Texas Democrats exit House floor, blocking passage of voting bill before deadline
Democrats exited the House floor Sunday night, preventing a vote on a controversial election bill just ahead of a midnight deadline.
In the minutes leading up to 11 p.m., a quorum of was no longer on the House floor after most Democrats left the chamber, prompting the House to adjourn until 10 a.m. Monday. The chamber had been debating Senate Bill 7. A compromise version of the bill was passed early Sunday morning and passage in the House is the bill’s final step before heading to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk.
“We were determined to run out the clock,” State Rep. Chris Turner, D-Grand Prairie, said in a statement. “It became obvious Republicans were going to cut off debate to ram through their vote suppression legislation. At that point, we had no choice but to take extraordinary measures to protect our constituents and their right to vote.”
Democrats had described being blocked out of the process of crafting the legislation, including in its final days as compromise version was drafted behind closed doors.
Huddled outside of Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Austin, the lawmakers said they’d utilized all of their other options to stop the bill.
“We’ve used all the tools in our toolbox to fight this bill,” State Rep. Nicole Collier said. “And tonight, we pulled up that last one.”
Supporters of the bill have said it is needed to ensure election integrity, though election officials have said there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.
Gov. Greg Abbott said Tuesday that the election bill will be part of a special session agenda, but didn’t specify timing. He said a priority piece of bail reform legislation will also be added.
“Texans shouldn’t have to pay the consequences of these members actions -- or in this case, inaction,” Speaker Dade Phelan said.
Before the bill in its entirety was debated, Texas representatives, like their counterparts in the Senate, discussed a resolution dealing with elements of the new bill that weren’t in versions passed out of the House and Senate.
Turner took issue with a part of the bill that would limit poll operation hours on the last Sunday of early votings from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. and the effect it could have on “Souls to the Polls” events held by Black congregations.
He also criticized a new provision of the bill that the ACLU of Texas says would make it easier to overturn an election. The bill states that, “If the number of votes illegally cast in the election is equal to or greater than the number of votes necessary to change the outcome of an election, the court may declare the election void without attempting to determine how individual voters voted.”
“The bill is bad and egregious enough as is, we don’t need to make it more egregious by going outside the bounds here at literally almost the 11th hour,” Turner said.
The bill would ban drive-thru voting and set polling place operation hours, effectively prohibiting 24-hour voting. Both options were offered in Harris County amid COVID-19.
It also offers protections for poll watchers, making it a Class B misdemeanor for an election officer to “knowingly refuse to accept a (poll) watcher for service.” Poll watchers would have to sign an oath attesting they won’t disrupt the voting process or harass voters.
Other elements of the bill include penalties for public officials who solicit an application to vote by mail to people who don’t request one, and a requirement that those seeking an application to vote by mail because of a disability provide the “specific grounds” on which they’re eligible.
The House walk out followed an overnight debate in the Senate. The body ultimately approved the compromise version of the bill early Sunday. Democrats in the chamber expressed concern that they didn’t having enough time to vet the latest version of the bill before it was considered.
“I think everybody in this room can agree that Texas has a pretty tragic past of suppressing voters,” Powell said, noting that the state has ended up in court in the past. “I have grave concerns about any bill that was crafted in the shadows or passed late at night.”
This story was originally published May 30, 2021 at 11:24 PM.
