Democratic senators decry Texas GOP’s election bills, push back with one named for Barbara Jordan

AUSTIN — Senate Democrats offered up their own elections overhaul legislation Friday that aims to make voting more accessible, a counter to the GOP’s priority bills that they say would suppress votes, especially those of Black and Latino Texans.

Named for Barbara Jordan, the state’s first Black female senator, the Democrats’ bill would usher in online and same-day voter registration, allow all voters to request mail-in ballots, expand the early voting period, permit additional documents to be used as voter ID and make Election Day a state holiday and require employers to let employees vote.

All 13 Democratic senators back the legislation.

“This bill is designed to make voting and the election process more safe and more secure and more accessible,” said the chief author, Sen. Royce West of Dallas. “That’s what we need to be doing in 2021.”

Since a late-May walkout by House Democrats temporarily upended a Republican push to ban drive-through voting, standardize early-voting hours and empower partisan poll watchers, Democratic senators have been the overlooked group in the party’s fight over what they call “voter suppression” — and Republicans call “election integrity.”

On Friday, though, the Democratic senators picked up a megaphone to decry the Republican bills, offer what they dubbed a constructive alternative and plead for fair treatment and a facts-based airing of views during the special legislative session that began Thursday.

Voting is the marquee issue among 11 topics that Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, has submitted to lawmakers. The special session can last up to 30 days.

And as their Democratic counterparts did on opening day, the senators on Friday did not rule out breaking quorum to keep their chamber from being able to conduct business — if that’s what it takes to derail what they consider an unprecedented attempt, based on fictions, to narrow voting.

“Every tool is available,” West said.

Houston Democratic Sen. John Whitmire, the longest-serving senator, added, “We are keeping all of our options open.”

Pooh-poohing claims by former President Donald Trump and some state Republicans that election shenanigans are widespread, Whitmire noted that candidates are “the first line of defense” in ferreting out vote fraud.

“Each and every one of us keep an eye on our opponents,” he said. “We closely monitor the opponent’s operations and our elected officials. So there’s no fraud. They can talk about some county commissioner in East Texas that did some illegal procedures. And the systems work: He was caught and [is] being prosecuted.”

Whitmire said he was amazed at how Trump’s refusal to admit defeat had led GOP legislators to refuse to pivot from the November presidential election to governing.

“I’ve been here 48 years,” he said. “I’ve never witnessed any attack on the democratic process like we’re experiencing, and it must come to a halt.”

On Saturday, round two of what has become a national battle over Texas election laws intensifies as the Legislature’s ruling Republicans hold public hearings on the bills that they say target vote fraud. State and national Democrats say the bills are really a response to Trump’s unfounded assertions of widespread fraud and are designed to suppress voters.

A House hearing on its version of the voting bill begins at 8 a.m., while the Senate will take up its proposal at 11 a.m. Some of the most divisive provisions are gone from the latest bills — such as a move that would have blocked Black churches from “souls to the polls” early-voting drives on Sunday mornings. The latest versions would allow Sunday voting to begin at 9 a.m.

While the Republican bills add a couple of things Democrats favor, such as giving absentee voters a chance to cure problems found with the signature on their mail-in ballots, Democratic senators said they object to the bills’ requirement of additional ID verifications for mail-in ballots, allowance of “free movement” to poll watchers and attempts to purge noncitizen voters from voting rolls.

“My mom is 93 years old; she votes by mail,” said Senate Democratic Caucus Chairwoman Carol Alvarado of Houston. “Luckily, I will be able to go make a photocopy of her driver’s license. But think about that senior that doesn’t have anyone to go and do that, or does not want to provide their Social Security number.”

Sen. José Menéndez of San Antonio, chairman of the Senate Hispanic Caucus, said he’s filed a bill to require automatic voter registration of immigrants by local registrars when they become naturalized U.S. citizens.

“That would eliminate some of that issue,” he said, referring to a 2019 push by the Abbott administration for county election administrators to ferret out noncitizens on voter rolls — an effort that backfired, embarrassing the governor and resulting in the yanking of a high post away from one of his most favored, longtime aides.

It remains to be seen whether the legislation floated by Senate Democrats will get a hearing in the GOP-controlled chamber.

“In all probability, we won’t,” West said.