The Texas Senate has conveyed election integrity bill SB 1 to the House Thursday by an 18-11 party-line vote after a short-lived filibuster, while Democrat flee baggers from the House remain at large.
“We’re talking about [it being] easy to vote, hard to cheat, and that’s what this bill is about,” author of the bill Sen. Bryan Hughes (R) said before the vote. “It cracks down on those vote harvesters, those paid political operatives who try to coerce voters, who try to mislead voters, who try to get in between the voter and her ballot. We will not have that in Texas.”
“When has a crackdown on voter harvesters become voter suppression?” Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R) said, questioning the Democrats unfounded claims. “Who wants voter harvesters? Why would we tolerate it? We shouldn’t.”
The legislation passed the Senate after 15 hours of filibustering, during which Sen. Carol Alvarado (D) “had been on her feet speaking, not allowed to sit or lean against her desk, on the Senate floor.”
On Wednesday, Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan signed arrest warrants for 52 Democrat fugitives who neglected their duty and escaped maskless on a private plan to Washington, DC, to prevent the passage of election integrity legislation.
But instead of the arrest warrant “prompting absent Democrats to return, quorum-breaking lawmakers instead appeared to double down on extending their weekslong truancy,” the Texas Tribune explained. The fugitives remaining outside the custody of law enforcement, a House quorum remains outstanding.
Rep. Gene Wu (D), who was mocked for posting a photo while in Washington, DC, of a Caesar salad and Coca-Cola Zero with the caption, “My fist [sic] meal as a fugitive. Delicious,” secured a court order Wednesday in Harris County that blocks his arrest for refusing to show up at the Texas Capitol.
Meanwhile, the Texas House Sergeant-at-Arms has begun delivering civil arrest warrants to the fugitives: