voter registration and does not allow everyone to vote by mail. Texas was also among the states with the lowest participation rate in 2020.

But it has been turning to Democrats in recent election cycles, spurred in part by changing demographics, and many view the Republican effort as a way to seek to offset that change by making it harder to vote for groups that traditionally vote for Democrats.

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