| Rightwing voter suppression tactics may cause the death of any legislation passing out of the Texas House.
This is a simple situation of the far right not being able to agree with the moderate Republicans in the House who are trying to at least attempt to compromise with Democrats. There are a large group of Democrats who want to preserve the ability of every Texan to vote, and so it is the middle of the pack on both sides of the aisle who will get this bill passed.
Brandi Grissom of the El Paso times sums up the fight in a piece yesterday.
GOP lawmakers unwilling to compromise on strict voter identification requirements they have made a priority at the Capitol may be the very ones who kill the effort in the Texas House, state Rep. Todd Smith, R-Euless, said Wednesday.
"If the far right is unwilling to accommodate on this legislation to any extent, then they do have the power to succeed in killing voter ID, and I will certainly allow them to do so," Smith said.
In the wake of a new, more restrictive bill, the Texas Democratic Party is urging people to contact the House Election Committee and request a hearing on this controversial bill.
Today, House Elections Committee Chairman Todd Smith circulated a new, more restrictive version of the Republican Voter ID bill that absolutely requires a Photo ID before a voter would be allowed to cast a regular ballot. The Committee could consider and vote out this legislation on short notice as early as this afternoon or at any time called by Chairman Smith.
Call the House Elections Committee members and tell them you support House Democrats' call for Chairman Smith to schedule a public hearing on this unacceptable version of the Voter ID bill before the Committee even considers taking a vote.
How is the new bill more restrictive?
According to Dave Montgomery at the Fort Worth Star Telegram, the bill takes away all of the compromises and moves it more in line with the Betty Brown, Warren Chisum, Tom Craddick wing of the party.
Smith, R-Euless, backed away from his original plan, which allowed voters to present a photo ID or two forms of non-photo ID, after 71 of the 76 House Republicans issued a statement insisting on a strict photo ID law.
In another major change, Smith also modified a provision in his earlier proposal that would have kept the bill from taking effect for four years in order to educate voters about the new ID requirements. Now it would become effective in January 2011.
Voters who are indigent, have a religious objection to the documentation, or live in a nursing home would be exempt from the photo ID requirements in Smith's revised plan. The bill would also exempt voters who are at least 70 years old and never had a birth certificate because their births weren't recorded with a state vital statistics office.
It's important to note these changes make the House voter suppression bill worse than SB 362.
As the Texas Democratic Party points out, Voter ID requirements place costly and time-consuming new bureaucratic barriers between voters and the ballot box that will make it harder for all of us to vote. There is no evidence of voter impersonation and Texans face far more urgent problems, but Texas Republicans are following a national Republican agenda to keep failed leaders in office with laws that would reduce turnout among seniors, students, people of color and those with lower incomes.
The fact that SB362 and ever other voter suppression bill is legislation in search of a problem may be a big reason why nobody in the Republican Party can agree on how to legislate it.
The Austin Chronicle has an incredibly impressive write up of the on-going shenanigans. Lee Nichols talked with Republican Todd Smith who said:
"But they want it without any money for registering voters, or without a transition period, or without a signature verifying process," Smith continued. "Then I don't get the marginal votes. It's time to find out whether Rep. Brown and Rep. Harper-Brown want a voter ID bill, because my distinct impression at this point is that they do not. For whatever reason, I am under the distinct impression that they want to kill it, and I may give them the opportunity to do that."
There are only a few weeks left, and the fact the target is moving around so much is the exact reason why more public input is necessary. People's ability to engage in our democracy is too important to have a thrown together piece of partisan legislation.
There are only two solutions. 1) more public input to work through possible problems and legal challenges or 2) refuse to pass a radical, restrictive piece of anti-voter legislation.
In either case, Speaker Joe Straus and Election Committee Chair Todd Smith are the two people in the drivers seats now. |
