WASHINGTON – (Update: The news conference is over. Please check back for more livestreams on KSAT.com).
A group of Texas Democrats who met with Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday morning to discuss voting rights are expected to hold a news conference.
The news conference will be livestreamed in this article. If there is not a livestream available, check back at a later time.
Harris met with members of the Texas State Senate and Texas House of Representatives, who last month blocked Republicans from approving new, controversial voting limits in a walk-out.
Harris told the lawmakers that proposals for stricter voting laws are a “great challenge in front of us” because Americans may lose “their access to their right.”
“And so this is what we’ve seen over and over again, and what’s happening right now in Texas is, of course, a very clear and current example of that,” she said. “So, to the -- to the point of what we must do collectively to ensure that every American retains their right to vote, our administration -- President Biden and myself and our administration are here to make very clear that we will do everything in our power as an administration to lift up the voices of those who seek to preserve the right of the people to vote.”
“We’re not telling people how to vote. And, frankly, this is not a Democratic or a Republican issue; this is an American issue. This is an American issue.”
Senate Democrats pledged to forge ahead with a likely doomed vote on their sprawling elections and voting bill next week, even as it faces universal opposition from Republicans, as well as from a key senator in their own party.
Democrats have made the elections bill a major focus, touting it as the best way to counteract voting restrictions that have advanced in Republican-controlled statehouses across the U.S. in the wake of Donald Trump's false claims about a stolen 2020 election. With a vote nearing, a delegation of Texas state legislators met with senators Tuesday to make the case for congressional action.
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