Texas Dems Walked Out of the Legislature Sunday Night to Cheers. So What Happens to the Voter Suppression Bill Now?
Texas Democrats walked out of the legislative session late Sunday night, denying to the GOP the quorum of two-thirds that it needs to enact legislation, including specifically their new voter suppression bill. That bill was pushed by Governor Greg Abbott and drafted in large measure by Heritage Action, the political lobbying arm of the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation.
This is the fourth time lawmakers in Texas were forced to walk out, the most recent one back in 2003 when Democrats walked out on the extreme political gerrymander proposed for their state. (You’d have to go back to 1979 and 1870 to explore the other two instances.) Democrats around the country hailed Sunday’s walkout as an example of the party standing up to the GOP, but others warned that without help from the federal government, this was really just them begging for passage of voter protections laws like the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. “What we did last night,” said Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, “is the equivalent of us crawling on our knees to federal officials to tell (them), the time to act is now — if not Texas, then when?”
Democrats were protesting GOP strong-arm tactics such as the cutting off of debate, the many late-night sessions held out of the eye of the public, and the last-minute insertion of provisions into the Conference Committee Report that had not been considered by either chamber in the original bills. The final version of SB 7 clocked in at 67 pages—44 pages longer than an earlier draft.
The final bill will ban drive-through voting, 24-hour voting, and the use of tents or temporary structures as polling locations. These measures specifically target cities and suburban areas where Democrats did well in 2020. According to the New York Times, around 140,000 residents of Harris County used one of those methods in the 2020 election.
The bill also makes it harder to vote by mail, empowers partisan poll watchers to file frivolous suits, restricts the sending of mail-in ballot applications, and curtails popular Sunday voting hours. In the last minute conference markup, Republicans stripped out concessions Democrats had won earlier while adding provisions that had already died in the legislative session such as ID requirements for mail-in ballots.
Importantly, the final bill also added new sections that endanger the very outcome of elections by giving judges the right to overturn them, even when the alleged fraud could not possibly have changed the outcome, a provision specifically targeted for criticism by leading Democratic lawyer Marc Elias.
The leader of the Democratic revolt and chairman of the Texas House Democratic Caucus, Grand Prairie Rep. Chris Turner, explained the need for their action. “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.” Turner had sent a text to his Caucus telling them to walk out before the bill’s vote.
In an apparent nod to the “Souls to the Polls” day of actions that would be impacted by the bill’s Sunday voting hour changes, the Democrats reconvened after their walkout at the Mt. Zion Baptist Church in East Austin. In their press conference, they pledged to fight again in whatever special session the Governor called. They also blasted the notion that Abbott would call a special session to enact voter suppression laws but failed to do so on other matters of great concern and importance.
“You won’t call a special session for COVID. You won’t call a special session for mass shootings,” Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer said, speaking to Governor Abbott. “You won’t call a special session for Hurricane Harvey.” Martinez Fischer also implored President Biden to act. “Mr. President, we need a national response — federal voting rights.”
The timing of the walkout was important because the legislative session ended on Monday, May 31st, meaning anything not passed by midnight on Sunday night was dead for the year unless revived by special session. Predictably, Governor Abbott quickly vowed to call the legislators back but also threatened to veto Article 10 of the Budget, which funds the legislature. Should he actually do this, it would mean no pay for the legislators and more importantly their staff until they come back to vote. But the delay in passage buys Democrats valuable time to rally corporations to oppose the bill, to draw more negative press attention, and to gain the help of the federal government if possible.
The Texas NAACP is ready to sue as soon if and when the bill is signed into law, according to chapter President Gary Bledsoe. “We’re going to run as soon as we can,” he promised. “This is that important. We need to get injunctive relief to try to make sure this doesn’t take effect because we have very important elections coming up next year.”