Texas state representatives should come on home.

[Jakes Progress]

Last edited Sat Aug 14, 2021, 05:32 PM - Edit history (1)

They gave up their time with families, jeopardized their jobs, risked their lives to warn Washington Democrats to pay attention to what was happening in the states.

If the nationally elected Democrats don't spend all their time getting voting rights laws passed, nothing they are spinning their wheels on right now will matter. Go ahead. Pass jobs bills. Pass women's rights laws. Establish sound environmental safeguards. Enact protections for LBGTQ. Go ahead.

And in two years it will all be undone. All. And republicans will control national policy for decades. That is the upshot of what is going on at the state level.

So if Washington doesn't care, the brave Texas reps should just go home to their families. (First make a deal with paxton and abbot to not be arrested.)

The national level Democrats are wasting precious time playing games with republicans and traitors. There is nothing we can do that is more important than voting rights. If you don't do that first, it won't matter what you do second because in 16 months it will be too late.

(Headline corrected. Thank you to the poster who alerted me to my memory slip.)

[Phoenix61]

1. I think they are passing what they have because

the R’s don’t want them to blowup the filibuster. I do think they will go for voting rights once they get the infrastructure bills passed. If they did voting rights first they wouldn’t have gotten one single R to vote for anything. No one is going to vote to rollback the infrastructure bills because they are too popular and it’s going to pump too much money into areas that desperately need it. Fair voting makes it harder for R’s to win. They aren’t going to vote it. The only way it passes is we blow up the filibuster.

[Jakes Progress]

2. I wish I had your optimism.

Last edited Sat Aug 14, 2021, 05:41 PM - Edit history (1)

Being from Texas in this day and age, it is hard to not be a pessimist. I will be the first to admit my error and celebrate the legislative genius of Biden and Pelosi and Schumer if they get a voting rights bill passed before it is too late to take Georgia and Texas to court.

Biden and Pelosi and Schumer should meet with the Texas senators and tell them to go home, tell them that they have it in hand, tell them that they understand what is happening. Texas will pass it's law that lets the state legislature (heavily gerrymandered for republicans) simply throw out the election results and appoint their own electors.

(Texas already has a highly partisan judicial force that will rubber stamp any republican measure to eliminate voting rights.)

[Phoenix61]

3. I'm in Florida. Optimism is hard here, too.

But who thought Biden could pull off a bipartisan bill for anything?!? He’s got DeSatan looking like an idiot over mask mandates in schools, threatening to pull funding. Bwaaaaa!!! Apparently he forget the feds have money they can send to those schools. I’ve worked with emotionally disturbed teens and DeSatan so reminds me of some of my clients. The difference of course is they were children who had been through some serious shit. He’s just an evil little asshole and I refuse to allow him to ruin my generally optimistic attitude.

[Jakes Progress]

6. abbot and desantis are both sucking leaches without morals.

But it does no good to make him look bad if he just gets put into office anyway. So what if he only gets 40% of the vote if the republican legislatures can just throw out the election results and substitute their own electors?

Bipartisanship doesn't enter into it. The bill isn't a law yet. And even if we expend all of our energy and power to enact a good law, that law will be eliminated in 18 months if we don't have election protection.

The only problem with desantis going down in the polls is that it opens up space for abbot. Two husks that don't mind killing children if it gets them elected.

[blogslug]

4. They're not senators

They are Democratic members of the Texas House of Representatives. The Texas senate has already passed those horrible GOP bills. Those bills get sent to the house where a quorum is needed for them to get the votes to become law. The people you think should come home are breaking that quorum and I would prefer they stay in DC.

If anyone wants to support the Texas state Dems, donate here:

https://texashousedems.com/donate-now/

[Jakes Progress]

5. I stand corrected. Stupid error. But

Their being in Washington does not stop the bill. Think it through.

Eventually they will have to come home. Or, if they will give up their family and livelihood for this, they will no longer be Texas residents and cannot run for re-election.

The only, repeat only, thing that stands a chance of the Texas asshats bill not being voted on is if the Washington Democrats stop messing with anything else and pass the voting rights act.

These brave soles did their part. They brought it to national attention. National Democrats said "way to go" then ignored them. Or didn't believe them. Or turned to things that interested them more or got more press.

Either way, their efforts are being minimized more and more the longer they just hang out in Washington. When the come home and the republicans pass their autocrat bill, then the Nationals will have to deal with it. If they don't pass the voting rights act in time, the election will take place before the courts can rule. Then it will to to the republican Supreme Court to decide who wins the election. That worked out so well for us in Bush/Gore.

My point is that having these people sacrificing when it is not helping is hurting. Second point is that nothing the Democrats do in the next year and a half will matter if they don't do this first. Every day that passes is another day closer to republican rule. It should have been the first thing after Covid. Before any good will is lost. Before something else intervenes. Examine the bills from the offending states. If not now. Never.