More than 50 Texas Democratic parliamentarians were on Wednesday August 11 under arrest warrants signed by the Republican leader of the lower house of this great American state, who accuses them of having fled to prevent the passage of a law accused of limiting access to the ballot box.
Read also: United States: green light for restrictive election laws in Arizona
The 52 arrest warrants signed by Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan will be handed over to the lower house security official on Wednesday morning, the Dallas Morning News has revealed. The Republican majority had voted earlier in the evening to authorize the arrests. The motion to force Democratic parliamentarians to return was approved by 80 votes to 12.
Dozens of Democrats fled Texas in July to Washington to avoid a special session to approve a controversial election law.
However, Texas law authorizes the arrest of parliamentarians absent during voting sessions and to bring them back, by force if necessary, into the hemicycle.
This extraordinary meeting had to be called because the same elected Democrats had left the hemicycle in May during a vote on this electoral law, which US President Joe Biden denounced as an "
attack on democracy
".
Multiplication of bills limiting access to the vote
Their absence prevented reaching the necessary number of elected representatives present (quorum) to be able to vote.
At least 20 Democratic parliamentarians are still in Washington, according to the Morning News.
"
It is our right as parliamentarians to break the quorum to protect our constituents,
" said House Democrat leader Chris Turner in a tweet from his parliamentary group, promising to "
fight as much as we can." against Republicans' attacks on our right to vote
”.
Read also: United States: Republicans seek to limit the exercise of the right to vote
The Republican bill officially aims to make elections safer, by banning
drive-in
voting
or by introducing numerous restrictions on voting times and postal voting. But these restrictions most often target provisions that make it easier to vote for minorities, especially African Americans who are generally more pro-Democrat. Since Donald Trump's defeat in the 2020 presidential election, bills limiting access to the vote have multiplied in states at the initiative of the Republicans.
