Dear John,

Over the past week, a lot has happened in the fight to protect voting
rights — both here in Texas and in Washington, DC. I’ll go into more
detail below, but here’s the topline summary:

* In Texas, Governor Abbott called a second special session to force
through yet another voter suppression bill, SB 1, which could
effectively disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of our fellow Texans.
The special session started on Saturday. The Senate passed the bill
out of committee on Monday and then passed it on a final vote just
hours ago.
* In DC, the US Senate just missed a crucial deadline to pass the For
the People Act. Senate Majority Leader Schumer held a vote on the bill
early yesterday morning, but Republicans blocked it and senators went
home for a month-long recess. Since redistricting data comes out
today, that means we won’t have federal protection in place before
state legislatures redraw congressional and state legislative
districts. This means it’s going to be really hard to stop the GOP
from gerrymandering their way into greater power in 2022.

If we’re honest with ourselves, we have to admit that, despite our best
efforts, our democracy is in an even more precarious place than it was a
month ago when President Joe Biden gave his Philadelphia voting rights
speech. And we’re very close to reaching a point of no return.

Collectively, we have made thousands upon thousands of phone calls to
President Biden and the US Senate, pleading with them to treat this threat
to our democracy with the sense of urgency it demands. Yet democracy
legislation took a backseat to the infrastructure package, and we now face
an uphill battle to stop gerrymandering before Republicans unfairly and
undemocratically lock themselves into a majority for the next decade.

It might feel difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel. But I
want to be just as honest about our next steps as I am about our current
position: If we respond to these developments with action and not despair,
it is still possible to stop voter suppression in Texas, pass federal
voting rights legislation, and unrig our elections so that we have
something approaching a true multiracial democracy in America.

It’s just going to be really hard.

This moment wasn’t made for the faint of heart. Luckily, we aren’t built
that way. As President Truman said, “America was not built on fear.
America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable
determination to do the job at hand.”

So let’s get after it.

Let’s start with the Texas voter suppression bill:

The unfortunate reality is that in the long-term, there is no realistic
way to avoid the passage of voter suppression legislation in Texas unless
the US Senate passes federal voting rights legislation. Texas Senate
Democrats are outnumbered by Republicans 18 to 13, and their House
colleagues are outnumbered 83 to 67.

But let’s also recognize what we have to be optimistic about. First, the
courageous House Democrats who broke quorum twice to block anti-democracy
bills have yet to return to the state capitol in large enough numbers to
reestablish quorum. While we don’t know how long the quorum break will
last, the House Democrats have bought us a lot of valuable time.

During this critical period, we cannot let up the pressure on our state
legislators. Keep calling your state representative and state senator.
Keep marching, keep rallying, and keep showing up at the state capitol to
testify at voter suppression hearings every time they come up. That’s what
is giving Texas Democrats the power and leverage they need to hold the
line as long as possible.

That public pressure is also what has forced Republicans to walk back on
some of the most heinous aspects of this bill, like their proposed ban on
“Souls to the Polls” and a provision that would have made it easier for
them to overturn democratically-decided elections just because they don’t
like the outcome. Because thousands of Texans from across the state have
rallied in front of the Texas Capitol and spent hours upon hours
testifying against these bills in the House and Senate, we’ve been able to
keep the worst from happening.

Now on to the fight for the For the People Act:

Because the US Senate failed to pass the For the People Act before the
release of the 2020 census data, starting today GOP-led legislatures in
states like Texas, Georgia, and Florida will begin some of the most
aggressive gerrymandering campaigns in modern US history.

That’s because several Supreme Court rulings in 2013 and 2019 weakened
federal oversight of state redistricting, so this is the first year in
over half a century that states will redraw district boundaries knowing
the US Department of Justice has limited recourse to reverse gerrymandered
maps.

While we missed this critical deadline, it is still possible for the
voting rights bill of our generation, the For the People Act, to pass. But
it absolutely will not happen unless Democrats in the Senate unify around
reforming the filibuster.

Senate Republicans made that clear yesterday when they blocked voting
rights legislation for a second time. After taking a vote on the For the
People Act, Senate Majority Leader Schumer introduced two smaller, much
narrower bills: one that would prevent partisan gerrymandering and one
that would help get dark money out of our politics. Since Republicans
blocked those as well, Senators Manchin and Sinema — as well as any other
Democrat who has opposed filibuster reform up to this point — now have all
the evidence they need that Republicans have zero plans to act in a
bipartisan manner on voting rights.

This is the time to ramp up your outreach to your federal lawmakers — but
if you’re only going to contact one person, make sure it’s President
Biden. While we know he supports the For the People Act, and that he
understands the gravity of today’s threat to democracy, he has yet to put
the full power of the presidency behind reforming the filibuster to allow
the For the People Act to pass.

Senator Schumer has vowed to make the For the People Act the Senate’s
“first order of business” when senators return from recess in
mid-September. That’s a really good sign, but it won’t mean anything
unless President Biden makes reforming the filibuster his absolute number
one priority.

Here’s what I’m asking you to do:

 1. Call your Texas representatives. Write them letters. Show up at their
offices. It doesn’t matter, just make sure they hear from you. [ [link removed] ]Find
the contact for your state representatives here. Tell them you don’t
want them messing with our elections or restricting the right to vote.
 2. Contact President Biden. Contact him every day until he calls on the
Senate to reform the filibuster, and even after that — until Congress
passes the For the People Act and he signs it into law. [ [link removed] ]You can
find the White House contact information here.
 3. Be physically present in this fight. Democracy and voting rights
organizations are holding events nearly every day across the country
to keep the national spotlight on the fight to save our democracy.
[ [link removed] ]Join one.

And most importantly, keep the faith. We can win, but we must believe we
can win and then take the steps to realize that belief. Faith without
works is dead. And we are very much alive in this fight.

Thank you for constantly renewing my faith by the good work you’re doing.
Keep it up.

Beto

[ [link removed] ]Donate »


 


This email was sent to [email protected]. Email is the most important way for us to reach you about opportunities to act. If you need to remove yourself from our email list, click here to unsubscribe: [link removed]

PAID FOR BY POWERED BY PEOPLE, POWEREDXPEOPLE.ORG, NOT AUTHORIZED BY ANY CANDIDATE OR CANDIDATE'S COMMITTEE.