March 19, 2020      11:03 PM

Updated: After Abbott revealed private talks, Texas GOP and Texas Democrats spar over how to move forward with elections amid COVID-19 outbreak

What may have been good faith negotiations have devolved into partisan sniping after Gov. Abbott revealed the existence of the conversations

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include comments from Republican Party of Texas Chair James Dickey, who said he was surprised the Democrats went public with details of their meeting – SB

It would appear that private talks between the Republican Party of Texas and the Texas Democratic Party focused on how to hold elections amid the coronavirus outbreak have ended just as they were getting started. That's after Gov. Greg Abbott publicly revealed the existence of those discussions during a Facebook live event with a television station in Austin.

During that Facebook live conversation, Gov. Abbott said both parties were working to come to an agreement on how to proceed and added that his own office would likely have recommendations as soon as Friday. But the Democratic Party said Abbott’s office has not been responsive at all to their requests for a conversation about how to protect voters while holding the runoffs.

By Scott Braddock

Copyright March 19, 2020, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved