HOUSTON — The Republican-controlled Texas Legislature on Tuesday passed a major bill overhauling the state’s elections, overcoming a six-week walkout by Democrats to cement Texas as one of the most difficult states in the country in which to vote.The voting restrictions were a capstone victory in Republicans’ national push to tighten voting rules and alter the administration of elections in the wake of false claims about the integrity of the 2020 presidential contest. Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, is expected to sign the bill.The bill takes aim in particular at Harris County, a growing Democratic bastion that includes Houston and is the nation’s third most populous county. The legislation forbids balloting methods that the county introduced last year to make voting easier during the pandemic, including drive-through polling places and 24-hour voting, as well as temporary voting locations.It also bars election officials from sending voters unsolicited absentee ballot applications and from promoting the use of vote by mail. The bill greatly empowers partisan poll watchers, creates new criminal and civil penalties for poll workers and erects new barriers for those looking to help voters who need assistance, such as with translations. It requires large Texas counties — where Democrats perform better — to provide livestreaming video at ballot-counting locations.Including Texas, 18 states across the country have passed more than 30 bills this year restricting voting, one of the greatest contractions of access to the ballot since the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965. The relentless pace of these voting laws has raised pressure on Democrats in Congress, where a stalemate in a narrowly divided Senate has left them with little hope of passing federal voting legislation that would combat the new restrictions.Texas, a state with booming urban areas and demographic trends that have long been seen as favoring Democrats, already had some of the nation’s tallest barriers to casting a ballot. It has closed hundreds of polling locations since the Supreme Court gutted a key part of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, according to a report by the nonpartisan Leadership Conference Education Fund. The state already has one of the strictest voter identification laws in the country and does not permit no-excuse absentee voting by mail for voters younger than 65.Democrats, voting rights groups and civil rights leaders had furiously opposed the Texas bill, arguing that its impact would fall disproportionately on Black and Latino voters. To delay passage, more than 50 Democratic members of the State House fled the state for Washington in July, denying Republicans the necessary numbers to hold a vote. The move drew national attention and support from President Biden and Senate Democrats, whom the Texas lawmakers urged to pass federal legislation protecting voting rights.“We knew we wouldn’t be able to hold off this day forever,” Representative Chris Turner, the chairman of the House Democratic caucus, said in a statement on Tuesday. “Now that it has come, we need the U.S. Senate to act immediately.” ImageDemocrats from the Texas Legislature fled to Washington in July. Their absence prevented the State House from taking action on the voting bill for weeks. Credit...Kenny Holston for The New York TimesThe voting bill is not the only conservative measure being considered in the Texas capital. The ongoing special session, which followed a notably conservative regular legislative session earlier this year, contains a raft of proposed legislation that is possibly even more contentious.The list of bills — revived by Mr. Abbott, who faces re-election next year and, for the first time in his 25-year career in elected office, serious primary challenges from fellow Republicans — features priorities of the G.O.P.’s most staunch supporters. The measures include more money for a wall along the border with Mexico, stricter rules on how Texas schools teach about race, bans on receiving abortion drugs by mail and restrictions on transgender athletes in competitions.The Legislature is also weighing a measure to pre-empt local worker protection ordinances, an effort that would deepen the battle lines between the Republican-dominated state government and Democratic officials in Texas cities.The passage of the election bill came after an unusually bitter and unpredictable several months in the Texas Capitol.After the Democratic House members left the state, Mr. Abbott called two special sessions, one after the other. The Republican speaker of the House, Dade Phelan, issued civil warrants for the lawmakers’ arrest. Democrats took refuge first outside Texas and then, when some returned, furtively within their homes or in “undisclosed locations” in the state.OverBy: J. David Goodman, Nick Corasaniti and Reid J. Epstein
Title: Texas G.O.P. Passes Election Bill, Raising Voting Barriers Even Higher
Sourced From: www.nytimes.com/2021/08/31/us/politics/texas-voting-rights-bill.html
Published Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2021 21:19:13 +0000
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