The sun reflected off the golden dome of the Massachusetts State House on Wednesday as Texas State Sen. Carol Alvarado approached a wood podium. Behind her stood a crowd of Democratic legislators from across the country.
“ Thank y’all for standing with us in the birthplace of American resistance,” Alvarado said. “ What is happening in Texas isn’t just a state injustice. It is a national alarm bell.”
For the past three days, Massachusetts has played host to a handful of Texas Democratic lawmakers who left their state to prevent a vote on a bill to redraw their congressional maps. The lawmakers say the gerrymandering would disenfranchise non-white voters.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called the Legislature into special session last month to pass new congressional maps. President Trump says he wants Texas lawmakers to carve out five more Republican-friendly seats before the midterm elections.
Alvarado called the move a dangerous escalation of partisan warfare.
“If it can happen in Texas, the second largest state in the country, it will happen elsewhere,” she said. “If we do not stop it now, they’ll copy and paste it across the country.
Gov. Maura Healey welcomed the group of Texas Democrats into her office Tuesday.
“This is, to be really clear about it, a partisan, craven, political power grab,” she said at a press conference following the meeting.
Texas Democratic House lawmakers are facing daily $500 fines for their absence from Austin. There are civil warrants out for their arrest. But as long as they stay out of the state’s House of Representatives — and out of Texas, the bill remains paralyzed.
One of those facing penalties is Texas State Rep. Armando Walle. He spent the past three days in Boston at a national conference of state legislators. He said he found community and support here.
“I’ll send back a message to our colleagues in the House that legislators around the country had our back — have our back,” he told the crowd outside the State House.
Republicans say this act of parliamentary disobedience will only delay the inevitable.
Once the special session ends Aug. 19, Texas’s governor can immediately call another, and then another. It will be hard for Texas Democrats to stay away from their families and their districts indefinitely. Texas has a part-time legislature and many lawmakers hold second jobs.
President Trump told reporters at a press conference the FBI “may have to” get involved.
But Alvarado, the state senator, said they’re not going down without a fight.
“We’re here to say that Texas will not go quietly into the night, and neither should you,” she said.
The Texas state representatives in Boston now travel to Illinois, where the majority of their fellow Democrats are waiting out their exile. They promise to stay away until the clock runs out.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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