Texas Senate: “Voting? We don’t need no Stinkin’ Voting.”
In the Texas election last year, turnout was 6.6 percent higher than in 2016. In my view, there were two reasons for this:
- Voters not normally engaged in public policy were alarmed by the disaster that was Trump’s infestation of the White House. Trump’s childish attacks on social media, continuous stream of outrageous lies, and soaring Covid cases and deaths finally broke through the fog of disinformation pouring out of right wing media and drove people to the polls.
- Efforts by local officials to make it easier to vote, especially after Trump’s new Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, intentionally sabotaged the Post Office and undermined voters’ confidence that their mail in ballots would be counted.
The turnout was bipartisan. Even though Biden decisively won the national election, Republicans maintained their iron grip on Texas and made gains in the US House (I’m ignoring gerrymandering at this moment.) Turnout us up across the country this last election, so the response from GOP controlled statehouses around the country was predictable – make sweeping changes to make it harder for Americans to votes. Over 250 bills in 43 states are being rammed through state legislatures as I write this.
In fact, last night while we were all asleep, the Texas Senate voted to advance Senate Bill 7, that places additional sweeping restrictions on voting including reducing early voting days and hours, eliminating highly successful and popular drive-through voting, and making it illegal for local officials to send mail in ballot applications to those who don’t request them, even though they are qualified. They are ramming this bill through as fast as possible, even though the majority of testimony in Senate hearings opposed these laws as unnecessary and just more voter suppression. The House could vote on this bill by the Texas House and signed by Abbott as early as next week. It’s passage is as certain as the sunrise tomorrow.
This anti-American undemocratic bill is being passed so the GOP, controlled by old pot-bellied rednecks can cling to power for another cycle. Elections have consequences. When the bad guys win, bad things happen. Welcome to “democracy” in the 21st century. Any more of this kind of “democracy” our status as a failed state will be cemented for decades.
Nothing good happen in the senate at three o’clock in the morning, if Republicans are involved.
1May I add, that abolishing the EC would go a long way in eliminating this crap.
2Interestingly, things are different in Kentucky, where Republicans re in firm control. Kentucky is passing laws making voting easier. By an odd coincidence, more Republicans in Kentucky than Democrats used the new easier voting programs.
It’s almost as though Republicans are concerned solely with preventing as many Democrats as possible from casting a ballot.
3I may love Texas, but I despise Texas politics.
Makes you want to just go and slap all sorts of people, like those in SCOTUS that ended the voter protection law, or the different Repubs that keep making these ridiculous laws. And if we could advertise an opportunity to throw a pie at or a dunk tank on Abbot, Patrick, Cruz, or Gohmert–man could we make some money.
In fact, I can be even-handed. Let’s make money for a good charity cause in Texas and have two type of fair booths. I bet that the Castro brothers and Beto would be fine being the receiver of pies in face or dunked in a booth to raise money for Texas charity. So the Dunk a Dem and a Pie in Face of Republican booths. Mind you, let’s place them quite a ways apart, so we don’t have the lines break out into rioting…
4I find this, from The TexasTribune, to be particularly disturbing:
If passed into law, the legislation would broaden poll watchers’ access at polling places, even giving them power to video record voters receiving assistance in filling out their ballots if the poll watcher “reasonably believes” the help is unlawful. That provision has drawn particular concerns about possible intimidation of voters who speak languages other than English as well as voters with intellectual or developmental disabilities who may require assistance through prompting or questioning which could be misconstrued as coercion.
5With no evidence of extensive voter fraud, the only reason to have such a bill is pure voter suppression. We know that. They know that. And they know they have the votes.
6Robocalls in the past have informed people that Republicans will vote on Tuesday and Democrats on Wednesday. Of course, the polls will be closed on Wednesday. I’m surprised that they didn’t try to write this scam into law.
7Here’s hoping Texas Democrats are able to make a clear argument on voting procedures. Point out Republican actions to skew the voting rules in their favor after a “secure” election supervised by mainly Republican officials that resulted in mainly Republican wins. Point out the additional barriers and what Republicans did to make the process more challenging. I don’t know too many people who LIKE standing in lines or getting pushed away for some sort of technical violation.
In 2018, the Total Ballots Counted Voting by Eligible Population rate in Texas was 45.6%. Texas has a participation rate capable of growth — 2018 Colorado was 61.4% and Minnesota was the top at 64.2%. Texas may not get there … but you could probably do as well as Kansas and Nebraska (51.x%), or another state known to be big, Alaska (54.8%).
8This is so bad. However, once gerrymandering is completed it will be worse. We can never get Dems. into state Senate/House office so they can move up the ranks and get statewide office. It’s so depressing.
9Fools and Democracy are soon parted….
The USA will be the tipping point,
10racing China to total surveillance.
It is not just Texas though!
“361 bills to restrict voting rights introduced in 47 states as of March 24
That’s up from 253 restrictive bills as of Feb 19, a 43% increase in a month
55 restrictive bills in 24 states moving through legislatures….”
https://twitter.com/AriBerman/status/1377601202016419842
11“When bad guys win, bad things happen.” This kind of bad things? In the halls of the repugnantican cockus. Dickheads:
Matt Gaetz showed nude pics of women he said he slept with to GOP members of Congress: report – Raw Story
12https://www.rawstory.com/matt-gaetz-2651324286/
RE: 1
bear in mind, a good chunk of that 6.6% increase in voting, from 2016 to 2020, also has a heapin’ helpin’ of previous non-voters, who got to love themselves some Trump, during the past 4 years, contributing to Trump’s overall increase of 11 million votes, from 2016 to 2020.
13G Foresight @11. You can reduce the counts of active threats by one state and 5 bills. Colorado leg. finally got around to officially dropping the 5 bills into the designated “kill” committee for inaction. Gone, and won’t be back this year.
14Although Coke and Delta stepped up to condemn the Georgia voter suppression bill, it was not “better late than never”. They could have and should have done more before it passed. It remains to be seen how their condemnation plays out or other organizations come out to condemn. Now MLB pulled the all star game. Probably will have no impact other than piss off a few repugnanticans. I see Kemp is already threatening to eliminate any tax breaks for businesses coming out against the law.
15It’s virtually too late for any businesses or sports organizations to change the outcome in Texas, but I, for one, would like to see some of these organizations step up and condemn, and do something punitive to the state.
But the beat down of voter rights will continue in the other states.