Beto O'Rourke: Biden needs to take to heart the lessons of Texas

Beto O'Rourke writes President Joe Biden must heed the lessons of Texas' battle over voting rights and use his tremendous power to help change the rules of the filibuster in order to pass a new voting rights bill.

After Reconstruction, states throughout the South were rife with White supremacist terrorism, racial injustice and attacks on Black voting rights — and by the late 19th century, Texas was among the most brutal. Whites-only Democratic clubs and their armed militias had "purified" the ballot box in one Texas county after another. Political violence, assassinations and lynchings enforced White rule throughout much of the state at the expense of Black lives and Black voting rights.