AUSTIN, Texas (CN) — A Democratic state senator's 15-hour filibuster of a Republican-backed bill that would reshape elections in Texas could not prevent its inevitable passage in the GOP-controlled chamber.
Senator Carol Alvarado, D-Houston, began speaking against the bill at 5:50 p.m. Wednesday and did not finish until Thursday morning. During her time speaking, she was not allowed to eat, drink, use the restroom, lean on her desk or speak off-topic, as doing so would have resulted in the end of her filibuster.
Soon after she relinquished her time on the floor, the Texas Senate voted along party lines to pass the bill.
The bill now goes to the state House of Representatives, where it can be debated but cannot yet be voted on because the chamber still lacks quorum due to Democrats refusing to show up. The standoff has lasted over a month.
Eight years ago, during a special session in the summer of 2013, the Texas Senate was the site of another memorable filibuster made by former state Senator Wendy Davis. For 13 hours, Davis spoke against a bill that banned abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and required abortion providers to have to admitting privileges to nearby hospitals. The bill was initially killed by Davis and activists in the Senate gallery who disrupted proceedings, but the next day then-Governor Rick Perry called a second special session and the bill was passed.
The bill Alvarado was speaking against is Senate Bill 1. Since its previous versions were first filed, the bill has been unanimously supported by Republican lawmakers and detested by Democrats. Alvarado and her colleagues have called it a deliberate effort to disenfranchise people of color, people with disabilities and groups that are likely to vote Democrat.
“Senate Bill 1 slowly, but surely, chips away at our democracy. It adds, rather than removes, barriers for Texas seniors, persons with disabilities, African Americans, Asian and Latino voters from the political process,” Alvarado said during her marathon filibuster.
Senator Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, has defended his bill for months as essential to stop ballot harvesting and illegal voting. Hughes has played a critical role in crafting voting reform legislation since the regular legislative session this past spring. He authored Senate Bill 7, which was later killed in the Texas House of Representatives when Democrats staged their first quorum break in May by walking out of the chamber. Hughes revived his legislation in the first special session called by Republican Governor Greg Abbott, with it now being known as SB 1.
The bill seeks would ban drive-thru and 24-hour voting. expand poll watchers' right to elections and prohibit election officials from soliciting vote-by-mail applications.
Republicans who support the bill claim that it will “make it easier for Texans to vote while making it harder to cheat.” But Keith Ingram, the state elections director, testified during committee hearings on the bill that the 2020 election was fair and secure. He also told state senators there was no evidence of illegal voting at 24-hour locations.
SB 1 and a nearly identical version of it in the Texas House, House Bill 3, sparked Democrats to again break quorum during the first special session this summer. House Democrats left the Lone Star State for Washington, D.C., where they have been pressuring Congress to pass federal voting rights legislation fort he past month. They say that by passing the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Advancement Act, red states like Texas will be unable to pass laws that suppress voting.
The fight over voting rights and the subsequent quorum break that grew out of it has sparked numerous protests and rallies across the state. Just last month, former El Paso Congressman Beto O’Rourke and social justice activist the Reverend Dr. William Barber II led a 27-mile, “Selma to Montgomery” style march that began in Georgetown, Texas, and ended at the state Capitol in Austin. Demonstrators rallied on the final day of the march to speak against Abbott and Republican lawmakers' efforts to enact voting restrictions and echoed calls for the federal government to act.
Under continued threat of arrest and forcible return to the House chamber, Democratic state representatives have launched multiple legal challenges seeking to return to Texas without fear of police apprehending them. Republicans in the House voted Tuesday to send law enforcement officers after their absent colleagues.
For those in the nation's capital, they are far out of the jurisdictional reach of Texas officers, but the threat is real for those who have returned to the state. Nineteen Democrats on Monday filed a petition for injunctive relief against their arrest and forced return to the Capitol. A Travis County District Court judge granted a temporary restraining order shielding them from arrest, but the Texas Supreme Court overturned the lower court's ruling by granting an emergency motion filed by Abbott and House Speaker Dade Phelan.
In a separate filing, Representative Gene Wu, D-Houston, filed for a writ of habeas corpus in Harris County District Court and a judge granted his request Wednesday, protecting him from arrest.
House Democrats successfully brought an end to the first special session without any piece of legislation getting passed. With Senate Bill 1 passed by the Senate, it is not clear what Democrats' next move will be to further block the legislation.
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