On Tuesday, Texas House Republicans were able to push through a final version of their new voting restrictions. The bill, created during Gov. Greg Abbott’s “emergency” session, took three legislative sessions to pass. While the state faces real emergencies from the surge in COVID-19 cases, Gov. Abbott and his Republican crew spent their emergency energies on figuring out ways to suppress mostly Black and brown votes from being counted in their state.
The bill is expected to pass through the state Senate shortly and Gov. Abbott is ready to sign off on the legislation that, among other things, will:
Besides the changes listed above, the new legislation will create new voter ID requirements, a time-tested voter suppression tactic by the right wing of the country. The law also allows partisan poll-watchers the right to freely move around polling places. Many people believe this will open up in-person voting to the kinds of bigoted bullying and intimidation that places like Texas practiced in the not-too-distant past.
Also added in this bill is a “monthly citizen check,” which is basically the same thing Texas tried before and ended with the secretary of state resigning after it became clear that he was wrongly targeting Latino voters. This new legislation tries to use language that Texas was censured for when the previous bit of voter suppression ended up in a huge legal settlement with citizens whose rights were being trampled on by white Republican officials.
Finally, the new legislation will make it far more difficult to provide assistance to someone in filling out their ballot. Critics point out that this is a direct attack on citizens with disabilities.
Texas statehouse Democrats tried hard to delay and draw attention to the horrendous voting legislation rushed through by the Lone Star State’s GOP officials. They broke quorum three times, preventing the state legislature from passing the bill. They weathered having warrants sent out for their arrests, a move supported by the GOP-controlled legislative and judicial branches of Texas. Democrat state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer told news outlets that Democrats would "shift our focus from lawmaking to litigating" while still hoping a more serious federal voting rights act would get passed.