As Texas Voting Restrictions Near Passage, Democrats Stage Protest

The former presidential aspirants Beto O’Rourke and Julián Castro spoke to a crowd demonstrating outside the State Capitol.

AUSTIN, Texas — A day after the Texas House of Representatives voted to make it harder to cast a ballot in a state that already has some of the nation’s most restrictive voting laws, leading Democrats and hundreds of supporters gathered outside the State Capitol on Saturday to protest against legislation steaming toward approval in the Republican-led Legislature. “This is the single greatest attack on our democracy, not just in our lifetime, but perhaps in the lifetime of this very democracy,” said former Representative Beto O’Rourke, who was a Democratic presidential candidate in the 2020 presidential primary. He was joined by a second former Democratic presidential aspirant, Julián Castro, the former San Antonio mayor.