Beto O’Rourke: Democrats Will Lose Majorities If They Don’t Pass Voting Rights Bill

“It is connected to any other right that matters to you.”

Beto O' Rourke speaks at the Texas State Capital to demand federal action on voting rights, July 31, 2021, Austin, TX. Mario Cantu/Cal Sport Media via AP

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Beto O’Rourke told Mother Jones on Wednesday he was strongly considering running for governor of Texas, in large part to protect the right to vote.

“When I thought about how I could be most effective for this state, and, I hope, this country this year, it was on the issue of voting rights,” he said during a live virtual conversation. “It is connected to any other right that matters to you.” 

But he stressed that GOP voter suppression and extreme gerrymandering could only truly be combated if Congress passed federal legislation protecting voting rights.

“We need major federal voting rights legislation that can unrig the system and allow for free and fair elections in Texas and these other states that are under siege by these anti- ‘small d’ democratic forces,” he said.

He praised the recently introduced Freedom to Vote Act, a compromise bill introduced by Senator Democrats including Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) that would expand access to the ballot, ban partisan gerrymandering, and crack down on dark money. But he warned that Democrats would lose their Congressional majorities if they failed to reform the filibuster to overcome GOP opposition and pass it.

“Competitive elections allow more voters, hence more likely Democratic voters, to participate in the decisions at the end of the day,” O’Rourke said. “And if we, as Democrats or pro-democracy Americans, are not willing to use every tool available to us, while Republicans are using every tool available to them to constrict and reduce and perhaps demolish the right to vote altogether, then we become complicit in the outcome. And I’m not in for that one.”

He noted that communities of color in states like Texas and Georgia were the strongest supporters of Joe Biden and the most likely to be targeted by voter suppression efforts. “If, when the fight was engaged, Democrats walked off or stood on procedure instead of winning the damn thing…we’ll lose. And frankly, it would be hard to argue that we wouldn’t deserve to lose if we fail to fight now and fail to win this fight now.”

He predicted that if Republicans take back control of one or both houses of Congress, they would bring impeachment proceedings against Biden and try to overturn the 2024 election results.

“If we stand on the principle of the filibuster, and deny ourselves the ability to effectively fight back and save this democracy, I really do fear we lose it forever,” he said.

Watch my full interview with O’Rourke below:

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

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