AUSTIN, Texas (CN) — A controversial GOP-backed voting restrictions bill has cleared its last hurdle in the Texas Legislature and is now headed to Republican Governor Greg Abbott's desk for a final signature.
Senate Bill 1 passed along party lines Tuesday in both the Texas House and Senate, after a conference committee released the final draft of the bill on Monday.
The controversial legislation sparked dysfunction in the state Capitol like never before, with two quorum breaks by Democrats and multiple rallies against it on the steps of the Capitol.
A week after quorum-busting Democratic lawmakers, who sought to block voting restrictions from becoming law, returned to the Texas Capitol, Republican lawmakers, who hold a majority in the House, passed SB 1 in the early morning hours last Thursday.
Later that day in the Texas Senate, the bill's author, Senator Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, refused to concur with the changes made to the bill by the House. Hughes said on Twitter that the only issue he had with the House’s version was an amendment that clarified who may be prosecuted for illegally voting.
“I am moving not to concur and requesting the appointment of a conference committee only to address,” he wrote.
His resistance sent the bill to a conference committee composed of five members from the House and five from the Senate to work out the differences behind closed doors. On Monday, the conference committee report was sent to the chambers for final approval.
In its final form, SB 1 will restrict local election officials from using 24-hour and drive-thru voting as an option for Texans to cast their ballot. It also creates criminal penalties for election officials who send vote-by-mail applications to people who did not request one and makes it a class-A misdemeanor for an election judge working at a polling location to refuse a poll watcher.
For voters who do apply to vote-by-mail, they will need to provide proof of identification through either their driver's license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number on their application.
Besides making it harder for poll watchers to be refused entry or removed, they also will have the specific authority to be able to “see and hear'' many facets of the election being conducted. Election officials are also required to train poll watchers on their rights and duty at each polling location.
When it comes to the hours a polling place may operate, the bill mandates voting can only be held between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. Within that 16-hour window, a polling location is required to be open for a minimum of nine hours.
At the center of Republicans' push for voting restrictions are the actions Harris County officials took to increase voter participation and limit the spread of Covid-19 during the 2020 election. The state's largest county, home to Houston, implemented 24-hour and drive-thru voting during the early voting period. Both were popular options among people of color and those who work during the day.
Republican lawmakers see SB 1, and previous versions of it, as common-sense legislation to curb ballot harvesting and illegal voting. Democratic lawmakers and civil rights groups believe the bill is voter suppression that will disenfranchise many Texans out of their right to vote and unfairly solidify Republican control of state government.
On Tuesday, the Texas House was first to vote to adopt the conference committee version of SB 1.
During debate, Democratic Representative John Turner, D-Dallas, who was on the conference committee, spoke against adopting the bill and urged his colleagues to vote against it.
“I cannot support this bill for a simple reason. I believe this bill creates more harm than good to our democratic process,” he said.
Also speaking against the bill, state Senator Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, said, "This is the fifth and hopefully final time I vote against this legislation.”
In closing remarks, Hughes, the bill's author, said that a lot of good work was done in the House to improve the bill and it will achieve its goal of “making it easier to vote and harder to cheat.” He also said “this is a bill we can be proud of.”
“How much fraud is okay? None,” Hughes said. “None. How much suppression is okay? None.”
The Democrats voting against the bill broke quorum twice over the summer to stop its passage and held rallies calling for a federal expansion of voting rights, arguing SB 1 will place an undue burden on communities of color and people with disabilities. While absent from the Texas Capitol, they met with members of Congress and the Biden administration to pressure them to pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Advancement Act, which would override voting restrictions like those in SB 1.
The Texas NAACP, LULAC and the Texas ACLU have also been vocal opponents to SB 1 going back to the regular legislative session in the spring, when the Republican-backed voting restrictions bill was called Senate Bill 7. Civil rights group The Poor People’s Campaign and former El Paso Congressman Beto O’Rourke’s voting rights organization, Powered by People, held a “Selma to Montgomery” style march from Georgetown, Texas, to Austin in July to protest the bill.
Once Abbott has signed the bill into law, Texas will join other states such as Georgia and Florida that passed voting restriction bills earlier this year. In June, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Georgia alleging that its law violates the Voting Rights Act.
With the nationwide attention that SB 1 has garnered this summer, Texas could also be the target of litigation from the Biden administration.
The bitterly partisan fight over elections law in Texas could have lasting impacts. Now that a quorum has been restored, Republicans are seeking to remove Democrats from their chair positions by changing the penalties lawmakers face for breaking quorum. Abbott included quorum changes in the second special legislative session, reducing quorum from two-thirds to a simple majority.
Speaking to the divide that SB 1 has caused, Zaffirini, the Democratic state senator from Laredo, said she hopes “deliberation, collaboration, and negotiation” will return to the Legislature now that the bill has passed.
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