Dem Rep. Jackson Lee: Texas Legislature ‘Massacred’ State’s Image, LBJ Legacy of the Voting Rights Act

During an appearance on CNN, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) decried actions taken by the Texas Legislature to shore up election integrity.
Jackson Lee called those efforts “operating under the big lie” and compared the “Texas image” of former President Lyndon Baines Johnson and the Voting Rights Act to the modern-day Texas Legislature.

Well, you know, I wrote recently about the big lie and moral courage, and that’s what Republican trends in the state legislature are operating under the big lie and no moral courage, following the Trump playbook that says the election was stolen, looking for a problem with a solution that was not necessary. Meaning, having a solution or a problem that did not exist — and that’s just what these legislators did. There was de minimis fraud, if any, found in the elections in the state of Texas. Interestingly enough, they targeted all of the counties 1 million-plus, which are the counties that are heavily populated by African Americans, Latinx, Hispanics and other minorities.

And then, of course, they were so disrespectful that they allowed video cameras where in the original bill that would film poll workers who are trying to help the disabled or elderly, how insensitive is that? And then, of course, to indicate that you could not even send out mail ballots, legal mail ballots, and you could not have a flexible schedule for depositing those mail ballots. There’s much more, but all of this really is a nonsensical bill. And let me just say this. In contrast with Texas’ image was with Lyndon Baines Johnson and the Voting Rights Act, we’ve massacred voting rights today in the state of Texas.

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