Texas Democrats who fled the state earlier this month to campaign on voting rights in Washington are holding a pair of meetings Thursday with three high-profile Democrats: Bill and Hillary Clinton and Stacey Abrams.
The meetings, details of which were shared first with POLITICO, come as the delegation of state legislators tries to regain momentum on their push for federal action on voting rights, after their headline-grabbing move to break quorum to block a GOP bill in Texas was derailed by a series of positive coronavirus tests and Washington’s focus on infrastructure negotiations. Texas Democratic leaders disclosed last week that six members had tested positive, all of whom were fully vaccinated.
The positive tests scrambled the group’s plans, postponing in-person meetings and kicking some meetings into Zoom rooms and other virtual spaces.
Members say that after the initial round, no other Texas lawmaker tested positive over the last week. The Texans have started taking in-person meetings again — some members were on Capitol Hill this week, and the delegation met with civil right leaders at the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial on Wednesday — but the pandemic is still affecting everything: Both meetings Thursday, with the Clintons and with Abrams, will be virtual.
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