AUSTIN (Talk1370.com) -- The fight over voting laws in the Texas Legislature shifted into high gear this weekend, with Republicans in both the House and the Senate working to push the latest versions of an election integrity bill through committee hearings.
Early Sunday morning, members of the House Select Committee on Constitutional Rights and Remedies voted to advance HB 3 to the full House chamber on a 9-5 vote. Meanwhile, members of the Senate Committee on State Affairs reconvened Sunday afternoon, advancing SB 1 out of the committee on a 6-3 party line vote.
Sunday's votes set up both bills for potential floor votes in their respective chambers later this week.
Both bills contain many of the same provisions that were in SB 7, the bill that failed to pass in the waning moments of the Legislature's regular session in May.
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Two of the most controversial items from SB 7 - restrictions on Sunday early voting hours, and efforts to make it easier for judges to overturn the results of an election - have been dropped in the newer versions. Opponents of the bill, however, continue to decry the remaining proposals - efforts to ban drive-thru and 24-hour early voting options, block local election officials from sending out unsolicited applications for mail-in ballots, increased access for poll watchers, and efforts to tighten up the state's voting-by-mail rules.
More than 250 people had signed up to speak before the House committee, in a hearing that began at 8 a.m. Saturday morning but spent much of the day focused on bills on bail reform. Members finally began debating HB 3 around 5:30 p.m., opening up public testimony a few hours later that stretched into the early hours of Sunday morning, finally wrapping up with a vote just after 7 a.m.
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Democrats and others opposed to the bills have called the bills tactics of voter suppression, with adverse impacts on people of color; supporters of the bills say the proposals will tighten the security of Texas' elections, and standardize elections across the state.
Former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke was among those who spoke against the bill during the hearing. "Whether it’s ending 24 hour voting, or allowing free rein to poll watchers and making it harder to be able to vote by mail and an absentee ballot, this is going to make it tougher, not easier for those who should have a say in our elections,” said O'Rourke.
The election integrity legislation is just one of 11 items Gov. Greg Abbott has given lawmakers to address during the 30-day special session, which ends on August 6. There's expected to be at least one more special session later this fall, when lawmakers will deal with redistricting and allocating billions in federal coronavirus dollars.