The Alamo-like resistance of Democrats in the Texas Legislature Sunday has prevented passage — for now — of one of the most draconian vote-suppression laws in the nation. But as with the Texans in the famous Alamo battle, today's defenders of voting access are ultimately destined to defeat, with a special session on the horizon during which Republicans are certain to make voting in Texas more difficult and ensure that legitimate election results would be easier to overturn.

As similar threats to the ballot play out in red-state legislatures across America, it's past time for reinforcements from Congress, in the form of a national voting-rights bill to end these state-level assaults on democracy once and for all.

Long before he incited a mob of his supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, then-President Donald Trump was aggressively undermining faith in America's voting systems, pressing his big lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him and turning his fury on any Republican who dares deviate from that lie. It's part of the reason Republican lawmakers around the country have been busily trying to undermine their own state election systems, using Trump's false narrative of a tainted election to justify restrictions on voting times and methods. It also dovetails with a vote-suppression trend that had already been growing in the party for years as shifting demographics have made it increasingly difficult for Republicans to win legitimately.

The Texas bill that was stopped Sunday by a walkout of Democratic legislators was among the worst of this breed. It would limit early voting, absentee voting and ballot drop-boxes, all of which have been credited with increasing voter turnout among Black and lower income voters who tend to support Democrats. It would empower partisan poll-watchers, inviting voter intimidation. Most insidiously, it would lower the standard of proof of fraud in overturning election results — a scheme Trump personally attempted in other states after he lost in November.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has vowed to revive the Texas measure in a special session, where its passage would be assured. More than a dozen Republican-led states have already imposed their own new vote-restriction laws this year to promote Trump's lie and increase their own chances at the polls. More will certainly follow.

Just as race-based Jim Crow voting restrictions were never going to be reformed by the racist southern states that passed them, so today's red-state restrictions aimed at Democrats will run roughshod over democracy for as long as the rest of the nation lets them. It's crucial that Congress pass pending national legislation to set limits on the voting restrictions states can impose. Doing so wouldn't win passage in the Senate while the filibuster remains in place — which is among the strongest arguments for altering or scuttling that senseless mechanism.

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