Despite strong opposition from Democrats and business leaders, Texas Republicans passed a controversial voting reform bill after an all-night legislative session.
AUSTIN, Texas (CN) --- Around 3 a.m. Friday morning, the Texas House of Representatives passed Senate Bill 7 on an 81-64, party-line vote that followed hours of debate and over a dozen amendments being added to the controversial election bill.
SB 7 is a voting reform measure that follows the trend of other red states like Georgia and Florida, which have enacted laws limiting voter access.
Texas’ bill limits the hours for polling locations, bans drive-thru voting, makes it a crime for election officials to mail voter applications and expands the role of poll watchers. Republicans say it is an effort to make elections more secure, but Democrats, civil rights advocates and a growing number of corporate critics say the bill is nothing more than voter suppression.
Beginning as House Bill 6, the measure was introduced back in March but stalled in the Texas House after facing procedural obstacles. SB 7, filed a day before HB 6, moved more quickly and passed the Texas Senate in an overnight vote on April 1. While both bills were in committee, they faced overwhelming opposition in public testimony. Once in the House, SB 7 adopted the language in HB 6, becoming the intended House bill with many of the legislative hurdles cleared.
SB 7 will need to again be approved the Senate after a second House vote early Friday afternoon. It would then move to a conference committee, where members of both chambers finalize the bill’s language before it goes to Governor Greg Abbott's desk.
Republican Representative Briscoe Cain, chair of the House Elections Committee and author of HB 6, brought SB 7 the floor of the House for a full vote on Thursday. Immediately, House Democrats began questioning Cain on the origins of the bill.
When asked to point to instances of voter fraud in the 2020 election, Cain responded, “You can’t find what you don’t look for.”
“We don't need to wait for bad things to happen for us to try and protect and secure these elections,” he said, encouraging his colleagues to vote in favor of the bill.
Democrat Representative Chris Turner asked whether SB 7 was a response to last year's election, in which Republicans lost control of the White House and U.S. Senate. Cain said it was not, despite the bill addressing specific innovations places like Harris County used to make voting easier and safer during election. Keith Ingram, director of elections at the Texas Secretary of State's Office, described the 2020 election in Texas as “smooth and secure" in recent testimony before the House Elections Committee
Cain – who traveled to Pennsylvania last November to help former President Donald Trump investigate baseless allegations of voter fraud – claims legislation is primarily focused on clarifying existing election code and bolstering security, saying “the overarching goal of this bill is to instill trust in our system.”
During House debate over the bill, Democrat Representative Rafael Anchía raised concern over the bill's use of the term “preserve the purity of the ballot box”. Anchía drew upon the history of the use of the term to disenfranchise and prevent voters of color from casting their vote. Cain said that he was inspired to use the term from the state constitution and said he did not know about the term’s racially charged origins.
Joshua Blank, director of research for the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas, said in an interview that the restrictive voting legislation is “rolling back the freedom that counties enjoyed during the pandemic to make it easier for people to vote.”