Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas said Democrats who left the state to stop the passage of voting legislation will be arrested upon their return, during an interview with Laura Ingraham on Monday night.
“The State House of Representatives who are here in the capitol … they do have the ability to issue a call to have fellow members who are not showing up to be arrested, but only so long as the arrest is made in the state of Texas. That’s why they have fled the state,” Abbott told Ingraham.
“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,” Abbott continued. (RELATED: Texas Gov. Abbott Virtually Tied With Matthew McConaughey In Hypothetical Matchup: POLL)
Democrats left the state to deny the GOP quorum and keep a voting regulations bill from passing. The bill adds new identification requirements for mail-in voting, prohibits local election officials from sending absentee ballot applications to someone who hasn’t requested one, bans drive-thru voting, and expands the access partisan poll watchers have, according to NPR.
Governor Greg Abbott criticized Texas Democrats who fled to Washington, DC on Monday in an attempt to block a vote on the state Republicans’ election integrity bill: “Isn’t that the most un-Texan thing you’ve ever heard? They’re quitters!” pic.twitter.com/Sn5X61a4HI
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) July 13, 2021
“We are now taking the fight to our nation’s Capitol. We are living on borrowed time in Texas. We need Congress to act now to pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act to protect Texans — and all Americans — from the Trump Republicans’ nationwide war on democracy,” the Texas House Democratic Caucus said in a statement released Monday.
This is the second time Democratic lawmakers have prevented the passage of voting restrictions in Texas, after previously preventing quorum in May. As opposed to the current legislation, the previous bill included provisions that restricted Sunday voting hours and made it easier to overturn an election due to voter fraud.
Abbott told KVUE he would continue to call special sessions “all the way up until election next year.”
He added that if Democrats “want to be hanging out wherever they’re hanging out on this taxpayer-paid junket, they’re going to have to be prepared to do it for well over a year.”
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