I can’t think of a good answer to that, but the man himself is going to try.
Still the only voter ID anyone should need
Acting Secretary of State David Whitley, whose confirmation has been stalled in the Texas Senate after a controversial advisory from his office questioned the citizenship of nearly 100,000 voters, has asked to meet with Senate Democrats following a settlement agreement that rescinded and re-worked the advisory on Friday.
Sen. José Rodriguez, a Democrat from El Paso who leads the chamber’s Democratic caucus, said Whitley asked to meet with the caucus on Tuesday. Rodriguez said he was polling the caucus to see if any member had an objection to Whitley attending the caucus meeting. The caucus meets on a regular basis during the session.
“Obviously, he wants to talk about the settlement agreement,” Rodriguez said. “For me, it doesn’t change anything.”
In a statement, the secretary of state’s office said: “Secretary Whitley welcomes the opportunity to meet with the Texas Senate Democratic Caucus to discuss the settlement agreement and voter registration list maintenance going forward. He looks forward to addressing the concerns of the Caucus and receiving feedback on ways to enhance access to the ballot box in Texas.”
[…]
Advocacy groups are pressuring Senate Democrats to block his confirmation. On Monday, 22 groups including several that participated in the lawsuit against Whitley, sent a letter to the caucus urging them to vote against his confirmation.
“While we are grateful that the legal challenges to Mr. Whitley’s actions have been resolved, the settlement does not let Mr. Whitley off the hook for his decision to target tens of thousands of naturalized Americans for disenfranchisement and wrongful criminal prosecution,” the letter read.
“Texans deserve better than Mr. Whitley. Public service is a privilege, not a right, and there are a number of other qualified people that the Governor can appoint to this position,” the letter read. “We ask you to continue to block Mr. Whitley’s confirmation, so that we as a State can turn the page on the Whitley scandal and continue to have faith in our elections system.”
Several Senators are quoted in the story, all of whom reconfirm their No votes. It would take two Dems to change their minds for Whitley to have a chance, and I just can’t think of any reason for that. Whitley has yet to demonstrate that he understands why people objected so strongly to the purge effort – he has yet to demonstrate that he understands why people called it a “purge” – and on top of that he’s just straight up bad at this job. We’ve seen plenty of SOSes over the years, and none I can think of have been this controversial. Greg Abbott can surely find another crony with less baggage to install for this post.
Also, too:
The lawsuit settlement over the voter list might comfort some Democrats, but why would Texas Senate Democrats help @GregAbbott_TX with his Secretary of State after @DanPatrick denied them a seat at the table in budget talks? Isn’t *all* this about representation? #TxLege
— Scott Braddock (@scottbraddock) 3:25 PM – 29 April 2019
I’m not opposed to a little horse-trading, but the first horse on offer needs to be one of theirs. The Chron, which quotes some other Senators and suggests that online and/or same day voter registration would be a good horse to swap for Whitley support, has more.
Dems and Pubs have a legitimate reason to vote against him. His only way forward is to start coming up with actual non citizens who have registered and voted illegally. If he doesn’t do that, then he needs to go. It really shouldn’t be that hard.
Name specific people. Isolate them. Personalize it. These are the people who illegally registered to vote, these people right here. If he can’t do that, he should just slink away quietly, and Abbott and Co. should insist that he slink away.
It’s put up or shut up time, Whitley!
So Bill,
Do you think that Abbott should also slime away unless he can put up or shut up about the “rampant” in-person voter fraud that he has been lying about for years, yet he has not produced a single bit of evidence to support his claim.
Also, the previous SOS of Texas refused to reveal any information on the matter.
@Brad:
No, Abbott doesn’t need to back up from that. Voter fraud is our rallying cry, just like ‘conservatives are racist’ is the left’s rallying cry. You’re not going to start admitting that conservatives aren’t racist, and we aren’t going to stop talking about voter fraud. We are both playing to our base.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0s-9Q_N09H0
Except only one of those things is true.
Bill,
I know you, Abbot and Republicans are not going to stop lying about non-existent voter fraud. I get that. Republicans are the Ant Hill party now. Kick over the ant hill and get the ants riled up.
Not sure what your babbling about “conservatives are racist” is about. I am talking about our state’s top elected public servant consistently lying about an non-existent election plague.
You know that there was only 2 prosecutions for in-person voter fraud in Texas in the decade before the voter ID law was passed. https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/debunking-voter-fraud-myth
Feel free to provide any evidence of in-person voter ID fraud that supports Abbott’s false claims.
Crickets…just as I suspected.