It’s becoming more and more apparent as time moves forward that the Democratic Party doesn’t exactly care about the rules, just so long as they are the ones winning.
And a recent move by Texas Democrats proves this more than most.
As you have likely heard, many states are following Georgia’s lead and proposing new and safer election laws. Texas, as a long-time Republican stronghold, is one such state.
And, given that the state’s governor, Senate, and House are all GOP controlled, it was expected that any election integrity bill would be quickly passed.
Naturally, Democrats in the minority did whatever possible to make sure that didn’t happen.
First, they tried to claim that things like 24-hour voting and drive-up voting centers were a necessity. And when that didn’t work, they moved on to their go-to argument, bringing race into the picture. As has been so quickly spouted off since the passing of Georgia’s new election bill, Texas Dems attempted to prove that any similar laws in the Lone Star State would only further oppress minority voices and votes.
By now, we know it all to be a farse. There’s no oppression of minority voters going on. Instead, the laws would effectively ban newly instated voting processes that allowed Joe Biden to win the presidency. You know, things like absentee ballots that turned out to be fraudulent and drop-boxes where Democrats could easily pick up and throw out any GOP or Trump votes.
Processes like those were made available in 2020 mainly due to the coronavirus pandemic and the Democrat-pushed idea that voting in person at the polls would be dangerous to the American people as a whole. But now, with a questionable election completely jam-packed with accusations of fraud and a pandemic that’s well on its way out, those methods are being questioned.
Texas Dems, of course, aren’t exactly happy about that. And so, on Sunday, they participated in a cheap move to kill any such bill that would jeopardize their preferred voting plans.
As the Wall Street Journal reported, the election integrity bill was put before the Texas Senate on Saturday for a vote. Deliberations lasted well through the night, with it finally passing in the wee hours of Sunday morning. The bill immediately was put before the state House, as the legislative session was set to end at midnight of that day.
When it became clear to House Dems that they wouldn’t be winning their rejection of this bill, they did what most children not getting their way do. They threw a fit and simply and walked off the floor a mere hour before the deadline.
The move effectively denied the Republicans the minimum number of legislatures needed to vote and killed the bill, at least for now.
As chairman of the House Democratic Caucus told the press, “Democrats use the last tool available to us. We denied them a quorum and we killed the bill.”
Now, as I implied before, this likely won’t be the last we hear of the bill. Republican Governor Greg Abbott has already said that he plans to hold a special legislative session in the coming months with the sole purpose of debating this election integrity bill. Additionally, he’s threatening to cut the pay of any Texas lawmaker who is currently refusing to work.
However, the real point of this argument is that the move Dems just took in Texas is oddly similar to that of the filibuster currently used by US Senate and House Republicans.
As you’ve likely heard much about over the last few months since the Democratic Party took control of the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives, the filibuster’s current existence is very much in jeopardy.
Throughout the history of US legislation, the filibuster has been one of few tools used by the minority party to make sure, at the very least, their voice is heard. And as such, the Democrats have used it on numerous occasions to further their own plans.
But now that they are in control, they don’t want the Republican Party to have that same luxury. And so they are proposing to nix it altogether. Until then, though, they aren’t afraid to use similar measures to get their way in situations where they aren’t in control.
Fancy that…