Democrats are once again throwing a tantrum over a Republican election bill. In Georgia, it was because Democrats think they’re on the brink of making it a blue state. Now, in Texas, it’s out of despair that their “blue Texas” pipe dream seems as distant as ever.
Just as with the Georgia voting law, the Texas voting bill is a pretty standard mix of additional election security and enshrining, or removing, measures introduced during the 2020 election to deal with the reality of holding an election during a pandemic. Much like with the measure that was excluded from the Georgia law, Texas had an issue with Sunday voting hours that would affect the “souls to the polls” initiatives of black churches, which was chalked up to a “scrivener’s error.”
In total, the bill is not particularly egregious or even restrictive. It strikes a similar balance between election integrity and voting access as Georgia’s did. Naturally, Democrats are incensed by this.
State Democrats orchestrated a walkout to prevent the Legislature from being able to pass the bill, then demanded a federal takeover of state elections, which Democrats conveniently have been pushing for a few years now in the form of H.R. 1. Jaime Harrison, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, compared the bill to Jim Crow laws. Beto O’Rourke, the failed Senate and presidential candidate who may add failed gubernatorial candidate to his resume soon, has taken to making home videos to complain about “voter suppression.”
But Democrats aren’t lashing out because they think this will prevent their voters from going to the polls. They’re lashing out because they’re desperate to gin up the energy to compete in Texas after their dream of a blue Texas has failed to materialize election cycle after election cycle.
President Joe Biden only gained a few points in Texas in 2020, when Democrats hoped it could be in play. They couldn’t replicate the energy from O’Rourke’s 2018 Senate run, as GOP Sen. John Cornyn cruised to victory. Democrats didn’t flip a single House seat in Texas and flipped only one seat in the state Legislature for a net gain of zero seats, as Republicans also flipped one. And in the historically Democratic Zapata County, their hope for a Democratic wave to push them to victory crumbled, as former President Donald Trump won the heavily Hispanic county by 5 points.
This isn’t about Texas’s voting law, just as the outrageous overreaction to Georgia wasn’t about its voting law either. This is Democrats lashing out because that permanent majority to which they feel so entitled, and which they think turning Texas would give them, has not come to pass. They want to energize their base, find excuses for a federal takeover of elections, and excuse their repeated failures to be competitive in Texas, and they are willing to lie to do just that.
