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:

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. 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. 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. 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




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