2021 GOP voting bill advances to Texas House floor after overnight committee hearing

[Draggingtree]

Texas Tribune

GOP voting bill advances to Texas House floor after overnight committee hearing

Authors of voting legislation in the House and Senate are moving to ban drive-thru and 24-hour voting options, enhance access for partisan poll watchers and prohibit local election officials from proactively distributing applications to request mail-in ballots. Both bills also include language to further restrict the state’s voting-by-mail rules, including new ID requirements for absentee voters.

BY ALEXA URA AND CASSANDRA POLLOCK JULY 10, 2021UPDATED: 2 HOURS AGO

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The second round of the Texas voting bill fight kicked off with haste this weekend as Republicans worked to rapidly push through new restrictions in overnight hearings.

Just a few days into a 30-day special legislative session, a Texas House committee voted early Sunday morning to advance a revived GOP-backed bill that would bring back many of the proposals that failed to pass in the spring. A panel of Senate lawmakers is expected to follow suit later in the day following a lengthy public hearing on its version of the legislation that played out Saturday afternoon into the night.

The votes from the Republican-majority committees will put the bills on a path to be voted on by the full chamber this week.

[Valin]

HuffPo

Here’s What Key Republican Legislatures Are Plotting Next On State Voter Restrictions

GOP lawmakers in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are trying to circumvent Democratic vetoes as they prepare for 2022.

Travis Waldron

July 17 2021

Republican legislatures in a dozen states have already passed new laws that restrict voting this year, a number that is likely to grow when Texas Democrats eventually return home from a walk-out meant to delay GOP efforts to pass yet another voter suppression law.

The wave of new voting restrictions could have been even bigger. In Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and North Carolina, Democratic governors have either vetoed or are likely to block Republican voter restriction packages. But in at least three of those four states, Republican leaders are either actively pursuing or at least considering ways around the vetoes.

Other GOP lawmakers in those states, meanwhile, are still seeking to relitigate the last election and propagate the lies former President Donald Trump told about it through more radical means, mostly by trying to convince their party to conduct the sort of sham election audit that is nearing its conclusion in Arizona.  

(Snip)

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Top Comment

Linda Cooper-Smith

6 hours ago

"The republicans won't stop until they've passed all the voter restrictions they want. I hate to sound like a defeatist but unless the federal government does something to stop them it's a done deal. Joe Manchin might as well change parties for all the good he does the democrats. We can't rely on him for anything. I do think his suggestions to simplify the legislation are good ones, but the republicans won't go along with them."

 

They Make the craziest at TOS look sane.