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Hailee Mouch woke up at 2 a.m. Saturday morning so she could travel to Austin, her state capital, and testify at two competing public hearings on Texas’ restrictive ballot bills.
She knew she had to return to the Dallas area to be at work before 6 a.m. on Sunday. But she was determined to stay as long as possible to explain to state lawmakers how their proposals would hurt democracy in the small town where she attends college.
“It shouldn’t be scary to vote,” she said. “And I’m afraid that will make the vote scary.”
Mouch was among the crowd that flocked to the state capital on Saturday, when the state’s House and Senate committees held overlapping hearings on highly controversial election legislation during their special session in rapid fire.
At 6 a.m. local time on Sunday, public testimony in the House was still underway. The one-night hearing paralleled actions in the regular session of the legislature, when lawmakers advanced election bills while most Texans slept.
“We’ve packed snacks and food and everything, and we’re ready for another 22 hour marathon if that’s what God is calling us to do. We love our state. That’s it. We have nowhere to go, ”said Lori Gallagher.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called the special session – effectively legislative overtime for no more than 30 days – from July 8, after Democrats killed a restrictive ballot bill in the regular session with a historic walkout from the House.
“We feel like our ‘elected officials’ are really trying to fight us and try to eliminate this urgency that we have and this commitment that we have,” said Lexy Garcia, regional field coordinator for Texas Rising and Texas. Freedom Network on tackling voting restrictions.
Abbott announced the agenda for its special session on Wednesday and the public received very little notice before they had to appear for Saturday’s hearings.
But Texans of all ideological backgrounds still filled several overflow rooms and sat patiently on the hallway benches, preparing to wait all day and night to testify in person at the sessions.
At around 6:30 p.m. Saturday, seven and a half hours after the start of the Senate public hearing, former presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke addressed the committee. He testified again for the House committee early Sunday morning.
“Some of you are Republicans. I am a democrat. But I think we want to win these contests on the merits of the argument, the ideas and the vision that we offer, ”O’Rourke said during the Senate hearing.
“We don’t want to win because we have effectively and functionally excluded millions of our fellow Texans from participating in these decisions that will impact all of our lives for generations to come.”
Texas is one of the nation’s fiercest battlegrounds for the right to vote, with a deeply divided electorate and a reputation as the toughest place to vote nationally.
Now Republicans are approving provisions that would ban round-the-clock and drive-thru voting, expose officials to state crimes for soliciting or distributing unsolicited mail-in vote requests, empowering partisan poll observers and otherwise. dramatically reduce voter access.
Voting rights advocates have warned for months that these changes could disproportionately deprive voters of color and people with disabilities of the right to vote, a concern Republican lawmakers ignored in Saturday’s Senate hearing.
“Every provision of this bill applies to all voters equally, regardless of where they live, what color their skin color or what political party they are,” State Senator Bryan Hughes said, author of the Senate bill. “We do not register and disclose what our race or religion is.”
“I do not believe that there is a suppression of voters. I know there is no Jim Crow 2 era law in this bill. And I will tell you that I know there is no voting tax in this bill, ”said State Senator Paul Bettencourt.
Some Texans, however, believe the new bills don’t go far enough to establish what opponents call voter suppression, but the governor calls “electoral integrity.”
Melinda Roberts, a poll observer who said she was denied access to a polling station in 2020, initially thought the Senate had slaughtered and over-watered its legislation – although she had subsequently expressed support.
She ultimately wanted felony charges for election officials who restrict access to election observers, but had little sympathy for those who found it too difficult to vote.
“I would like to ask them, ‘Who told you you couldn’t vote?’ Roberts said. “I have an elderly mother. She votes in every election. No one said she couldn’t vote. I have a son who has a double amputee. He votes in each election. If you want to vote, you can vote. Nobody removes you. Nobody.”
Betty Weed disagreed. She said she was opposed to the bills because they would make voting “almost impossible for many people”.
Weed volunteers with a group that provides free rides to voters, and she’s helped Texans are blind and who, with her help, can finally vote, after decades of being denied the right to vote.
“The whole bill concerns me,” she said. “Pretty much everything in the bill will make it so much more difficult to vote. “
The conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month upheld Arizona voting restrictions against overwhelming Liberal dissent in a ruling that dealt a blow to voting rights law, the landmark 1965 Civil Rights Act designed to prevent discrimination in voting, and with far-reaching implications in other states.
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