The Texas House Democratic Caucus could not account Tuesday for two of the members who broke quorum and fled for Washington, D.C., over Republicans' priority elections bill, while a Texas Monthly reporter said the members were on vacation in Portugal.
State Reps. Julie Johnson of Farmers Branch and Jessica González of Dallas were not with other House Democrats on Tuesday in the nation's capital, according to a person familiar with the situation. On Tuesday evening, Texas Monthly reporter Jonathan Tilove tweeted that he "can confirm [Johnson] and her wife & [González] and her fiancé are in Portugal for a vacation they had been planning, with non-refundable tickets, for a year-and-a-half."
Neither Johnson nor González, or their staffs, responded to requests for comment from The Texas Tribune throughout Tuesday and Wednesday morning.
In a text exchange though with the San Antonio Express-News on Tuesday evening, González referred to the Portugal trip as "rumors" and said "no one has shown proof."
"These are rumors, period," she said. "End of story."
Their absence from Washington does not affect the lack of quorum that the House has in Austin that prevents the chamber from passing an elections bill. But it is at odds with House Democrats’ insistence that they would use their time away from the state Legislature, which they left in July, to advocate for federal voting rights legislation in the nation’s capital.
González is an especially prominent player in the voting rights fight as the vice chair of the Texas House Elections Committee.
read more here: https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/03/texas-democrats-washington-portugal/
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