Texas Democrats block vote-suppression bill; Republicans derail hundreds of other bills [View All]

Yesterday was a dramatic day in the Texas House, as Democrats stuck to their principles and used parliamentary rules to block a Republican-sponsored voter ID bill that would have disenfranchised thousands of law-abiding Texas citizens.

In order to force their bill through the closely-divided House, Republicans scheduled other votes on a series of important bills immediately after the voter ID bill – essentially holding these bills hostage against a midnight deadline to advance legislation. When Democrats blocked the voter ID bill, the bills waiting behind it couldn’t come up for a vote either.

Hundreds of bills thus became collateral damage from the Republican vote-suppression scheme, including:

A bill guaranteeing health insurance for children in the state’s child support system;

Funding for a new, regional windstorm insurance pool for the Gulf Coast;
A package of healthcare quality and affordability bills to provide health insurance options for small businesses, fight childhood obesity, and promote best practices within the healthcare industry; and
A measure to overrule Gov. Perry and accept $555 million in extra federal stimulus funds.
The stimulus bill actually was brought up in the final 15 minutes before midnight and could have passed, but Republican legislators prevented that vote in retribution for their failed voter ID bill.

Now, after weeks of refusing to schedule earlier votes on these and other important priorities, Republicans are trying to blame the Democrats for the failure of these bills, but Democratic Caucus Chair Jim Dunnam is having none of it:

"Someone who controls the agenda, and decides when we are going to hear bills, can't complain when they set the bills that they say are so important on the last few days," Dunnam said. "They’re the one s who set them on the last few days and now they are complaining that we’re not going to get to them.

(…)"Why wasn’t insurance reform on the house floor weeks ago? Why wasn’t the windstorm insurance bill on the floor weeks and weeks ago? Why’d we go home last week every day at 6 or 7 o'clock so that committees could go have dinner? And then turn around and say that are wasting time? Those were decisions that the Speaker made."

Republicans can try all they want to spin away their own failure, but in the end, the record is clear: Democrats spent the day defending the voting rights of thousands of law-abiding Texans, but when petulant Republicans didn’t get what they wanted, they responded by punishing Texas’ children, property owners, and laid-off workers.

http://www.dlcc.org/node/1576