Just days ago, fugitive Texas Dem Gene Wu took to Twitter to get snarky that he was only days away from realizing his desire to kill voter security laws in Texas. Of course, he sent his tweet from Washington due to him, along with a dozen of his Democratic colleagues, fleeing Texas to deny the GOP a quorum and thereby stop the passing of the law.
Luckily, he found the time to do this in between super-spreading.
In a few more days, I will have accomplished my legislative goal of killing the most partisan anti-voter legislation in the nation.
I'll keep tweeting. You keep crying. https://t.co/9ZSyd8cHBU
— Gene Wu (@GeneforTexas) August 2, 2021
On just the merits alone, his tweet was completely crazy. Nothing about Texas’ voter security law is “the most partisan” voter law in the nation. All it does is put things back to the pre-pandemic rules, including stopping rules like all day voting and different forms of ballot harvesting which were mostly going on in Harris County.
But as some said at this time, Wu was obviously happy about his last minute toss, and Gov. Greg Abbott just intercepted his pass and scored a touch down.
I'm convening a second special session on 8/7.
The #txlege must finish the work that was started.
I'll call special session after special session to reform our broken bail system, uphold election integrity, & pass other items Texans demand & deserve. https://t.co/EXoHBR0JTg
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) August 5, 2021
This is exactly what I know he would do. That’s what made Wu’s premature victory celebration such a head-scratching tweet. Abbott was not going to allow this after just one session, and it seems he is not going to allow it to go until the Texas Dems completely capitulate. The promise of one special session after another has to be a hard gut punch for these fugitives.
It’s a game of chicken they cannot win. Will they really stay in Washington for another year? I just do not see this happening.
The Texas Dems have two more options: 1) They come home, Abbott arrests them for the cameras, and say they were victorious for postponing things for a month, or 2) they can keep abandoning their families back in Texas to stall the election security bill until the 2022 midterms.
The first is the most probable, and I believe that is what Wu was attempting to set up when he bragged about his fake victory on Twitter. This was all one huge publicity stunt with no chances of success, and a final act of the play will be saying their Washington trip was a win to get awareness about voting rights.
Author: Steven Sinclaire
