The runaway Texas Democrats proved they could be obnoxious, offensive, cost Texas a lot of money, and spread COVID around when they fled to Washington, D.C. to avoid a quorum in the Texas House to prevent a vote on an election integrity bill. The aim of the bill was to build up voter identification rules and be stricter on vote-by-mail rules.
Democrats tried to paint the bill as “racist” — despite not being able to cite one person who would be prohibited from voting based on race. It was all just a propaganda effort. Democrats showed how hypocritical it all was when they had one of their members filibuster the bill in the Texas Senate, while arguing that the U.S. Senate filibuster is “racist” and should be eliminated. That was unsuccessful, with the bill passing in the Senate.
But ultimately, the runaway Democrats were betrayed by their own members who came back and finally established a quorum. There were 121 members present yesterday. The House passed a slightly revised version of the Senate bill, 80-41.
So now the bill heads back to Texas Senate, which will either accept the House changes or work out the differences in a conference committee. They will likely pass it sometime next week.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said he looked forward to signing it into law and making the process “fair and uniform.”
Election integrity is being debated on the House floor today.
This legislation will make our elections process fair & uniform.
Thank you @SenBryanHughes & Rep. Murr for fighting to make it easier to vote & harder to cheat.
I look forward to signing this bill into law.
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) August 26, 2021
As Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) explained about the bill in a Twitter thread, the provisions were straight-ahead election protection:
Bans paid ballot harvesting, the practice of gathering and submitting complete absentee or mail-in voter ballots by third-party individuals, volunteers or party workers, rather than submission by voters themselves directly to ballot collection sites.
Requires voter ID verification for mail-in ballots in line with in-person voting.
Sets uniform voting times for early voting to reduce confusion while expanding hours on the weekend. This fixes the different voting times in different counties that confused voters.
Ensures accountability at the polls by allowing poll watchers to observe election workers, improving transparency and confidence in the results. Strengthens the ban on unmanned mail-in drop boxes and prohibits unsolicited distribution of mail-in ballot applications by public officials.
Sets uniform procedures for verifying the authenticity of mail-in ballots while also giving voters the chance to correct mistakes if they are discovered.
Requires those assisting voters with filling out their ballots to complete a form verifying their identity and to take an oath stating that they will not try to influence a voter one way or another.
Ends the temporary, emergency measures that were put in place solely because of the pandemic like drive-thru voting and 24-hour early voting. These options never existed before the pandemic, even though Democrats want you to believe we are ending a long-standing practice.
How is any of that racist? That’s something that Democrats can’t explain; they just claim it’s “voter suppression.” Was it voter suppression when they didn’t have it before the pandemic? If they’re also expanding early voting hours — which the bill does — is that also “voter suppression?”
Democrats went down crying, blaming their compatriots and making up nonsense, as they have throughout their effort to bust the quorum.
“We are disappointed that a few Democrats chose to return to the floor,” the 30 Democrats said in a joint statement on Friday. “We feel betrayed and heartbroken, but our resolve is strong and this fight is not over.”
They even tried to claim that the number wasn’t right and that the Republicans were lying.
Yep, the fight is over and they’re sore losers — along with everything else they’ve shown themselves to be.
Critical reminder that the Tik Tok Texans stunt was dumb and accomplished nothing but spreading the Delta variant in Washington.
Congrats to the Texas legislature on passing a great election integrity bill despite the theater and histrionics. https://t.co/X7X0s8xjX4
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) August 27, 2021
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