About a dozen Texas Democrats who fled their state due to their effort to block restrictive voting bills. They met on Thursday in Washington in a Capitol Hill basement with West Virginia’s, Joe Manchin. 

Following an hour long meeting, Manchin told reporters, “It was a very good meeting. It was a very informative meeting, and basically, we’ve all come to a total agreement that what we want is basically to protect voting rights. That’s it. A voting rights bill with guardrails. That’s all.”

Joe said that the hot topic pushed by many voting rights activists wasn’t even discussed. 

This meeting occurred a day after Joe Biden’s speech calling the Republican efforts to restrict voting rights an “assault on democracy”. 

Back in Texas, Dade Phelan, House Speaker, issued an order that stripped Moody of his position as speaker pro tempore. 

Joe Manchin said he is working on the legislation, but we don’t know if that is going to be a new effort, or if it would be the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.

Texas Democrats said they are “100%” sure that Joe was doing what will protect the goals they want to complete. 

However, if there is adequate bipartisan support for narrow legislation, is very unclear. 

Right now, getting legislation through Senate is remarkably strenuous with budget bills and infrastructure that is expected to take up months of time on the floor. This all starts about next week. 

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