May 31, 2021
Just hours before a midnight deadline to approve the controversial Texas voting rights bill, Democrats temporarily blocked its passage by walking out of the state legislature. Senate Bill 7 (or SB 7 for short) proposed an overhaul of the state’s voting process, which critics argue would disproportionately affect Black and Latino voters.
The voting rights bill would ban drive-through voting and 24-hour voting, limit early voting hours, make it more difficult to receive and cast mail-in ballots, and reduce the types of locations that can serve as polling places.
These proposals aggravate a wound that is already festering: Texas is not new to such legislation. According to researchers at Northern Illinois University, the state already has the most restrictive electoral climate in the US.
NY Times reporter Nick Corasaniti says Republican-led state legislatures are restricting voting and seizing more power over how elections are run making previously non-partisan jobs political.
The Republican-controlled Texas State Senate passed a bill early Sunday that would impose a raft of new voting restrictions in the state, moving a step closer to the expected full passage of what would be among the most far-reaching laws in Republicans’ nationwide drive to overhaul elections systems and limit voting. The bill would tighten what are already some of the country’s strictest voting laws, and it would specifically target balloting.
Texas House to Take Up G.O.P. Voting Bill as Passage Nears
The bill, which includes some of the strictest voting measures in the country, would head to the desk of Gov. Greg Abbott if it passes. He is expected to sign it into law.
Republicans have pushed forward with the voting legislation in Texas in the face of protests by Democrats and voting rights groups. Credit.Mikala Compton/Reuters
May 30, 2021, 10:16 a.m. ET
The Republican-controlled Texas House of Representatives is poised to take up a bill on Sunday that would impose a raft of new voting restrictions in the state, moving a step closer to the expected full passage of what would be among the most far-reaching laws in Republicans’ nationwide drive to overhaul elections systems and limit voting.