Dems try to dilute GOP voting restrictions

Democrats in the Texas House were preparing to launch a barrage of amendments late Thursday, seeking to chip away at a voting bill they have denounced as suppression, during a debate that went into the evening hours.

Civil rights groups and dozens of U.S. corporations have also condemned the legislation, putting Texas Republicans in the national spotlight as they push to become the latest of a string of GOP-dominated legislatures to tighten restrictions at the polls.

State Rep. Briscoe Cain, RDeer Park, author of House Bill 6, denied that it would have a disproportionate effect on minority voters, as Democrats have warned.

“This bill is designed to protect all voters,” Cain said. “I don’t think this is voter suppression; I think this is voter enhancement.”

After former President Donald Trump spent years falsely claiming that widespread voter fraud exists, Republicans in

nearly every state have introduced bills looking to restrict voting access, marking what could be the most exhaustive rollback of voting access in over a century. Georgia, Iowa and Florida were among the first to pass bills into law within the last month.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has made the bill an emergency item this session, even as he admits he is unaware of any fraud that occurred in the 2020 election. So has Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, also a Republican, who has said his chamber’s bill is “about voter security, not about voter suppression” and accused opponents of being a “nest of liars.”

Protests

The debate comes after more than 50 companies and business organizations, including American Airlines, Microsoft Corp. and HP Inc., released an open letter Tuesday condemning “any changes that would restrict eligible voters’ access to the ballot.”

That same day, 175 business leaders, including 10 members of the influential Greater Houston Partnership, sent a letter to House Speaker Dade Phelan opposing key provisions of the bills.

Protesters, dressed in all black, crowded into the Capitol rotunda Thursday morning with signs with images of obstacle courses that read, “voting shouldn’t be an obstacle to democracy” as they chanted, “Say no to HB 6!” Almost a dozen civil rights groups plan to hold rallies in Austin and Houston on Saturday to oppose the restrictions.

As the bill was introduced Thursday, Democrats took every opportunity to extend their time and ask questions before beginning on amendments. At one point, Rep. Jessica González, D-Dallas, a fellow member of the elections committee, asked Cain for the purpose of the bill, given that there has been no proof of pervasive voter fraud in 2020.

“What are we trying to fix here that is not broken?” she asked.

“I happen to believe that we don’t need to wait for bad things to happen to try to protect and secure our elections, and make sure this is a process that everyone is following,” Cain said.

Later, Rep. Rafael Anchía, another Democrat from Dallas, asked why Cain used the phrase “purity of the ballot box” and whether he knew about that term’s racist history dating back to the time of Jim Crow laws.

“I was not aware of that,” Cain said. “I guess I thought ‘purity’ meaning not having fraud.”

When Cain said he would be OK with replacing the word with “integrity,” Anchía said he asked because “language is important” and might “reflect on one’s intent.”

It’s unclear how much of the House and Senate versions will make it into the final bill.

The paths of the two major Republican priority measures merged last month when Cain, in a strategic procedural move, added the language of the House bill into that of the Senate bill. Senate Bill 7 had already passed the Senate in early April, while House Bill 6 has lagged.

When the two chambers pass different versions of a bill, a temporary committee of members meets to reconcile the differences. Cain’s move will allow the text of both bills to be fair game during that process. Democrats have decried that it will mean a lack of public input on the final version.

“They are trying to basically merge House Bill 6 and Senate Bill 7 in this shady Frankenstein situation,” said Rose Clouston, director of voter protection for the Texas Democratic Party. “Then behind closed doors, Republicans can consider the worst parts of both bills and combine them together.”

Bills differ

The bills varied greatly: The Senate bill, the more extensive of the two, would clamp down on voting expansions debuted by Harris County in 2020 for greater convenience during the pandemic, such as overnight and drive-thru voting.

It called for narrowing early voting hours, banning drive-thru voting and limiting the number of polling places in the state’s largest counties, which are mostly led by Democrats and made up of large numbers of minority voters.

Meanwhile, the original House bill didn’t touch on any of that and primarily focused on creating and raising criminal penalties for election officials who make errors and others who commit fraud.

Both bills would also give greater power to partisan poll watchers, including a controversial provision in the Senate bill that allows them to record disabled voters receiving legally permitted assistance if they believe they’re witnessing fraud.

San Antonio Congressman Joaquin Castro, during a news conference, said the bills represent a thinly veiled attempt by Republicans to hold onto their power and urged Texans to speak up against them.

“The response to more competitive elections in Texas by the Republican Party has been to try to stop people who disagree with them from voting,” Castro said. “That’s the Republican Party of Texas, and quite honestly, it’s the Republican Party across the country.”