Lone Star Democrats couldn’t stay on strike forever
Photo: Getty Images The law just passed by the Texas legislature — and headed to Governor Greg Abbott’s desk, where it will be signed — isn’t necessarily the worst voter-suppression bill state-level Republicans have been pushing this year. But S.B. 1 without question was the most bitterly opposed by Democrats, who literally went the extra mile in delaying enactment of the bill as long as possible while drawing attention to its sinister purposes.
But the Texas Democrats couldn’t stay on strike forever, and once enough of them had returned to Austin to restore a quorum for the passage of legislation, Republicans resolved their own internal differences over the final version of the voting and elections bill, and got it done. The final Democratic act of defiance was a 15-hour Senate filibuster by Carol Alvarado of Harris County , the jurisdiction whose voters were the most prominent target of GOP suppression efforts.
S.B. 1 has some statewide measures designed to restrict voting by mail while encouraging partisan scrutiny of voters-of-color, along with statewide “standards” banning steps taken in 2020 by key urban districts to make it easier for pandemic-stricken and working-class voters to cast ballots conveniently.
In the former category are new ID requirements for those who overcome the state’s highly restrictive rules governing absentee ballots ; tight new regulations on how and whether voters with disabilities can receive assistance from others in reading or casting ballots; and fresh protections for partisan poll-watchers .
There was one pro-voter provision nestled into the new law, giving voters making technical errors in absentee ballots an opportunity to cure them. But an effort to ensure that voters who are not aware they are ineligible aren’t prosecuted for voter fraud failed at the last minute. The whole mess that wound up on Abbott’s desk is not a pretty sight, but will be pleasing to red-state partisan warriors everywhere, who fear the nation’s second-largest state will turn blue without some pushback.
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