When I heard Texas Democrats were playing hooky from their special legislative session

as a way to protest a Republican bill limiting who can vote and how, I had one thought, again?

Music thought again? This move is getting familiar. It's getting familiar. Jessica Huesman is the editorial director at Votebeat. She covers Texas election law and lawmakers.

She says, if you are also getting a sense of deja vu, she doesn't really blame you.

Texas Democrats did walk out of another legislative session over the very same bill, just a couple of months back.

But this time, she says, the stakes are higher.

The first time they did this back in May, Democrats walked out, but they walked out a couple of

hours before the regular session was supposed to end anyway. On that day, Dade Phelan,

who is the Speaker of the House in Texas, had met with the Democratic caucus and he'd said to them, listen, I know y'all are thinking about walking out. And if you do, we won't stop you.

Dade Phelan, who is a Republican, by the way, he could have sent state troopers after these legislators.

I mean, instead of fleeing the state, they were like going for ice cream with their kids, right?

The stakes, like, that's literally true.

But the stakes much lower than they are right now because Dave Phelan has taken a very different tone now.

He said that he will use all resources available to him under the Texas

state constitution to restore a quorum.

Which means law enforcement.

Yeah.

I mean, it means law enforcement.

I think that a lot of Democrats don't even really know how this is going to play out,

because frankly, this is basically unprecedented in Texas history.

This explains why, instead of what lawmakers did last time,

grabbing an ice cream cone and following it up with a press conference,

...