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Texas House Democrats return, resuming quorum and ending 38-day standoff

20 August 2021
Dan Ackermann

The contentious holdout that followed 50 Texas House Democrats' departure from the state came to an end on Thursday after 38 days, AP reports.

Why it matters: Democrats fled the state in July to protest GOP-led voting restrictions, flying to D.C. instead to urge federal action on voting rights. Enough returned on Thursday to resume quorum, days after the Texas Supreme Court ruled that they can be arrested if they don't attend the state Capitol.

State of play: Most have continued to avoid the state Capitol, but the few who returned to the Texas House justified the move by claiming their work with Congress was done.

  • They also noted the state's rapidly rising COVID case count and argued they could better fight the GOP's elections bill "from the inside," according to the Corpus Christi Caller Times.
  • "Now, we continue the fight on the House Floor," Democratic state Reps. Garnet Coleman, Ana Hernandez and Armando Walle said in a joint statement on Thursday.
  • Other Texas Democrats criticized their actions. "[W]e were literally on caucus calls for 2 hours this morning and none of the defecting Democrats mentioned they were planning on helping the Republicans pass voter suppression bills," state Rep. Ana-Maria Ramos tweeted.
  • "Guess what the other defecting Democrats have accomplished by going back—NOTHING!"

Worth noting: The federal voting rights protections they lobbied for in D.C. are unlikely to avoid GOP challenges in Congress.

What to watch: Republicans will aim to pass restrictive voting legislation before the current special session ends on Sept. 5. Critics say it will disproportionately impact voters of color.

  • More than 16 million people are registered to vote in Texas, per AP.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.