Two Texas Democrats Who Fled State Reportedly Vacationing In Portugal

Two Texas Democrats who joined dozens of their colleagues in fleeing the state last month to prevent a vote on Republican election integrity bills in the state legislature are reportedly on vacation in Portugal.

Two Texas Democrats who joined dozens of their colleagues in fleeing the state last month to prevent a vote on Republican election integrity bills in the state legislature are reportedly on vacation in Portugal.

State Representatives Julie Johnson of Farmers Branch and Jessica González of Dallas, according to the Texas Tribune, were not in the Capitol earlier this week, and the Texas House Democratic Caucus “could not account” for their whereabouts.

Jonathan Tilove however, a reporter for Texas Monthly, tweeted that he “can confirm [Johnson] and her wife & [González] and her fiancé are in Portugal for a vacation they had been planning.”

Tilove notes that the vacation appears to have been pre-planned for “a year-and-a-half” and that the tickets are “non-refundable.”

The Tribune writes that the vacations do not affect their effort to break quorum with the Republicans “but it is at odds with Democrats’ insistence that they would use their time away to advocate for federal voting rights legislation in the nation’s capital.”

RELATED: Texas Democrats Mocked As ‘Pathetic’ After Group Solicits Care Package Items For Fleeing Lawmakers

Texas Democrats Vacationing In Portugal

Not only is news of two Texas Democrats on vacation when they’re supposedly off fighting for democracy in the nation’s capital at odds with messaging, but it is at odds with those who have portrayed their stunt as some sort of major sacrifice.

Johnson was the lawmaker who famously tweeted an image of her fellow heroes on a bus to the airport toting a case of Miller Lites.

Houston-area representative Gene Wu sought sympathy for having to eat a salad as a “fugitive.”

Rep. Donna Howard heartbreakingly revealed that she was forced to hand wash her own laundry for some reason in her $200 per night hotel.

And Representative Senfronia Thompson compared fleeing Texas to the plight of being a “slave” on the run while leading her comrades in a rousing rendition of ‘We Shall Overcome’.

RELATED: Kamala Harris Praises ‘Courage’ Of Texas Democrats Who Fled State On Private Jets

Still Begging

Even as a pair of lawmakers are vacationing in Portugal, Texas Democrats like the aforementioned Thompson are begging for financial help.

“You’re damn right that my colleagues and I left Texas to defend it,” Thompson writes in a fundraising pitch emailed to supporters Thursday morning.

“While the GOP is deadset on making it harder to vote, Democrats are hard at work defending our democracy,” the email reads before soliciting donations upwards of $100.

Read that again – “Hard at work.”

News of the vacationing Democrats also comes less than two weeks after they were mocked as “pathetic” by radio host Clay Travis when a group began soliciting care package items on their behalf.

Among the items requested were “travel toiletries.”

Interestingly enough, Gonzalez refused to confirm or deny whether or not she was partaking in a European getaway with Johnson while leaving their resistance-mates behind in D.C. to fight for democracy.

“I don’t respond to rumors,” she said in a text to the San Antonio Express-News later adding, “No one has shown proof.”

Claiming there is no proof is a really weird way of simply saying ‘No, I am not in Portugal’ if say, that was the case.

 

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Rusty Weiss has been covering politics for over 15 years. His writings have appeared in the Daily Caller, Fox... More about Rusty Weiss

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