The Texas Senate on Thursday advanced a sweeping elections bill along party lines following a 15-hour filibuster by one of the Senate’s leading Democrats.
The Senate passed the bill along party lines, 18 to 11 after Texas state Senator Carol Alvarado concluded a 15-hour filibuster. She acknowledged Wednesday in an interview with CBS News that the bill was bound to pass but said it was a tool available to Democrats to continue to draw attention to the legislation.
Here’s an excerpt report from The Daily Mail:
The Texas Senate has passed a bill with new voting restrictions on Thursday morning, after a Democratic Texas lawmaker finished a roughly 15-hour filibuster where she had to speak constantly and not lean on her desk, eat, drink or use the restroom in protest of the state’s Republican-backed legislation.
Lawmakers in Texas’s upper house voted 18-11 in favor of the bill aimed at enhancing election security.
Debate on the measure began Wednesday evening before State Senator Carol Alvarado began speaking continuously and wrapped just before 9 a.m. local time on Thursday.
The bill would eliminate drive-thru and 24-hour early voting, both of which were used in the Houston area last year due to the pandemic. It would also expand early voting hours in some smaller and medium-sized counties; add ID requirements for voting by mail; give more powers to partisan poll watchers; and create new rules, with potential criminal penalties, for people who assist voters.
Democrats have been staunchly opposed to Republican efforts to amend the state’s voting laws. They note that there is no credible evidence of widespread fraud and say the bills will make it harder for some people to vote.
“What do we want our democracy to look like? Do we want our state to be more or less inclusive?” Alvarado said in her closing remarks. “Instead of making it easier to vote, this bill makes it easier to intimidate. Instead of making it harder to cheat, it makes it harder to vote.”
Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan signed civil arrest warrants for the missing 52 Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday, but those lawmakers have not returned to Austin. On Thursday afternoon, the Texas Supreme Court halted an order that was protecting the Democratic lawmakers from arrest warrants.
Some of those legislators are still in Washington, D.C., where they urged Democratic senators to pass federal voting rights legislation. Senate Democrats have said it will be a top priority when they return in the fall, but the path to passing that legislation remains uncertain.
Sources: The Gateway Pundit, CBS News, Daily Mail
dan