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The group of Texas House Democrats who fled their state for Washington, DC, held a press conference marking the midpoint of the special session they are blocking and said they would stay away for the last two weeks of the session, accusing Governor Greg Abbott of politically motivated blackmail.
Democrats initially boycotted a session of GOP-backed voting legislation in a regular session, denying a quorum, then were recalled by Abbott for a special session to pass the bill.
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Abbott’s special session was “essentially a month-long advertising campaign,” said State Representative Chris Turner, chairman of the Texas House Democratic Caucus. “By vetoing the legislature and then calling a special session, what Gov. Abbott is trying to do is basically blackmail lawmakers to do what they want instead of protecting our constituents. We are protecting our constituents. voters instead of blackmailing. “
Turner added that he and his fellow Democrats would stay out of Texas and continue to block the controversial election integrity bill at least until the special session ends in two weeks.
Another Democrat, State Representative Rafael Anchia, who chairs the US-Mexico legislative caucus, took a similar stance and called on Republicans to “stop politics” and said his group had no other choice than to flee the state.
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“I want to thank the brave Texans and American Patriots behind me,” Anchia said, referring to the dozen masked lawmakers behind him. He informed reporters that Vice President Kamala Harris had told the group they were “patriotic.”
“We really had no choice but to take this bold action,” added Anchia. “We would really love to be back with our constituents in Texas. We love Texas and we love this country. We would ask Republicans like Gov. Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick to put politics aside.”
State Representative Jasmine Crockett also spoke about the group’s voters in Texas and pushed back against Republicans criticizing them for giving up their work responsibilities at home, arguing that Democrats are actually doing more work now than they are. would do in Texas.
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“There is rhetoric for some reason that we got away from it,” Crockett said in response to Republican criticism of their trip.
“We are very active on social networks. I answer all DMs on all social networking platforms. We do Instagram lives. We do Facebook lives. We obviously had our MSNBC town hall on Monday,” he said. she declared.
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Crockett added that the group is going “well beyond what is asked of us” when it comes to the coronavirus, which she called “the elephant in the room.”
Many social media users disagreed with Crockett’s assessment over the past two weeks, highlighted by a largely panoramic photo of Texas Democrats flying in a private jet without masks.
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Six of the lawmakers who made the trip to the nation’s capital tested positive for the coronavirus, and aides to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Joe Biden contracted the virus after meeting with the group.
Texas Democrats said at the press conference on Friday that there had been no further positive new tests and that all infected members were doing well.
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