Texas Observer: “Unless Abbott—actually Speaker Dade Phelan—makes good on the threat to lock lawmakers in, ramming through a hardline elections bill in a subsequent special session risks inciting another quorum break—perhaps by Senate Democrats this time. That’s what happened during the last quorum break in 2003 when House Democrats hid out at a Holiday Inn in Ardmore, Oklahoma, for several weeks to block the GOP’s aggressive gerrymandering scheme.”
“The threat of repeated quorum breaks does give Democrats some leverage, thanks to Abbott’s veto of the budget for the legislative branch: Come September 1, legislative staffers will no longer get paid. If the Legislature is actually defunded, that jeopardizes Republicans’ plans to redraw the state’s political maps this fall—a top priority as congressional Republicans try to take the U.S. House in 2022.”
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