Friends,
Join me on Saturday at the Texas State Capitol to march for voting rights. Texas is now Ground Zero for voting rights nationally. We'll all get a chance to listen to music legend Willie Nelson who is opposing Republican efforts to limit voting rights. It's going to be fun. Bring water and wear a cap to protect yourselves from the sun.
I'll plan to head over around 9AM. See y'all soon.
-Angela Valenzuela
#StopVoterSuppression
#VotingRights
Willie Nelson concert to cap voting rights march, rally at Capitol in downtown Austin
Music legend Willie Nelson will perform Saturday morning at a voting rights rally at the Capitol, lending his name once again to the side opposing Republican efforts to pass legislation affecting the way Texas conducts voting and elections.
Nelson's concert will help cap a four-day voting rights march that began Wednesday morning with a Georgetown-to-Round Rock leg, then picked up again Thursday morning with about a 10-mile walk into North Austin that was joined by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the political activist and former Democratic presidential candidate.
Patterned after the Selma-to-Birmingham trek in Alabama that helped define the civil rights movement in 1965, the march will end at the Capitol for a Saturday rally scheduled to begin at 10 a.m.
More:March from Georgetown to Texas Capitol inspired by events in Selma
Nelson announced Thursday that he will add his guitar and voice to the rally because he believed Republican-backed election legislation was punitive and unnecessary.
"It is important that we ensure the right for every American to vote and vote safely," he said in a statement. "Laws making it more difficult for people to vote are un-American and are intended to punish poor people, people of color, the elderly and disabled — why?"
Most business at the Capitol has been halted since July 12, when more than 50 Democrats traveled to Washington to block passage of election legislation by denying the Texas House the 100 members needed to make quorum during a special session that ends Aug. 7.
A day after the Democrats decamped, Nelson urged donors to support them by contributing to a fund set up by Democrat Beto O'Rourke's group, Powered by People.
"Let’s jump in there and fight back now, come on," Nelson said in a short online video, joined by his wife, Annie Nelson.
The Nelsons promised to match $5,000 in donations, and the effort raised more than $600,000 to help pay the Democrats' costs in Washington, organizers said.
More:From John Lennon to Willie Nelson, repairing and building guitars for all the greats
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