House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, joined by Texas Democrats from the U.S. House and state Legislature, speaks at a news conference on voting rights on June 15, 2021. In the front row at left, state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer of San Antonio. At right, U.S. Reps. Marc Veasey of Fort Worth and Lizzie Fletcher of Houston.

Texas lawmakers who staged a dramatic walkout to quash a GOP election bill in Austin got a hero’s welcome Tuesday in Congress, where fellow Democrats sought to leverage their example of feistiness into progress on voting rights at the federal level.

“They are such an inspiration for us,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who has led Senate Democrats’ effort on voting rights, after meeting with Texas state lawmakers. “What happened in Texas is the ultimate example of attempts to limit people’s freedom to vote. Last I checked, Texas is all about freedom.”

About 15 Democrats from the Texas Legislature roamed the halls of Congress and head to the White House for a triumphal visit Wednesday with Vice President Kamala Harris, the administration’s point person on voting rights.

On both sides of the Capitol, Democratic leaders spotlighted their resistance to Senate Bill 7 in the recent legislative session. And in turn, the Texans drove home the point that they – and counterparts in other state capitols – can’t fend off all the assaults on voting rights without congressional action.

“We need their help now, because Republicans are attempting to suppress the vote in Texas, and we see it playing out across the country,” said state Rep. Chris Turner of Grand Prairie, chair of the Texas House Democratic Caucus. “It is a diabolical attempt to make it harder for American citizens to cast a ballot in an election, and it is wrong.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi spent well over an hour privately and in front of cameras with the Texans to highlight their recent fight in Austin, and to promote bills that would block state-level voter suppression and reimpose federal scrutiny in states with a history of election discrimination.

“It’s an honor to be here with these American patriots,” she said, flanked by Texas Democrats from the U.S. House and the state Legislature. “This is an all-out assault.”

“The whole country was inspired by what took place,” Pelosi said, adding that “we have the antidote” to measures like SB7, which Gov. Greg Abbott has vowed to resurrect in a special session of the Legislature. “It’s really hard to understand how they could cook up so many various ways to come at a person’s right to vote, but they did.”

SB7 would have scaled back Sunday morning voting, cutting into the “souls to the polls” tradition in Black churches. It would let judges invalidate an election on suspicion of fraud, even without evidence that enough votes were tainted to tip the outcome – a provision known as the “Trump amendment” because of the ex-president’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

It would have empowered partisan poll watchers, which critics say could lead to voter intimidation, and made it a crime to give too much help to a voter.

The Texans’ tale of legislative derring-do in Austin brought Senate Democrats to their feet during a private weekly lunch in the ornate Mansfield Room – except for two holdouts who skipped the lunch, Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Krysten Sinema of Arizona.

“They must have gotten five or six standing ovations,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. “These Texas Democrats bravely fought against ... vicious, nasty and bigoted attacks aimed at voting rights in their state.”

Under the landmark Voting Rights Act, Texas and other states, mostly in the South, were required to get “pre-clearance” for any changes to election rules, from moving a polling site to purging rolls of deceased voters.

In 2013, the Supreme Court neutered that law, ruling the method for deciding which states deserved intense federal scrutiny had become outdated over the decades.

Congress could set a new formula, but GOP lawmakers have balked.

“It’s not a federal issue. That’s the problem is that our Democratic friends want to take over the state’s responsibility in a way that I believe is unconstitutional,” said Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican.

Noting that two-thirds of Texas voters cast ballots last fall, he added, “The Voting Rights Act has been the most one of the most successful federal laws ever passed. ... Anybody who wants to vote can cast a ballot as long as they’re legally qualified to do so.”

The bill Manchin opposes is HR 1, the For the People Act, which would overhaul campaign finance rules and set uniform national standards for how elections are run – trumping 19 state laws that restrict voting by mail, and forcing states to accept a sworn statement in lieu of the IDs required by 27 states, including Texas.

The bill has cleared the Democrat-controlled House. But it’s dead on arrival in the 50-50 upper chamber, where it takes 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.

Progressives want Democrats to scrap that arcane rule. But Manchin and others reject the idea.

The Texas state lawmakers steered clear of that minefield, though U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas, insisted with Pelosi standing nearby that “we can’t allow a Senate rule to stand in the way of our democracy.”

As some of the Texas legislators schmoozed Democratic U.S. senators, a handful headed to Manchin’s office for a sit-down with aides.

“We are trying to get Manchin,” said state Rep. Gina Hinojosa of Austin. “We’re in the trenches in Texas. ... We and our constituents desperately need them to pass federal voting rights legislation.”

They didn’t get on the senator’s own calendar, though Reps. Trey Martinez Fischer of San Antonio and Jasmine Crockett of Dallas spent 45 minutes with his chief of staff and legislative director and emerged hopeful that he’ll realize that Texas’ demographics and history of voter suppression differ from West Virginia’s.

“We look forward to continuing our conversation with Sen. Manchin,” Martinez Fischer said.

Manchin’s stated objection is that the bill hasn’t attracted any GOP support. “He wants bipartisanship, but bipartisanship has broken down in this country,” said Crockett. “Some time ago. Sadly enough. On most issues of common sense.”

At the same time, Turner and Reps. Rafael Anchía of Dallas and Nicole Collier of Fort Worth, who chair the Mexican American Legislative Caucus and Texas Legislative Black Caucus, respectively, were chatting up Georgia Sens. Rafael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, before heading into the Democratic luncheon as VIP guests.

“Republican state legislatures across the country are passing the most draconian voting restrictions since the beginning of Jim Crow – intentionally disenfranchising tens of millions of Americans. Congress must take action to defend our democracy,” Schumer said afterward.

“We came here because the future of Texas voting depends on action from Congress,” Collier said.

The Texans didn’t seek meetings with their own senators, both Republicans, though they met with Cornyn aides.

Sen. Ted Cruz ducked into an elevator after the GOP’s separate lunch, ignoring reporters’ questions.

Abbott derided the Democrats’ walkout as a “stunt.”

Democrats hint they have other tactics in mind if Republicans persist in trying to undermine minority voting rights. Turner was a legislative aide 18 years ago when state lawmakers fled the state to delay an especially partisan redistricting effort.

That’s still an option, he said, but “it’s also hypothetically possible that Congress could pass strong voting rights legislation, and that Republicans in Texas would come to their senses and stop trying to suppress minority votes.”

The Texans will deliver a letter to the vice president signed by all 80 Democrats in the state House and Senate, thanking her and President Joe Biden for their outspoken opposition to SB7.

“There is no fraud” to justify the GOP crackdown on voting, said state Sen. Carol Alvarado of Houston, chair of the Democratic caucus in the Texas Senate. “It’s about as blatant as you can get.”