Bad Bills Abound - Texas’ Battle Against Voters
Unfortunately Thursday morning, Texas lawmakers are hearing a laundry list of bad bills for Texans. It is legislation that represents an all out attack on democracy.
Our Vote Texas stands firmly against policies that harm Texas voters and that worsen what is already a difficult voting process for too many of us here in our home state.
So far this session, we have seen bills that seek to further criminalize voting and remove key protections for Texans. We've seen bills that target local control, including bills that want to override local jurisdictions so that the office of the Attorney General can continue to target Texas voters, even as it has so far made little sense to do so.
The nature of the way our legislative process is unfolding this week gives Texans limited time to act but therein may lie the point. Tomorrow, the Senate State Affairs Committee scheduled a hearing which will overlap with the House Elections Committee hearing and both committees will be laying out extremely troubling bills for Texas voters.
We're asking you to speak out on at least two major ones.
1) SB 220 creates a system of state election marshals to investigate allegations of violations of election laws and to file criminal charges where and when they deem appropriate. It also gives election marshals the authority to impound election records or equipment during an investigation. Additionally, SB 220 prohibits judges from overseeing election challenges in their own counties.
This bill has rightly been called out for being an echo of a similar policy created in Florida and gives this "election police force" the ability to weaponize the state's resources against the people of Texas.
Please drop a ready-to-go message to members of the Senate State Affairs Committee and urge them to reject this bill OR if you can drop by the Capitol tomorrow, register your opposition against it.
2) HB 2020 (and its companion SB 823) would permit our state's unelected and unaccountable Secretary of State to suspend a county elections administrator if an administrative election complaint is filed with the secretary and the secretary finds that a "recurring pattern of problems with election administration" exists in the county. Such issues that would fall under this scope might be a malfunction of voting system equipment (not an uncommon problem by any stretch), an unequal distribution of election supplies, errors in tabulation results, or delays in election returns. The words "recurring" and "pattern" are not defined in this bill, and would be left up to the Sec. of State's sole discretion.
HB 2020 would also give the Sec. of State the sole authority to appoint an interim elections administrator until the secretary is satisfied that these issues have been resolved. Currently, that authority to fill that vacancy lies with the county election commission made up of a county's elected County Judge, the County Clerk, the County Tax Assessor-Collector, and the County's political party chairs.
Rather than properly address very real issues that counties may face with election administration by proposing pro-active solutions like better funding and resources, HB 2020 is purely punitive and lacks any process for reporting or transparency that the SOS office would be expected to adhere to.
Please drop a ready-to-go message to members of the House Elections Committee and urge them to reject this bill OR if you can drop by the Capitol tomorrow, register your opposition against it.
*** You can also submit public comments against HB 2020 via the House comment portal available here. ***
Be sure to enter your information and bill number that you’re submitting comments on. Thank you for speaking up for Texas voters!
There are other troubling bills on the dockets tomorrow and we want to make sure you know what some of them are.
Our thanks to the Texas Poor People’s Campaign for this information:
SB 1993 - would allow the Secretary of State to order a new election if 2% polling locations in a county run out of supplies. This is the same as overturning an election and has broader implications for presidential elections.
SB 1600 - would require people to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote. This is illegal and would violate the National Voter Registration Act.
SB 1750 - would prohibit our larger, urban counties from having an Elections Administrator. These counties would have to rely on the tax accessor and county clerk to run elections.
SB 260 - would make it easier for voter registrars to remove people from the voter rolls.
Looking to gear up to take your fight to the Capitol and testify tomorrow?
Voting rights groups that make up the Texas Election Reform Coalition are hosting an organizing call tonight at 5:30pm and you’ll receive a ton of helpful information to prepare for Thursday’s hearings.
Sign up HERE!
