Texas Dems leave state to block quorum on voting bill vote

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crimson5pheonix

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The Texas dems have picked up sticks and flown to DC in protest of the special session called by Greg Abbot to ram through his voting restriction bill, among other conservative wishlist items. He had vetoed their pay to force them into a special session to vote on his pet bills to restrict voting access and keep people from making bail. The session to debate these bills would have started on the 13th, but on the 12th the dems got on a plane and flew to DC, and enough of them did that quorum can't be obtained and no work can be done.

A facetious person might call this a triumph of the political minority against the tyranny of the majority, in the same vein as the legislative filibuster in congress. Said facetious person might find any argument to the contrary hilarious.

And Texans might remember our state senator Ted Cruz up and picked up sticks in February when we were all dying of cold to go to Cancun on vacation, leaving help for the state to Beto O'Rourke and AOC.
 
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Dirty Hipsters

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Our politicians do pathetically little work, and I'm not going to celebrate them doing even less work and actively working to get nothing done.

Taking your ball and going home when you don't win shouldn't be an option for the democrats or the republicans. This kind of shit is the reason nothing got done when the democrats were in power under Obama. It's childish and pathetic, and I'm not going to cheer just because "the right side" is doing it this time. No side should be doing it.
 
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dreng3

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Our politicians do pathetically little work, and I'm not going to celebrate them doing even less work and actively working to get nothing done.

Taking your ball and going home when you don't win shouldn't be an option for the democrats or the republicans. This kind of shit is the reason nothing got done when the democrats were in power under Obama. It's childish and pathetic, and I'm not going to cheer just because "the right side" is doing it this time. No side should be doing it.
To me it isn't really about the right side but rather about the right cause. The bill is horrendous and downright harmful to the democratic process.

Ideally the democrats should have argued against it and convinced the republicans not to ram it through, but debating and convincing seems completely useless when dealing with people who're just looking for a political "win".


We can agree on politicians not working enough, but I'd rather have them skip work than allow something like this bill to pass.
 

Agema

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Our politicians do pathetically little work, and I'm not going to celebrate them doing even less work and actively working to get nothing done.

Taking your ball and going home when you don't win shouldn't be an option for the democrats or the republicans. This kind of shit is the reason nothing got done when the democrats were in power under Obama. It's childish and pathetic, and I'm not going to cheer just because "the right side" is doing it this time. No side should be doing it.
It also shouldn't be an option for the Democrats or Republicans to rig elections with redistricting and squeezing voting rights and systems to make it hard for the opposition to vote. And yet they do.

The tactics can be viewed in the light of the system and the policies. If the system permits and even facilitates corruption, it morally entitles stronger actions. For instance, at the point a country is run by a vicious dictator, you can reasonably justify killing agents of the state.

That said, I'm inclined to agree that this smacks of a stunt. This bill will be brought back to be voted on, and back, and back as many times as needed. The bill has to be brought back under any circumstances, precisely because it's intended to help assert Republican political control. The Democrats can't skip town every time it happens.
 
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Thaluikhain

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Yeah, it'd be better if politics wasn't like this, but can;t blame the Dems for acknowledging the reality that it is. Once a certain shenanigan becomes normal, it becomes normal for everyone.

As Agema says, whether this actually matters is another question.
 

Gordon_4

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Our politicians do pathetically little work, and I'm not going to celebrate them doing even less work and actively working to get nothing done.
I think you’d be surprised how many hours politicians put in. It’s just because gains in the political sphere tend to come in small increments and are basically invisible to the outside until someone drops a proposal document the size of a phone book on the floor of the House. Not that there aren’t lazy bastards in the game, gritting it for every cent they can.

Mind you I agree, even if it was pointless they should have stayed and argued against this if it was something they believed was detrimental.
 

Revnak

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What a lame move. They aren’t even hiding out with a militia and threatening to attack the state house. Getting on a plane to DC is just so boring, may as well have just promised to stay at home.
 
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Agema

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I think you’d be surprised how many hours politicians put in. It’s just because gains in the political sphere tend to come in small increments and are basically invisible to the outside until someone drops a proposal document the size of a phone book on the floor of the House. Not that there aren’t lazy bastards in the game, gritting it for every cent they can.
Yes, I'd argue that the average British MP probably works very hard, and most are probably dedicated overachievers. Given what reports of good MPs do in hours, I think it's so much work that it would put me off. There's parliament, scrutinising bills, meetings and committees, keeping up with general goings on, talking with voters or special interest groups, having to go back to the constituency to meet with their voters, open shopping centres and generally be seen, etc.

On the other hand, I expect there's also room for some (particularly in safe seats) to be thoroughly lazy wankers. Just vote as the whips tells them, appear for a few photo ops, and spend time schmoozing.
 

Schadrach

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To me it isn't really about the right side but rather about the right cause. The bill is horrendous and downright harmful to the democratic process.
What all does it actually do? Got a bill number so one might look it up and see the actual text?

Also, the GOP propaganda narrative writes itself - the Dems fled the state to prevent voting on a bill to "secure our elections" by whatever the most reasonable provision in the bill might be, because they can't win in a "secure" election because they need to cheat to have a chance!

"Cheating Dems Flee to Avoid Vote For Election Security!"
 
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dreng3

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What all does it actually do? Got a bill number so one might look it up and see the actual text?

Also, the GOP propaganda narrative writes itself - the Dems fled the state to prevent voting on a bill to "secure our elections" by whatever the most reasonable provision in the bill might be, because they can't win in a "secure" election because they need to cheat to have a chance!

"Cheating Dems Flee to Avoid Vote For Election Security!"

Outlines it fairly well. The relevant texts to look up would be TX HB3 2021-2022 and TX SB1 2021-2022
 

Agema

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What all does it actually do? Got a bill number so one might look it up and see the actual text?
I find at least some of it dubious.

If the aim is to improve election security, there should be a clear rationale. Stuff like voter ID, whilst I think unnecessary on a practical level as it has effectively no impact on fraud, at least has a clear rationale in theory. But it seems that some Democratic counties trialled voting methods that are to be shut down for what are to me completely unclear reasons. Drive-in voting banned. Why? Is it insecure, and if it is, why not fix the security problem? Extended voting hours banned. Why? What is the benefit here to security? Block proactive sending-out of mail ballots - again, why?

I would take as a fundamental basis that making voting easier for citizens is a positive. End of. They have a right to vote, and it should be made as quick and easy as possible whilst ensuring security, within the resources of the state. If counties have trialled novel methods and they appear to be secure, they should be permitted to stay. If there are security concerns with those methods, those methods should be offered the opportunity to be fixed before they are removed.

Otherwise, all I'm really getting from these parts of the bill is "Fuck you, Democrats, we don't want you to make it more convenient [for mostly Democratic voters] to vote".
 

crimson5pheonix

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Not to mention that the voting bill is just one basket on a whole laundry list of garbage
Making bail worse, trans athletes in high school, "social media censorship", etc
And they're the only things that can be debated in the special session. The rules of the session meant that the bills were already written behind closed doors without dem input, they would pretty much only be voted on, and with the legislature as it is they'd all be swept into law in under a month.

What a lame move. They aren’t even hiding out with a militia and threatening to attack the state house. Getting on a plane to DC is just so boring, may as well have just promised to stay at home.
While that would be tons of fun, this is the biggest piece of disruptive legislative action happening right now. It's effectively a strike where they're camping out at the US capitol, and the nature of their work means there can't be scabs. Ideally now a bunch of people should be going to the capitol to push for laws preempting all the hyper-conservative state laws on voting.
 
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XsjadoBlayde

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Why are these republicans such utterly shit messy-***** losers
 

Revnak

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While that would be tons of fun, this is the biggest piece of disruptive legislative action happening right now. It's effectively a strike where they're camping out at the US capitol, and the nature of their work means there can't be scabs. Ideally now a bunch of people should be going to the capitol to push for laws preempting all the hyper-conservative state laws on voting.
I was just referencing the multiple times that what I described has happened in Oregon. Tbh tho, if it isn’t handled at a federal level nothing will stop this, and it won’t be handled at a federal level because there’s at least half a dozen Dems that will happily cross the aisle on this and the party apparatus has zero desire to force them not to.
 

crimson5pheonix

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I was just referencing the multiple times that what I described has happened in Oregon. Tbh tho, if it isn’t handled at a federal level nothing will stop this, and it won’t be handled at a federal level because there’s at least half a dozen Dems that will happily cross the aisle on this and the party apparatus has zero desire to force them not to.
The party apparatus at the top doesn't, but here's party from the bottom up going there to pressure the dems, directly.
 

Agema

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I also can't help but note that if this had been a mass shooting, every second conservative in the USA would be lecturing us that we shouldn't make hasty, emotional legislation on gun control.
 

happyninja42

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I also can't help but note that if this had been a mass shooting, every second conservative in the USA would be lecturing us that we shouldn't make hasty, emotional legislation on gun control.
Almost like their "virtues" are entirely subjective and dependent on if they get any gain out of the situation in question. Funny how that works out.
 

tstorm823

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Drive-in voting banned. Why? Is it insecure, and if it is, why not fix the security problem? Extended voting hours banned. Why? What is the benefit here to security? Block proactive sending-out of mail ballots - again, why?
Well, the proactive sending out of ballots is a security thing. Having a trail of this person requesting it and then submitting it with matching information makes it unlikely that the ballot was lost or stolen and submitted by someone else.

The other things are about practices being advantageous to particular groups. There's not necessarily an inherent flaw with drive-through voting, but how many voting districts are able to pull that off? Imagine if a wealthy Republican stronghold set up drive-through voting in their $350 million fossil fuel sponsored mega stadium so that their overwhelmingly majority Republican voters could vote 24-hours a day without even getting out of their car, while the poor Democratic counties nearby were relying on the kindness of volunteers just to meet the minimum required voting period. Flip the names of the parties, and that's what happened in Texas in 2020. It sounds pretty to say we should make it as easy as possible for everyone to vote, but its never about making it easy for everyone to vote, it's always just making it easy for certain people to vote, which is a problem.
 

crimson5pheonix

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Well, the proactive sending out of ballots is a security thing. Having a trail of this person requesting it and then submitting it with matching information makes it unlikely that the ballot was lost or stolen and submitted by someone else.

The other things are about practices being advantageous to particular groups. There's not necessarily an inherent flaw with drive-through voting, but how many voting districts are able to pull that off? Imagine if a wealthy Republican stronghold set up drive-through voting in their $350 million fossil fuel sponsored mega stadium so that their overwhelmingly majority Republican voters could vote 24-hours a day without even getting out of their car, while the poor Democratic counties nearby were relying on the kindness of volunteers just to meet the minimum required voting period. Flip the names of the parties, and that's what happened in Texas in 2020. It sounds pretty to say we should make it as easy as possible for everyone to vote, but its never about making it easy for everyone to vote, it's always just making it easy for certain people to vote, which is a problem.
And we very consciously don't talk about how the "poor" voting districts in question have far far far less problem gathering votes on voting day while the districts that implement these early voting rules helps alleviate the 6/8/10+ hour voting lines on election day. That Harris county, the one being targeted by republicans in their frothing hatred, had a turnout in this presidential election almost exactly at the state average is not expounded on as any indication that if turnout did increase because of these rules, it's only putting the most populous areas of Texas on par with the rest of the state.

So we just don't talk about how the republican objection that it gives an unfair advantage is a load of bullshit by people scared of the fact that they're not just the political minority, but a super minority.
 
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