Texas House Passes Anti-Voter Bill In The Middle Of Night
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact:
Valerie Street
valerie@txprogressiveaction.com
Austin, TX - In the middle of the night/early morning hours of Friday and for a second time this legislative session, SB 7, or yet another iteration of it, passed through chamber (initial vote), this time in the House. This is the bill with many faces.
From the start, the process for SB 7 in the House has been undemocratic and absent of any real effort to allow for public participation on this harmful anti-voter bill that will most certainly affect many Texans. The final language on this bill is likely to be hashed out in conference committee with even less opportunity for public input and with the potential for some of the worst aspects of the bill to resurface.
We are grateful for efforts last night to mitigate the impact of this harmful anti-voter bill and for the advocates who have been tirelessly speaking out against policies that will only make voting in Texas, already a task fraught with difficulty, even harder.
Statement from Valerie Street, president of Texas Progressive Action Network:
“It is sadly not surprising to see that there are those in the Texas Legislature determined to get in the way of Texans and their vote. The lawmakers who say their anti-voter bills somehow aren’t a direct response to the 2020 election, that they address an elusive ongoing need or that they are merely meant to deal with issues that could be, are only partly telling us their story here. We’ve got the history to demonstrate that our state has been in the ugly business of making voting needlessly more difficult for Texas voters for a shamefully long time. Attempts to undermine the full participation of a growing and diversifying electorate in this state are well documented throughout our history and in the courts. We’ve been here before. But we also know SB 7 and bills just like it moving through the session are built on a lie about the security and fairness of the 2020 election - a lie that has been debunked by the nation’s top intelligence and law enforcement agencies as well as the office of our own Texas Secretary of State in testimony before the House Elections Committee this year. No amount of late night wheeling and dealing can erase SB 7’s origin story. We will continue to advocate for Texas voters, our rights at the polls, and to promote strong voter education to combat any attempt to ever undermine our vote.”
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Texas Progressive Action Network is a people powered nonprofit committed to advancing voter education and good public policy in Texas through advocacy and outreach.
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Texas Progressive Action Network
https://www.txprogressiveaction.com/
https://twitter.com/TX_PAN