Dear John,
Voter suppression has passed in Texas.
A moment ago, both houses of the state legislature passed the final version of SB 1, the bill designed to subvert democracy and keep hundreds of thousands of Texans from participating in our elections.
I want to be very candid about what this means for our democracy now that the bill is on its way to Governor Abbott’s desk.
Once signed, we’ll have three months before this law goes into effect, meaning if Congress and President Biden don’t move quickly to pass voting rights legislation that would override this bill, Republicans will be allowed to cement their power in Texas while skirting accountability for this state’s 57,000 COVID deaths, the power grid failures that have killed over 700 Texans, our place as the most uninsured state in the nation, and a slew of other failures that continue to threaten our health, safety, and livelihoods.
Here’s what gives me hope that we can get this done:
In the effort to stop this voter suppression bill, Texans have shown the nation the level of courage and tenacity that it’s going to take to stop this slide and save our democracy before it’s too late. Because of the support of people like you, we’ve been able to hold some of the largest voting rights rallies that this state has seen in decades, engage the conscience of the nation, lead the democratic response to the authoritarian threat prompted by the Big Lie, and take this fight to the one place it can be won: our nation’s capital.
And while we push at the federal level, Powered by People will continue to spend every day working to register new voters, host phone banks and in-person canvasses in Texas counties that are often neglected, and do everything we can to bring more people into our democracy so that we can build a better, more responsive government in this state.
Always grateful to be in this fight with you,
Beto
