Commentary
Texas Democrats Are Getting into ‘Good Trouble’
Here’s why dozens of Texas lawmakers are in Washington, D.C. this week.
![](https://www.postnewsgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Voter.jpg)
One year after the death of the great civil rights icon John Lewis, a group of Texas Democratic lawmakers is following Lewis’s lifelong call for people to make “good trouble” and “necessary trouble” to secure equality and justice for all.
Congressional Democrats should bring the same level of commitment to resisting and overturning a new wave of voting restrictions that voting rights activist Stacey Abrams has labeled “Jim Crow 2.0.”
Here’s why dozens of Texas lawmakers are in Washington, D.C. this week.
Texas is the latest Republican-run state where legislators and the governor are trying to impose new voting restrictions—banning drive-through and 24-hour early voting, restricting distribution of absentee ballots, imposing new voter ID provisions—that they hope will make it harder for Democrats to win future elections. Their voter suppression laws are aimed at Black and Brown voters and others more likely to support Democratic candidates.
Republican officials are also trying to make former President Donald Trump happy by giving credibility to his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. They’re using his lies about “election fraud” and “election integrity” to justify new restrictive voting rules.
In Texas, Republicans control the state House and Senate. And hard-right Gov. Gregg Abbott is eager to do Trump’s bidding. Back in May, Texas Republicans tried to push their election bill through the House just before the close of the legislative session.
Because the Texas House is required to have two-thirds of its members present to conduct official business, Democratic legislators stopped the bill from passing by walking out of the chamber.
But Abbott is so set on getting his new voting law that he ordered legislators to come back into session this month to push it through. To prevent the state’s Republicans from forcing new voting restrictions into law, more than 50 Democratic legislators left the state.
Abbott and Republican Senate leaders have threatened lawmakers with arrest to try to force them to attend the session. And he has said he will keep calling special sessions until he gets his way. That’s why the Texas legislators came to Wash., D.C. They brought an urgent message to members of Congress: the only way to protect voters from voter suppression at the state level is to pass national voting rights legislation.
The House of Representatives has previously passed the For the People Act, which would reverse many new voting restrictions and includes several priorities specifically outlined by John Lewis during his lifetime, and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which would help prevent future voter suppression efforts from taking effect.
Both are essential to protect democracy and voting rights. But right now, U.S. Senate Republicans are using the filibuster to block the For the People Act, and they could do the same to the VRA.
President Joe Biden has just made a strong speech in defense of voting rights. He denounced new voter suppression efforts. And he called for the Senate to pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
I am grateful that President Biden has called attention to the urgent need for congressional action. Now we need him to use his leadership to get voting rights legislation through the Senate. And if Republicans continue to block it using a filibuster, he must work with Senate leaders to break through that obstruction.
John Lewis nearly died in the struggle to pass the national Voting Rights Act. He dedicated his career in Congress to defending it. I am steeling myself for the disgust I will feel when Republican officials praise him on the anniversary of his death at the same time, they are undermining the cause to which he devoted his life.
Texas Democrats are honoring John Lewis by making good and necessary trouble. It is time for Democrats in Washington, and any Republicans committed more to country than party, to do the same.
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of July 24 – 30, 2024
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 24 – 30, 2024
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Activism
Oakland Post: Week of July 17 -23, 2024
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 17 -23, 2024
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Commentary
COMMENTARY: President Biden, The Constitution and Race
The Democratic Party needs to pause and reflect on the real issue, which is race and not an aging President. Once again, we see the Kool-Aid of division being swallowed, not by the MAGA Right, but by Democrats who know better and openly profess a love for democracy and the Constitution of the United States. So, the question is how can one love the Constitution and at the same time only obey those sections that agree with our way of thinking?
![Dr. John E. Warren contends that it is the race of Biden’s successor, Kamal Harris, that is the real issue underneath the fearmongering about the president’s age. Courtesy photo.](https://www.postnewsgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/dr-john-warren-featured-web.jpg)
By Dr. John E. Warren, Publisher
The San Diego Voice & Viewpoint Newspaper
The Democratic Party needs to pause and reflect on the real issue, which is race and not an aging President.
Once again, we see the Kool-Aid of division being swallowed, not by the MAGA Right, but by Democrats who know better and openly profess a love for democracy and the Constitution of the United States. So, the question is how can one love the Constitution and at the same time only obey those sections that agree with our way of thinking?
When President Biden wins re-election, his age or any other issue will only become a problem when there are signs he is unable to fulfill the duties of the Office. The 25th Amendment to the Constitution handles the succession process setting out how the Vice President assumes the Office of the Presidency and how the Office of the Vice Presidency is to be filled. The elephant in the room is Vice President Kamala Harris, who happens to not only be a woman, but also Black.
This is the same Black woman who was Attorney General of the largest state in the Union. She was an elected U.S. Senator from that same state which had given us the U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren and President Ronald Reagan.
She has been elected by the Democratic Party’s primary process which made Joe Biden the presidential candidate, and Harris the vice-presidential candidate.
So, is the real issue the age of a man who, in the last four years, rescued this nation from the brink of destruction?
Is it the Democrats opposing the President staying in the race who may have Alzheimer’s and memory loss, rather than the President who remembers what he has done and how he rescued a struggling nation?
Is it the Democrats complaining about the President and know that Trump has a better chance at winning against a last-minute replacement than running against a President who has already beaten him before? In knowing all these facts, especially the presence of the 25th Amendment, the only card left in the deck is race.
It appears that some White Liberal Democrats just don’t want a Black woman in the orbit of really becoming President and they would rather disgrace and destroy a good man because of a bad debate than take a chance on a Black woman running the White House.
Let’s not get it twisted. It was a Black Congressman from South Carolina, James Clyburn, who motivated Black America to vote for Joe Biden when it appeared that he was out of the race for the presidency.
It is the Black Vote that put him in office and it is the Black Vote of the Congressional Black Caucus who, in this race for the White House, is standing in unity with the Democratic leadership of the House of Representatives in a Republican-controlled Congress against whimpering calls from a few democrats for the President to “step aside.”
Once again, the clarion call is to stand with the Constitution and not be like the Supreme Court who is now stomping upon all that it stands for in an effort to protect and insulate the convicted felon that we, the people, would keep out of the White House.
A move to oust President Biden would surely guarantee an election victory for Trump.
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