Dark Days in Austin
The skies over Austin are overcast with dreary clouds today but not as dark as those that have hung over the Texas House on Monday and Tuesday. The Texas House of Representatives has voted (nearly along partisan lines) to reinstitute voting processes that have been banished from Texas for nearly 40 years.
Today the House passed (after six and a half hours of vigorous, contentious debate on Monday upon second reading) HB 218 authored by Rep. Betty Brown (R) from Terrell, which will create new laws and procedures that will make it much more difficult for senior citizens, citizens with disabilities, students, low-income citizens, and minority citizens to vote in future elections.
Many members of the House, led by Rep. Rafael Anchía of Dallas, worked hard to defeat this bill. Thirty amendments were offered and many roll call votes were required, but the opponents of the bill were unable to block the solid 76 votes that insured its passage. If this bill passes the Senate and is signed by the Governor, we will once again see large numbers of Texans disenfranchised and turned away from the polls even if they have been registered to vote and have been voting for years if they don’t bring multiple forms of identification with them when they go to vote on election day.
Our one remaining hope is that HB 218 will never see the light of day in the Senate. Senator Rodney Ellis has received the commitment of 11 members of the Senate to vote no to allow the bill to be heard in the Senate, but politics can be fickle, and that commitment may not be as strong tomorrow as it was last week. That is why all of us should be contacting our State Senator telling them to kill HB 218 and its partner bill HB 626 if either of them is presented to the Senate. You have the power through your actions to let your voice be heard and to stop this runaway train of electoral disaster.
HB 626, which will stop nonpartisan and nonprofit groups from registering voters, is the bad brother to HB 218 and is due to be voted on in the House next Monday morning. Call your House member and tell them you don’t want them voting for HB 626. We want and need to inform and register more voters in Texas, not fewer.
John Courage
Posted: April 24th, 2007 under Legislation, Voting issues.
