John,
A tough week for Texas.
The anti-voter elections bill we’d fought this entire year passed the Texas legislature on Tuesday, and the following day a raft of truly terrible new laws went into effect.
For example, anyone can now carry a gun in public without getting a permit, or going through a background check or receiving any kind of training. This, in a state that has four of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history and a crisis in gun violence against women (women in Texas are 24% more likely to be murdered with a gun than women in other states).
And now in a state that leads the country and much of the developed world in the rate of maternal mortality — because it was already so hard for women to get healthcare, family planning help or to see a doctor of any kind at all — nearly no one will be able to get a safe, legal abortion. Our state has created a system of legalized harassment with the passage of the worst anti-women’s health care law in the country, one that literally places a $10,000 bounty on anyone who supports a woman trying to exercise her basic right to control her own health and decide her own future.
That’s just some of what the people of Texas are up against thanks to our state’s radical, out of control Republican government. They’re also hard at work making scapegoats of public educators, transgender kids and immigrants — all while making Texas one of the deadliest states when it comes to Covid transmission, and keeping their donors in the energy industry happy at the expense of the lives of our fellow Texans.
The only way to change these laws and the terrible trajectory we’re on is to change the people in power.
Please chip in whatever you can afford to help us ramp up our efforts to register new voters, improve access to the ballot box, and ensure that the communities targeted for intimidation and suppression can participate in our democracy and have a say in our future.
If we stay focused on registering and connecting with voters — especially those who have traditionally been left out or written off — we can win Texas back by electing leaders who truly represent the people of this state.
Keep the faith.
Beto
