Speaking at a voting-rights meeting in Detroit on Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris gushed over the Texas Democrat legislators who fled the state and traveled to Washington, D.C., so that the Texas legislature would not have the quorum needed to approve bills in Governor Greg Abbott’s special session agenda.
Harris stated, “I do want to first start by making this statement about the legislators in Texas who are showing extraordinary courage and commitment.”
“I met with them when many of them traveled to Washington D.C.; we sat down and had an extensive conversation in the Roosevelt Room in the White House,” Harris said.
“And I applaud them standing for the rights of all Americans and all Texans to express their voice through their vote, unencumbered,” Harris continued. ‘I will say that they are leaders who are marching in the path that so many others before did, when they fought and many died for our right to vote.”
“I do believe that fighting for the right to vote is as American as apple pie,” she added.
VP Kamala Harris shouts out Texas Democrats who walked out to prevent passage of a restrictive GOP voting bill:
“I applaud them standing for the rights of all Americans and all Texans to express their voice through their vote, unencumbered.” pic.twitter.com/qCNEXi3l3O
— The Recount (@therecount) July 12, 2021
The legislators were flown in private planes, not commercial planes, to the nation’s capital.
“Private planes carrying more than 50 Democrats left Austin for Dulles International Airport midafternoon, skipping town just days before the Texas House of Representatives was expected to give early approval to sweeping new” voter integrity laws, The Associated Press reported. “The numbers meant the House would not have enough lawmakers in attendance to conduct business and could not, at least for now, vote on the bill.”
On Monday night, Texas GOP Governor Greg Abbott told Fox News that the Democrats who fled the state would “be arrested” when they returned to Texas. He stated:
We have special sessions that last 30 days, and the governor calls them and I will continue calling special session after special session, because over time it’s going to continue until they step up to vote. The thesis that they are operating under is completely false, because what the Texas law does, doesn’t hinder anybody’s ability to vote. And in fact, interestingly, what Texas is seeking to do is to add additional hours to vote. Texas has 12 days of early voting and the hours of which will be expanded. And we will ensure that hours are expanded on Election Day also. So their entire thesis is completely wrong. And compare early voting in Texas with early voting that we have in Delaware. Texas has 12 days of early voting. Delaware has zero days of early voting. Why am I picking on Delaware? Because that is where the President himself voted in the last election. And if anybody wants to talk about voter suppression, they should be talking about Delaware, not Texas.
“What the law is, it’s in the Constitution, and that is the house, the State House of Representatives who were here in the Capitol in Austin right now, they do have the ability to issue a call to have their fellow members who are not showing up to be arrested, but only so long as that arrest is made in the state of Texas,” Abbott said. “That’s why they have fled the state. Once they step back into the state of Texas, they will be arrested and brought to the Texas Capitol, and we will be conducting business.”