One corrupt, vote-suppressing Republican state official gone, way too many to go. Texas Secretary of State David Whitley resigned Monday following the success of the state's Senate Democrats blocking his confirmation, which required a two-thirds majority. The legislative session ended on Monday, and just before the closing gavel came down, Whitely submitted his letter of resignation to Gov. Greg Abbott, "effective immediately."
Whitley is only out because his voter-suppression technique was so "ham-handed," as noted by the federal judge who blocked the effort. Whitely had identified and purged nearly 100,000 voter registrations from a list compiled by various state agencies of people who had at some time identified themselves as noncitizens, the vast majority of whom had been naturalized before they registered. The state was sued by numerous voting rights groups, was forced to settle, and has scrapped the flawed list entirely. As part of the settlement, it is also coordinating with Latino voting and civil rights rights groups to make sure this doesn't happen again.
Whitley's resignation letter didn't mention any of this. "To have your trust," Whitley wrote to Abbott, "goes beyond what I ever dreamed of as a kid growing up in a small South Texas community." He also has the trust of Donald Trump, who didn't just tout Whitley's claims, but exaggerated them. "58,000 non-citizens voted in Texas, with 95,000 non-citizens registered to vote," he tweeted in January, saying that was just "the tip of the iceberg" in "rampant" voter fraud.