Texas GOP targets more voting restrictions
Bills include limiting mail-in ballots, curbing governor’s power on changing election law
AUSTIN — As the country’s political polarization reaches a boiling point — illustrated vividly Wednesday by the violent takeover of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of the president who believed his false claims that the election was stolen — Texas Republicans are seeking to make some of the nation’s strictest voting laws even stricter.
They say the unrest sparked by the events Wednesday is likely to invigorate discussions over the matter in the state Legislature, where the 2021 session will begin Tuesday.
Several election-related bills have been filed by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle — though their aims are in direct opposition, with Democrats looking to ease up laws they see as suppressing the vote and Republicans trying to curb the opportunities for the fraud they say plagued the 2020 election.
Democrats have filed about two-thirds of the election-related bills, with the other third coming from Republicans.
“If this week has highlighted anything, it’s that we need to protect and encourage democracy and that it’s fragile,” said Rep. John Bucy III, an Austin Democrat who sits on the House Elections Committee. “And so these types of bills are worth the investment.”
Election integrity was voted one of the Texas GOP’s top eight legislative priorities in 2020 by its members. Republican bills include measures to tighten mail voting restrictions and stop governors from changing election laws during disasters, two concerns that President Donald Trump raised in his election challenges.
Leading Texas Republicans such as Attorney General Ken Paxton have warned of mass voter fraud for years but have not produced any evidence of the phenomenon. Paxton’s election integrity unit resolved just 16 minor prosecutions in 2020 despite spending nearly twice as much time on voter fraud cases as in 2018. All of those cases involved voters using false addresses on registration forms.
State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, RHouston, filed legislation that would codify a Texas Supreme Court decision that blocked Harris County froms ending mail ballot applications to every registered voter in the county ahead of the November election. Texas is one of 16 states that require voters to have an excuse to vote by mail.
Bettencourt said Harris County’s move to mail the applications “would have certainly caused more voter confusion” because most recipients would not have been eligible for an absentee ballot. The state Supreme Court ruled last year that voters’ lack of immunity to the coronavirus alone does not qualify as a disability that makes them eligible to vote by mail, but could be one of several factors a voter may consider.
Other bills filed by Republican lawmakers aim to correct the voter rolls, such as one filed by newly elected Sen. Drew Springer that would require voter registrars to do various checks for changes in address on an annual basis.
Springer said the bill was inspired by an Ohio law that the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018 upheld that allows the state to purge voters from the registration rolls if they do not return a mailed address confirmation form or don’t vote for two federal election cycles. The Texas billwould require registrars to use data from the U.S. Postal Service and property records for inactive voters to identify possible changes of address, then to send the notice requesting confirmation of their current residence.
“We’ve got people that moved away 40 years ago, but they’re still on the rolls,” Springer said, adding that gives people looking to vote fraudulently in someone else’s name more opportunities. “It’s an integrity issue. Everybody I know of, Republicans and Democrats, want to know that we have fair elections where no one’s vote is canceled out by someone who’s not supposed to be voting.”
Echoing Trump’s concerns
GOP lawmakers are also setting out to resolve an issue that has put some of them at odds with Republican Gov. Greg Abbott: the essentially unrestrained emergency powers that the governor holds to temporarily change election laws once he’s declared a disaster.
U.S. Reps. Michael Cloud and Pat Fallon of Texas both cited the lack of state Legislature approval of election rule changes on Wednesday when they voted to object to the certification of votes in Arizona.
For that reason, state Rep. Steve Toth, R-The Woodlands, is proposing a constitutional amendment that requires the governor to convene a special session of the Legislature in order to renew a state of disaster or emergency declaration past 30 days. The Legislaturewould then decide whether to extend or renew the declaration, as well as whether to pass legislation related to the disaster.
“HJR 42 restores the balance of power that existed before the Texas Disaster Act of 1975 was exploited during COVID-19 to give the executive branch unprecedented power over small businesses,” Toth said in a statement. “Here’s the problem: If you don’t like the governor’s COVID-19 orders, I have to wait until January of the next odd-numbered year to stop them. The governor isn’t going to call a special session for me to stop his orders before then. And judges won’t give me standing to use the courts to stop the governor because, again, the Legislature is not in session. I know; I’ve tried.”
Dems push back
Democrats, meanwhile, are hoping to find bipartisan support on a number of bills that would open up voting laws and push back against what they see as voter suppression.
Bucy and other Democrats have proposed bills that enable voters to register and cast ballots at the same time as 21 other states do; make Election Day a state holiday; and expand vote-by-mail to all registered voters, as 34 other states have done. Democrats also continue to file bills to establish online voter registration in Texas, one of only 10 states that do not permit it.
Bucy admitted some of the Democrats’ proposals may be an uphill battle, but he said others focused on transparency may be less contentious. One example is a bill that would require counties to create mail ballot tracking systems that show when the ballot application has been received and when the ballot has been sent out and received.
“I honestly would have been more optimistic until the president decided to make this a fake issue with no evidence or substance,” Bucy said about his bill that would allow all Texans to vote by mail if they choose. “Maybe with what’s happened in the last few days, people will take a good look and not take him at his word anymore. Hopefully there’s a shot.”
Rep. Christina Morales, DHouston, has also filed legislation that would make all registered voters eligible to vote by mail, along with another proposal that would permanently expand the early voting period by four days.
Texans had a taste of what that would be like last year after Abbott expanded the early voting period by about a week during the July runoff and November general elections to make it safer to vote during the pandemic.
“I represent a working- class community,” Morales said. “And themore days we have, the more opportunities there are and the more flexibility there is for people to vote.”
“It’s an integrity issue. Everybody I know of, Republicans and Democrats, want to know that we have fair elections where no one’s vote is canceled out by someone who’s not supposed to be voting.”
Sen. Drew Springer