Voter ID law to see change
SB 5 would allow for use of outdated, approved documents
AUSTIN — After a six-hour debate, the Texas House voted Tuesday to overhaul the state’s 2011 voter ID law, among the strictest in the nation, but not before adding major changes to the Senate-backed legislation that has emerged as one of the top priorities for lawmakers in the session’s last week.
A legal challenge from Democrats is likely if the bill clears the Legislature, as expected, and is signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott.
While the House debated voter ID, the Senate moved ahead on passage of dozens of pieces of legislation Tuesday and negotiations continued on several key pieces of legislation still bottled up by controversy, including a major property tax reform measure and the so-called “bathroom bill.”
The Senate is planning to reject the House-approved wording and will ask to go to conference to work out a final version. The danger in that is the House will claim the Senate broke the deal on compromise wording.
As approved by the House on a 95-54 vote, Senate Bill 5 would allow a voter to present an outdated ID from a list of approved doc-
uments if it has been expired no longer than four years. The Senate version includes a twoyear limit. However, no similar time limit applies to voters who are at least 70 years old; they would be able to use an acceptable form of ID so long as the document was otherwise valid.
The Senate bill also would allow a person to cast a ballot if they present alternate identification, such as a current utility bill or bank statement showing their name and address, but they must sign a declaration stating they faced a reasonable impediment to obtaining an approved ID.
SB 5 lists seven factors as impediments, including lack of transportation, a lost or stolen photo ID, a disability or an illness. Voters would be subject to prosecution if they make false statements on the declaration form, which the Senate version makes a third-degree felony punishable by two to 10 years in prison and a fine. The House voted to change the penalty to a Class A misdemeanor.
Finding middle ground
The bill’s House sponsor, GOP Rep. Phil King of Weatherford, also accepted a Democratic amendment to prohibit an election officer from refusing to accept documentation solely because the address on it does not match the address on the list of registered voters.
The House’s changes to Senate Bill 5 could cause some heartburn in the Senate, which now must decide whether to accept them or request a conference committee to iron out differences. King, who likely would be appointed to such a committee, said he would “do my best to represent the House” when a Democrat asked him about the fate of the seven amendments that senators could demand be stripped from the bill.
“I hope today we’ve made the bill a little better than when we started,” King said, later adding that the changes, if approved, will be debated in court immediately. “This bill is going to be before a court the day it is signed by the governor.”
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the Senate’s presiding officer, said SB 5 was a must-pass bill before the legislature adjourns Monday. In a rare Sunday night order last weekend, Gov. Greg Abbott named it an emergency item to allow lawmakers to take up the bill immediately.
In recent days, Republican leaders have scrambled to revive the bill, which many thought was stalled for good. There were growing fears that ending the session without addressing court rulings that found the voter ID law was too restrictive and discriminated against minority voters could jeopardize the state’s arguments to the contrary.
Last year, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled state lawmakers discriminated against minority voters when they passed the bill. In April, U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos went further in her ruling, declaring that legislators intentionally discriminated to keep primarily Latino and African American voters from casting ballots. Ramos has scheduled the next hearing in the case June 7, when she will decide how to proceed with the litigation.
Given their string of losses and the upcoming hearing, some Republicans feared inaction could lead to a court forcing Texas back under preclearance, or requiring the state to get federal approval before making any election law changes, four years after the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Shelby v. Holder undid the supervision.
King said the bill was the legislature’s attempt to bring the voter ID law into compliance with Ramos’s opinion.
“The concern is that if we do not do this — which is simply codifying the Ramos intermediate court decision that we had the last election under — we could quite possibly see any kind of voter ID struck from Texas law by being permanently enjoined,” King said. “What I’m hoping to do is to take what is current state law and conform it to the interim order.”
Democrats, who long have argued GOP lawmakers passed the voter ID law to burden minority voters at the polls, disputed King’s assessment of the bill. They argued SB 5 does not address discriminatory concerns in the judge’s ruling.
“This bill does not mirror the order,” said Rep. Chris Turner, a Democrat from Grand Prairie.
“It’s very close,” King responded.
An ‘archaic’ system
Democrats offered several amendments, many of which the Republican majority soundly defeated, that would have loosened SB 5’s requirements, including shielding voters from prosecution for unknowingly providing faulty information on the declaration form.
“Folks are not going to vote because they fear they are going to break the law,” said Rep. Ramon Romero, a Fort Worth Democrat, adding that many voters in his Latino-majority district are not fluent in English and have to trust interpreters when they fill out government forms.
King said, “If it was just an accident, then they’re not guilty of an offense.”
Before the vote, Rep. Helen Giddings, a Democrat from DeSoto, said the House’s rushed action Tuesday will do nothing to eliminate voting barriers for Texans that opponents claim were created by the law.
“This body has made a habit of making it hard for our constituents to vote,” Giddings said. “Our voter registration system is archaic and is intentionally inefficient. Why are we not ashamed of this?”
In other legislative developments:
• Little more than a year after an 11-year-old boy was stabbed while walking home from school in the Northside neighborhood, the Texas House approved a bill that would allow school districts to spend money on programs to make sure kids get there safe.
The House voted 96-52 to give tentative approval to Senate Bill 195 late Tuesday night, allowing school districts to apply for state funding to help transport children who live within two miles of school but must travel through an area with a high risk of violence.
The bill nearly died in the chamber after the GOP-led body voted against an initial amendment to the bill. The chamber later voted in favor of the legislation after Public Education Chairman Dan Huberty, R-Humble, urged his fellow Republicans to change their minds.
“If you want to vote against this bill, basically what your’e saying is that the child doesn’t matter,” he said on the floor.
The bill would allow schools to use funding to support community walking transportation programs, like a walking school bus program. The measure, which needs a final approval by the House Wednesday and another vote by the Senate, follows the 2016 murder of Josué Flores who was walking home from Marshall Middle after staying late for Science Club year-end party.
• Capitalizing on outrage over “food shaming” in Texas schools, the Feeding Texas food bank is launching a campaign asking the public to help pay down school lunch tabs that parents of poor students are unable to pay off.
It’s part of a effort sparked by the Texas House derailing legislation earlier this month that would have granted a twoweek grace period to children without money on their lunch accounts while schools reach out to parents to make the account current. Children who run out of money are given a sandwich or cereal instead of the lunch being served to other students.
More than 78,000 students in the Houston area collectively owed more than $673,000 for unpaid meals, the Chronicle reported last month. Only four of 32 school districts surveyed did not serve different food to students who ran out of money on their accounts.