I remain pessimistic about this, but we have no choice but to fight.
A Texas House committee on Thursday advanced an elections bill that would make it a state jail felony for local election officials to distribute an application to vote by mail to a voter who didn’t request one.
House Bill 6 is part of a broader Republican effort this year to enact wide-ranging changes to elections in Texas that would ratchet up the state’s already restrictive election rules in the name of “election integrity” despite little to no evidence of widespread fraud. The legislation was approved by the House Elections Committee on a party line vote with only Republicans voting in favor of it.
Like other Republican proposals, the measure would target Harris County’s initiatives from the 2020 general election, including a shift to proactively send out vote-by-mail applications. Various counties sent unsolicited applications to voters who were 65 years and older, who automatically qualify to vote by mail in Texas. But Republicans’ ire fell on Harris County officials when they attempted to send applications to all 2.4 million registered voters in the county with specific instructions on how to determine if they were eligible. The Texas Supreme Court ultimately blocked that effort.
HB 6, by Republican state Rep. Briscoe Cain, would also set up new rules for people assisting voters — like those with disabilities or those who speak languages other than English — in casting their ballots. Voters can select anyone to help them through the voting process as long as they’re not an employer or a union leader. But the bill would require those helping voters to disclose the reason they need help.
The bill now heads to the House Calendars Committee, which determines whether bills make it to the full Texas House for a vote.
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The bill also picked up opposition from civil rights groups who raised the prospect that the legislation violates federal safeguards for voters of color who would be treated differently for being more likely to need assistance and concerns about the punitive nature of the bill against election workers. Advocates for people with disabilities worried it could violate the federal Americans with Disabilities Act and cautioned against complicating the voting process for voters with disabilities by creating new requirements for the individuals they select to help them.
“You can’t any longer help an elderly constituent by providing them with a mail in ballot application — this is truly incredible,” said Gary Bledsoe, president of Texas NAACP. “There’s only one reason to create criminal laws and that is to dissuade minority voters and [minority] voting officials.”
See here for the previous update. I’m going to spare myself a little work by pointing you to some other people who have done the work of highlighting how and why HB6 is just as dangerous as SB7. For example, the latest defensive maneuver by Dan Patrick and now Speaker Dade Phelan is to claim that the critics of these bills just haven’t read them, and to double-dog-dare them to point out any restictionist provisions they allegedly contain. Well, challenge accepted:
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Okay, both Dade Phelan and Dan Patrick invited us to point to places in #HB6/#SB7 where there is voter suppression.
So here’s a thread of me doing that in SB7.
First, the restriction on 24-hour voting:— Emily Eby (@emilyebytx) 12:44 PM – 08 April 2021
I presume she’ll follow with a thread for HB6, but give her a little time. Also, as a historical note, Jamelle Bouie reminds us that the Jim Crow laws of the old South never actually said they were intended to keep Black Americans from voting. They were just restrictions on voting that technically affected everyone but which the lawmakers knew and intended would have a much greater effect on Black voters (and which they could ensure via enforcement). Ignorance of history (real or feigned) is no excuse for trying to repeat it.
The real danger in these bills has to do with their elevating poll watchers into some kind of protected group. Why is that a problem? Because poll watchers are unvetted partisans, and in Texas their main role is making voters of color feel harassed:
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Today we’re releasing an alarming video of a GOP “Election Integrity Brigade” virtual launch where they detail plans to build an army of poll watchers who will have the “courage” to go into Black and Brown neighborhoodsMore: https://bit.ly/3cYIh8Q
#txlege #HB6 #SB7.
— Common Cause Texas (@CCauseTexas) 9:32 PM – 08 April 2021
What could possibly go wrong? This video has already generated some national coverage. One hopes that’s just the beginning.
Finally, while HB6 and SB7 are the big headliner voter-suppression bills, there are a lot of smaller, more targeted voter-suppression bills to watch out for as well:
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THREAD: Good morning! Starting at 8:00am the House Elections Committee will be meeting again to hear 16 election/voting bills. Below are 11 bills being heard today that we find to be problematic & why. #txlegeTune into the committee hearing at 8am here:
— Texas Civil Rights Project (@TXCivilRights) 7:46 PM – 08 April 2021
So now you know. The Texas Signal and Popular Information, which goes deep on Dan Patrick, have more.
An update to an older thread:
http://www.offthekuff.com/wp/?p=99346
The “Star Spangled Banner Protection Act” just passed the Texas Senate 28-2, meaning most every Democrat voted for this. What happened? Seems like we were mostly all against this.
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