DNC chair: Texas election overhaul measure ‘one of those break the glass moments’

Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Jaime Harrison on Tuesday said that Texas’s election overhaul measure is “one of those break the glass moments.”

Speaking on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Harrison was asked if he saw Texas’s voter measures — as well as similar measures being considered in other GOP-controlled states — as a threat to the Democratic Party.

“I don’t think about it as a threat to the Democratic Party, I think about it as a threat to our American democracy,” Harrison said.

“We’ve been down this road before. We see all of these things happening, not only the attacks at the ballot box but also these attempts to change and rewrite our history,” he continued. “And we can’t stand for it. This is one of those break the glass moments because our democracy really is in balance.”

The comment comes after Democrats in the Texas state House staged a walkout to block the passage of state Senate Bill 7, which the state Senate passed early Sunday morning.

Democrats walked off the state House floor late Sunday night, slowly leaving until the remainder of the caucus left at 10:30 p.m. The walk-out left the lower chamber without a quorum, preventing Republicans from passing the bill before the midnight deadline.

In response to the walkout, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) threatened to veto funding for the state legislature.

Senate Bill 7, if passed, would have banned drive-thru voting and impose felony penalties on public officials who offer mail-in voting applications to voters who do not request them, among its many restrictions.

The measure also lowers the standard for courts to overturn elections, only requiring “the number of votes illegally cast in the election is equal to or greater than the number of votes necessary to change the outcome of an election.”

Harrison said the bill was “probably the worst” of all the voting restriction bills being passed.

“This Texas bill is so bad. It is probably the worst of all of these bills that we are seeing from Georgia to Arizona to Florida,” Harrison said. “It allows the political goons to come to Black and Brown communities to intimidate them while they’re voting.”

“This is the most blatant attempt to really curb Black and Brown voting that I’ve seen in my lifetime,” he continued.