The oldest civil rights organization in the United States is stepping up to protect any of the Texas House Democrats who might get arrested for effectively blocking the state’s racist proposed election bill from being enacted into law.

Rachel Scott of ABC News reported that the said it would uphold the late Georgia Congressman John Lewis’ concept of “good trouble” by offering to bail out any of the dozens of House Democrats in Texas who walked out of the legislature’s chamber on Monday to prevent a vote on election restrictions from taking place.

“War has been declared on democracy, and we will support anyone who stands up to defend it,” NAACP President said. “We are fully invested in good trouble.”

Texas House Democrats staged a coordinated walk out of the chamber on Monday before they boarded a plane and headed to Washington, D.C., to hold a news conference on voting rights outside the U.S. Capitol.

The move in Texas was the latest example of Democrats walking out during a state legislature session in order to thwart a vote on the Republican-led restrictive election laws around the country that are increasingly — and intentionally — making it harder to vote.

Johnson made the generous offer after the Texas chair of the House Administration Committee, a Republican, on Tuesday ordered a motion requiring all state legislators to return immediately for the vote, the Texas Tribune reported. The motion passed, authorizing “the sergeant at arms, or officers appointed by him” to “send for all absentees … under warrant of arrest if necessary.”

There must be at least two-thirds of the 150-member chamber in Texas in order to hold a vote.

It’s unclear what the next move from Texas House Democrats will be.

Johnson tweeted on Tuesday morning his support for Texas House Democrats, who he suggested would have made John Lewis proud.

“The Texas legislature’s efforts to silence the voices of its own constituents is an assault on our most fundamental values,” Johnson tweeted. “This is a dark time, a time for good trouble, as John Lewis would say. The Texas lawmakers who fled the state are demonstrating necessary, good trouble.”

He added in a separate tweet later: “We will not stand idly by as partisan politicians dismantle our system, oppress our voices and suppress our votes. People have fought and died for the sacred right to vote. This is a time of crisis. Our constitution is being tested, and we need all hands on deck.”

The NAACP’s offer to Texas House Democrats came as President  was delivering a national address about voting rights. While Biden rightfully called out Republicans’ roles in proposing laws that make it harder to vote locally and nationally, critics were not pleased that the president never once mentioned the possibility of eliminating the , something he once called a “Jim Crow relic.”

He did, however, refer to the Republican-led voting restrictions as a “21st century Jim Crow assault.”

Responding to Biden’s speech and the need Texas House Democrats felt to walk out in order to avoid the inevitable Republican-led voting laws in their state, CNN analyst — noting that Democrats control both chambers of Congress and the White House — wondered what message Democrats were sending their voters by not forcing their legislation into law.

“If we gave you the majority and you’re not going to do anything, why does [voting] matter?” Sellers asked on the air.

used the filibuster last month to block the  from even being debated, let alone being voted on. Doing so effectively allowed Republicans to continue enacting restrictive election laws in their states across the country with impunity.

Days later, the Department of Justice sued Georgia for knowingly passing a racist voting law that “particularly” affects Black people. The lawsuit targets the State of Georgia, the Georgia Secretary of State and the Georgia State Election Board for their roles in passing a law that makes it harder to vote in areas from which voters cast ballots that secured the number of electoral college votes needed for Biden to win and  to lose.

Several provisions in Georgia’s new law limit voter participation by requiring those voting by  to submit a copy of their ID, reduces the locations and use of secure drop boxes, prohibits the use of mobile voting to ease long lines and allows for state takeover of local boards of election.

The DOJ’s lawsuit suggests there will be more for any of the more than a dozen other states that have enacted at least 20 new laws that make it harder to vote.

There was a bit of irony at play in Texas, where , a Black woman, famously got arrested and sentenced to five years in prison for voting. On Tuesday, Republicans were threatening to arrest Democrats for not voting.

#Democrat Trenton Mayor Tony Mack convicted of bribery, fraud, extortion and money laundering. #CultureOfCorruption pic.twitter.com/zKqaBO6pFg

— jw (@williamsjdjr)

2. Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick

3. Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin

4. Former U.S. Rep. William Jefferson

5. Alice Marie Johnson

6. Stephanie George

Hey folks! Stephanie George was released from prison after 17 yrs. President Obama commuted her unjust life sentence. pic.twitter.com/GbmN6JPwzU

— 3ChicsPolitico (@3ChicsPolitico)

7. Donel Clark

8. Clarence Aaron

9. Alton Mills

Black People Who Got More Prison Time Than Michael Avenatti For Doing Less

Source: Spencer Platt / Getty

UPDATED: 7:45 p.m. ET, July 8, 2021

Originally published March 8, 2019

Michael Avenatti, the disgraced lawyer who was convicted for trying to extort Nike out of millions of dollars and still faces similar, separate charges for trying to do the same thing to one of his own clients, porn star Stormy Daniels, was effectively given a slap on the wrist when he was sentenced on Thursday for his admitted crimes.

A judge openly said he was showing mercy to Avenatti by only sentencing him to two-and-a-half years in what will most likely be a minimum-security, white-collar prison. It was the polar opposite type of prison sentence — and correctional facilities — that Black people convicted of lesser crimes are rarely if ever assigned.

Washington Post reporter Devlin Barrett live-tweeted about the sentencing hearing and reported that U.S. District Judge Paul G. Gardephe described Avenatti’s crimes in the worst of terms, suggesting the lawyer could be given 9-11 years behind bars as federal guidelines recommend.

“Mr. Avenatti’s conduct was outrageous. He hijacked his clients’ claims and he used those claims to further his own agenda which was to extort millions of dollars from Nike for himself,” Gardephe said in court before adding: “Mr. Avenatti had become drunk on the power of his platform or what he perceived the power of his platform to be. He had become someone who operated as if the laws and rules which apply to everyone else didn’t apply to him.”

But Gardephe lamented on the bench that Avenatti’s fellow celebrity lawyer Mark Geragos did not get criminally charged. Geragos is equally guilty of extorting Nike, Gardephe suggested. And because Geragos was not charged, Gardephe reasoned, Avenatti, who was reportedly weeping at his sentencing, should not face the harshest punishment.

Geragos “suffered no consequences as a result of his conduct and he was a central figure in the criminal conduct,” Gardephe said, adding later: “It would not be justice for Mr. Avenatti to be sentenced to a 9 to 11 year term of imprisonment when Mr. Geragos was not even charged.”

Imagine getting that kind of a prison sentence for a felony and not even snitching!

It was reminiscent of Paul Manafort’s punishment for mortgage fraud, conspiracy and other counts that put the political operative above the country he was charged with serving. Donald Trump’s crony and former presidential campaign chairman only got just seven-and-a-half years in prison despite federal guidelines calling for a 24-year sentence. His conviction stemmed from Special Counsel Robert Mueller‘s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Crystal Mason, middle, convicted for illegal voting and sentenced to five years in prison, sits at the defense table at Tim Curry Justice Center in Fort Worth, Texas, on May 25, 2018. | Source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram / Getty

In December, Trump pardoned Manafort, but not before he had the privilege of being released early from federal prison to home confinement in May because of COVID-19 concerns.

The Washington Post published a report in 2017 detailing how Black men are sentenced to more prison time for the same crime that white people commit. According to NPR, “the average sentence is nearly 20 percent longer for black men than white men.”

And the disparity doesn’t only exist among men, as shown with the case of Crystal Mason, a Black woman in Texas who got a five-year prison sentence for the offense of voting in an election.

Similar to with Avenatti, U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis, a white man, expressed some sympathy for Manafort, a Republican operative and consultant who has political roots in the highest levels of politics including working for the presidential campaigns of Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.

“He’s lived an otherwise blameless life,” Ellis said of Manafort’s offenses, adding that he’s “earned the admiration of a number of people.”

All of which leads us to highlight the following examples of Black people who got harsher sentences for doing less than the Avenattie the extortionist.