A special session of the Texas legislature was gaveled in on Thursday, starting a period of up to 30 days in which the two chambers can tend to unfinished business as specified by Gov. Greg Abbott. Facing two primary challenges from his right flank, including one by former Texas Republican Party chair and disgraced military officer Allen West, Abbott is seeking to burnish his right-wing credentials on both major issues and culture war garbage.
At the very top of Abbott’s prescribed agenda is passing a new iteration of the racist voter suppression bill that was thwarted by a surprise walk-out by Democratic House members as the regular session came to a close in late May. Had it been passed, the final version of that bill would have created the nation’s most extreme anti-voter law, and instead of seeking some sort of compromise after more than a month of public shaming, Republicans decided to double down and introduce an even more restrictive and overtly racist bill.
SB 1 and HB 3 contain nearly all the provisions of the scuttled bill as well as a few new clauses, while one of them also includes a monthly voter purge that would undoubtedly kick people of color off of the voter registration lists. The House bill includes a clause that would make it a felony to help a third party group distribute absentee ballot applications, and both bills require voters to include a driver’s license number or social security number in their request for a mail-in ballot. The bans on drive-thru voting and 24-hour early voting are also back, while more rural (ie Republican-leaning) jurisdictions would be required to increase the number of early voting hours.
On Saturday, over 300 Texan citizens lined up in the State Senate to make public comment on the bill, from legal experts and advocates to concerned citizens; they were, for the most part, very much opposed to the proposed restrictions. The event began in the morning and stretched well past midnight, and in the many hours that I watched, Republican senators seemed disinterested in the potent mix of emotional and legal testimony. But that’s largely a testament to their nihilism, as there were some speeches that any normal human could not ignore.
This one, from a 20-year elections judge, stood out to me in particular. It demolished many of the bill’s various suppression mechanisms with logic and examples of how it would discriminate against people from all walks of life:
State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, who was a major player in that initial walkout, called this extra month of legislature the “suppression session” in conversation I had with him on Thursday evening. Geared up from a day of rallies and protests, Martinez Fischer said that Democrats wouldn’t rule out another late-night escape to break quorum if it could help their cause.
“All of our tools are on the table,” he said. “The issue of us having a quorum is embedded in our Texas constitution, so for folks who criticize our use of the quorum, the issue is really better directed at our Texas constitution, because that's a constitutional right that we have. We'll put all those tools on the table and we will use them if necessary.”
Martinez Fischer was one of a number of Texas Democrats who went to Washington, DC to meet at the Capitol with Democratic senators after the first walk-out in hopes of rallying them to meet the moment. While saying that he found a largely receptive audience for his appeals, Martinez Fischer didn’t rule out a return to DC to further prod those still unwilling to reform the filibuster in order to save voting rights.
“I'm not Pollyanna here, I can count and recognize that we are a minority party in a red Republican state that is changing,” the legislator admitted. “But unless and until that changes, we need the assistance of our federal partners and I think that the eyes of the nation continue to gaze on Texas.”
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