Breaking: Republicans do the unthinkable in power grab - Another Day - Brian Tyler Cohen

Transcript:

Texas Republicans flex their
independence by doing whatever Donald
Trump says. This is just another day.
We all know that famous Texas saying,
remember the Alamo. But there's
apparently the lesserk known but still
important, remember to help the
president of the United States in his
effort to undermine our democracy. It
is 3:00 at the Texas State House in
Austin, the burning hot epicenter today
of the future of democracy. Right now,
following a marathon session, crackling
with fireworks speeches and amendments
and debate. At this moment, it appears
we are close to a final vote on those
new gerrymandered district maps, the
transparently partisan ones drawn up mid
decade by Republicans at the request of
Donald Trump attempting to gobble up
more seats in Congress.
That's right. After Donald Trump
politely demanded that Texas Governor
Greg Abbott find him five seats so that
he could continue his grip on power and
after Texas Democrats did everything
they could to stall these efforts,
including fleeing the state to prevent a
vote. Today, Texas Republicans have
enough votes to pass their redistricting
legislation out of the state house. But
not all Democrats are making it easy on
them.
Democratic lawmakers are back in Texas,
but Representative Nicole Collier spent
the night on the floor of the state
house. She refused a Republican demand
to have a state law enforcement uh
officer escort her around the clock in
order to leave the capital grounds.
Can you believe that? Having to sleep in
a chair like that? I mean, sure, if she
was flying on a Spirit Airlines flight,
that would be considered a diamond
medallion seat, but she's not. She is an
elected official exercising her rights
and refusing to let these Republicans
have an easy win. I refuse to sign the
permission slip to be able to leave the
capital. I disagree with that
authoritarian
um tactic.
Well, hold on now. Aren't we just
talking about a small piece of paper?
How bad can it really be? The slip is a
document that allows Texas Democrats to
come and go as they please from the
House floor as long as they agree to be
monitored 247 by troopers from the
Department of Public Safety. See, that's
all. What are these whiny Dems
complaining about? All they have to
agree to is the same level of
aroundthe-clock surveillance as Henry
Hill and Good Fellas. Through the
actions of the past few months and
continuing to into today, Texas
Republicans have shown that there is no
limit to how low they'll go when it
comes to maintaining their majority
status. All of our Democratic elected
officials.
Sorry, I have to leave. They said it's a
felony for me to do this. Apparently, I
can't be on the floor or in the
bathroom.
Well, you told me I was only allowed to
be here in the bathroom. No, hang on.
Bye, everybody. I've got to go.
Hey. Um, that that's that is outrageous.
What they're trying to do right there is
silence an American leader.
What we just witnessed is truly
unbelievable. I mean, this is a
Democratically elected official confined
to the state legislature being forced by
Texas police to hang up on a Zoom from
the bathroom or she really had to take a
I mean, don't get me wrong. We've
all been on Zooms where the situation is
so bad it feels like our stomach is
getting arrested and we wish that we
could use the threat of being handcuffed
as an excuse to go do our business. So
whether it was being arrested by cops or
the other one, let it be known, I stand
with Representative Kier or Sid, either
one. And while this entire process by
Texas Democrats have found immense
support from their constituents, other
governors around the country and even
President Obama, it's not like Texas
Republicans haven't also seen a little
upside from the situation as well.
I think that what the Democrats did a
really good job of is uniting the
Republicans, uh, which hasn't happened
for a long time. I've been here, this is
my sixth session. The one thing the
Democrats did really well is they united
Republicans.
Hey, to each their own, I guess. You
know, some workplaces foster interoffice
unity through a Friday happy hour or
maybe throwing a ping-pong table in the
conference room, but it seems like
Republicans are more staging an
anti-democratic power grab to steal the
midterms kind of folks. But while
Democrats may be losing the battle in
Texas, that doesn't mean they've given
up entirely. Thanks to the courageous
efforts of Governor Gavin Newsome,
California is fighting back. Democrats
proposed their own redistricting changes
there and that went through a
legislative hearing yesterday and things
got a little heated. I want to play some
of that now.
I did not have that same ability.
You weren't aware of the concept. You
weren't aware of the news that we were
planning on saying Mr.
Excuse me. We have we have the chief
clerk here.
Republicans you saw in that clip were
calling attention to the concern that
there wasn't enough transparency, how
fast the process was moving.
Yeah, you know, Republicans, they want
to take things nice and slow. No rush at
all. just like they did in Texas.
Uh the governor had said second special
session, it's already happened. It's
underway.
Nice and slow. But look, clearly the
Republicans are just upset because they
want fairness, right? And what's more
fair than a national standard barring
the scourge that is partisan
gerrymandering? Surely they would
support that effort, right? Republicans
in Washington DC had the opportunity,
including California Republicans, to
vote for national redistric national um
independent redistricting commissions,
HR1, the For the People Act when I was
in Congress just a few years ago. And do
you know how many Republicans voted for
that bill? Zero. None.
Turns out Republicans don't want
independent or bipartisan commissions
telling them anything because it
jeopardizes their grip on power. They
claimed the findings by a bipartisan
commission on 2016 Russian election
interference was a total hoax. Said the
bipartisan commission on climate change
was a load of treehugging BS. And even
though the entire world watched it on
camera, Republicans claimed that the
findings of the bipartisan January 6th
commission were nothing more than
left-wing propaganda used to assault the
peaceloving actions of our patriotic
Americans exercising their right to
peacefully assemble. My god, if an
independent commission issued a report
that water is wet, Republicans would
flood the airwaves of Fox News to brag
that their experiences with water have
been pleasantly bone dry. Time and time
again, Republicans have shown that they
are bad faith negotiators. So for
Democrats to sit back and hope that
suddenly members of the GOP are going to
come down with a case of the ethics is a
fool's errand. The reality is Donald
Trump has finally found willing
participants in his efforts to undermine
democracy. Remember back in 2020 when
Trump made that late night voting call
to Georgia's Secretary of State Brad
Raffensburgger telling him to find more
ballots, 11,780 to be exact, and
Raffensburgger refused. The Secretary of
State was simply taking part in this
niche form of politics called following
the law. But in this dystopian era where
there doesn't seem to be a single member
of the Republican party willing to stand
up to Donald Trump's autocratic tactics
of election interference, Brad
Raffensburgger, if but for a fleeting
moment, has turned himself into an
American folk hero. Which means now that
Trump has Republican governors like Greg
Abbott willing to do his bidding,
Democrats must acknowledge that they
have to do whatever it takes to protect
our democracy. Because this is not just
about five Texas House seats. This is
about which direction Americans want
their country to go. If Donald Trump and
his lap dog Republicans succeed in their
effort to win the midterms, there is
nothing stopping their disastrous
agenda. We will be almost nostalgic for
the days when all we had to worry about
was massed ICE agents plucking people
off the streets, when universities and
media companies were being extorted for
millions just so they can stay in
business, and when merely 17 million
Americans were losing their healthcare.
And by the way, this isn't just a tad
odd, is it? that in August when
Republican members are going back to
their districts, we don't hear any of
them selling their signature piece of
legislation to their constituents. Maybe
that's because it is not sellable. I
guess there's something about giving
billionaires tax cuts while raising the
cost of goods on working families that
makes it just a tad bit difficult to
market. It's like trying to sell your
daughters on Matt Gates as their
babysitter. Bit of an uphill battle.
Which is why we are suddenly watching
Republicans redraw maps and set their
sights on mail and voting. Because
they've got nothing to run on. They've
given up on the fake promises of lower
costs and cheaper groceries and
affordable rent, opting instead to lean
full tilt into military deployment and
power grabs. The party of small
government has become so overbearing
that there's nowhere to hide, not even
in the bathroom.