Democratic AAPI lawmaker flees Texas to avoid voting on controversial state bill restricting voting

SCREEN CAPTURE / TWITTER

Texas lawmaker, Rep. Gene Wu, issued a statement just before boarding a flight out of state.

Before he boarded the charter flight to Washington DC, Gene Wu, Texas state Rep. for District 137, just south of Houston, took the time to issue a statement through his social media.

"Texas Democrats are in this for the long haul," he said behind his facemask at the Austin airport. "A lot of us are making immense sacrifices to do this. We are not doing this for us. We're doing it for you We're doing it for Texans everywhere.

"We need all of you, right now, to be part of this. This sis not just us. This is everyone together. We're fighting for the rights of all Texans."

Wu, along with 50 other Democratic lawmakers from Texas, was boarding the flight to Washington to try to sway the U.S. Senate, to pass federal voting laws that would to overrule state attempts to restrict the voting of people of color, students and poor people.

Wu and his fellow Democrats were leaving Texas hoping that a lack of a quorum would prevent a vote on Republican-backed bills intended to make it more difficult for people to vote.

The Democrats' strategy could paralyze the Legislature for weeks if they remain out of state until this special session ends in August. It is the only move the Democrats have left in a Republican controlled legislature. They hope federal law would preempt Texas Republicans' power grab to try to make it harder for voters of color -- Latinos, Blacks and a growing Asian American electorate -- to exercise their right to vote.

Traditionally, Texas could be relied on to vote Republican in state and federal elections but as the 2018 and 2020 elections have shown, the GOP majority is getting slimmer because of the influx of newly naturalized immigrants and emigrants from liberal states such as California.

As the Democratic lawmakers were boarding their flights, they indicated they were renewing their calls for Congress to pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, H.R. 1 and H.R. 4, respectively, far-reaching federal legislation that would preempt significant portions of the Texas bills and similar bills in other GOP-dominated states, and reinstate federal oversight of elections in states with troubling records.

“We are now taking the fight to our nation’s Capitol," the Democrats said in a prepared statement. "We are living on borrowed time in Texas."