NAACP offers to pay bail for Texas Democrats who left state in effort to block election bill

The NAACP said it plans to offer to pay bail for the Texas Democrats who flew to Washington, D.C., in protest of a voting bill after Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said they would be arrested upon their return to the Lone Star State.

“War has been declared on democracy, and we will support anyone who stands up to defend it,” Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP, said in a statement shared with The Hill. “We are fully invested in good trouble.”

The offer comes after a group of Texas Democratic lawmakers fled the state to block the quorum Republicans need to convene a special legislative session. The 57 lawmakers said they are willing to stay as long as necessary to deny the quorum.

The lawmakers are attempting to put pressure on Democrats in Congress to pass new voting rights legislation, and have called on Republicans in the Texas legislature to compromise on a bill that would overhaul the state’s election procedures.

However, Abbott said the group would be immediately arrested upon return in Texas.

“As soon as they come back in the state of Texas, they will be arrested, they will be cabined inside the Texas Capitol until they get their job done,” he said in an interview with local ABC affiliate KVUE.

“They’re quitters!” Abbott declared during a Fox News interview Monday. “That is not the way Texans do things.”

The NAACP also showed their support for the Democratic lawmakers on Twitter.

“War has been declared on democracy, and we will support anyone who stands up to defend it,” President @DerrickNAACP#FightingForward pic.twitter.com/cmJKTTpShq

— NAACP (@NAACP) July 13, 2021