Reject Whitley

Scandal-plagued secretary of state deserves a ‘No’ vote from confirmation committee.

Normally, we wouldn’t weigh in on a confirmation hearing for a gubernatorial pick to a low-profile office in Austin.

This year, we’ll not only weigh in on David Whitley’s appointment to the office of Texas secretary of state. We’ll recommend a loud and resounding: NO.

Whitley was named in December and his short tenure in the obscure and nominally nonpartisan office has been tarnished by a civil rights scandal that garnered national attention and condemnation. Texans deserve an official they can trust to oversee elections across the state. Gov. Greg Abbott, too, deserves an appointee whose every move won’t be justifiably second-guessed. Our state isn’t lacking for Republican politicos who could serve in this role. The governor should simply replace Whitley with a qualified candidate so we can all move on.

The crisis of confidence began when, after only five weeks on the job, Whitley’s office released an advisory to local election administrators claiming that 95,000 noncitizens were improperly registered as voters and should be removed from the rolls. This report seemed to confirm the suspicions of Republican politicians who have crusaded against the spectre of illegal voting for years, with little to show for it. . President Trump pounced on cue, railing on Twitter about “95,000 non-citizens registered to vote.” Just one problem: It wasn’t true. Whitley calculated the 95,000 number by counting registered voters who, at some point, had told the Texas Department of Public Safety they were not citizens when obtaining a driver’s license or ID. But here’s a funny fact about life in Texas: People can become citizens after legally obtaining a driver license.

Thousands upon thousands of Texans do that every year — and plenty of those new citizens registered to vote and cast ballots in the 2018 election.

That’s why the secretary of state’s office began backtracking almost immediately after releasing its memo. Turns out that roughly 20,000 names were wrongly added. The list included duplicate names and people who had properly become naturalized citizens. In Harris County alone, more than 60 percent of the listed names were quickly tossed out, and that stat keeps growing.

This kind of public failure wouldn’t be tolerated in the private sector, and it falls on the Senate Nominations Committee to ensure we don’t accept it in Texas government.

A litany of civil rights organizations and individual voters have lined up to sue Whitley and the county officials who acted on his wrongful report. They allege state officials violated the Voting Rights Act and 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, including claims that the list unconstitutionally burdened minority groups. At a time when symbols of discrimination are being removed from the Texas Capitol, our elected officials should aim similar scrutiny at actions with an actual discriminatory effect.

Whitley’s list wasn’t ready for public consumption and yet he released it anyway. The seven senators on the Nominations Committee tasked with assessing the secretary of state’s fitness can only come to one of two conclusions:

Either Whitley had not properly checked his work, recklessly releasing an inaccurate product in a manner unworthy of his office.

Or, he knew exactly what he was doing and purposefully fanned the flames of partisan conspiracy theory about noncitizens fraudulently voting en masse. Neither should be tolerated. Nor should such antics be excused as as politics as usual.

We know the governor is capable of appointing a competent elections chief who approaches the duties fairly. Rolando Pablos, an Abbott appointee whom Whitley replaced, dedicated himself to ensuring that high school officials were following state law and registering young Texans to vote. Carlos Cascos, also appointed by Abbott, told Texas Monthly recently that Whitley’s list should be rescinded entirely.

Both men appear to share a respect for new voters, which should come as no surprise. Both were born in Mexico.

It’s unclear how much damage Whitely has done with his ill-conceived scheme, whether it will have a chilling effect on voter registration or scare registered voters away from the polls. Abbott and other Republican leaders should also contemplate the political effects of such ploys. Those ambitious, patriotic Americans-by-choice who once filled Republican ranks may feel their role in the Grand Old Party reduced to little more than scapegoat.

Democrats on the Senate Nominations Committee — including Houston’s Borris Miles and Carol Alvarado — have partisan reasons to vote ‘no’ on Whitley. Republicans have strong reason as well: to protect Texans’ right to vote from bureaucratic threat. It will only take one Republican to cross over. We’d like to see state Sen. Lois Kolkhost, for instance, stand up for her constituents in a diverse and growing Fort Bend County.

There’s a place for politics. It’s not in the voting booth, and it’s not at the secretary of state’s office. Any state official seriously concerned about the integrity of our voting system should require integrity in the person appointed to oversee it.