A voting bill that will make it harder for Texans, particularly voters of color, to cast their ballots is unconstitutional and violates federal voting rights law because it diminishes access to the ballot box, according to a lawsuit filed today in federal court.
MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund), the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, and the law firms of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP in New York and Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP in Dallas filed a challenge in U.S. District Court in San Antonio to Senate Bill 1. The lawsuit – filed on behalf of 10 membership and community-based organizations, an election official, an election judge, and voters – claims that S.B. 1’s provisions violate the federal Voting Rights Act, the Supremacy Clause, and the First, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The Texas House and Senate passed the bill Tuesday….
Among the S.B. 1 provisions that could make it harder for voters to cast a ballot are restrictions that limit the assistance that individuals can provide to voters who require help.
S.B. 1 will also make it harder for election workers to maintain safety and security in the polling place. The legislation will curtail election workers’ authority to remove partisan poll watchers who are harassing voters and S.B. 1 may subject election workers to prosecution if they try to limit poll watchers’ behavior.
Under S.B. 1, employees of nonprofit organizations who help people vote by mail will risk felony charges and up to two years in jail, which creates a barrier for elderly voters and voters with disabilities. For example, the legislation will make it a crime to pay someone for providing such assistance to voters or for offering, receiving, or soliciting such payment. These provisions will also restrict civic engagement activities by community-based organizations. Further, S.B. 1 will roll back voting initiatives that increased access to the ballot during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as drive-thru voting and expanded early voting hours….
In addition, S.B. 1 will limit the ability of election officials to do their job. For example, the complaint argues that Harris County Election Administrator Isabel Longoria’s First Amendment speech would be restricted under the bill’s anti-solicitation provision, which makes it a crime for her to encourage individuals who are eligible or may be eligible to apply to vote by mail.
The complaint and more information about the lawsuit can be found here.
Category Archives: The Voting Wars
“Republican bill tightening Texas election laws is headed to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk”
A wave of changes to Texas elections, including new voting restrictions, is headed to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk.
Three months after House Democrats first broke quorum to stymie a previous iteration of the legislation, Republicans in the House and Senate on Tuesday signed off on the final version of Senate Bill 1 to further tighten the state’s voting rules and rein in local efforts to widen voting access. Abbott, a Republican, said he will sign it into law.
The bill was delayed one more time as its Republican author, state Sen. Bryan Hughes, disapproved of language added by the House to address the controversial conviction of Crystal Mason, a Tarrant County woman facing a five-year sentence for a ballot she has said she did not know she was ineligible to cast. Hughes’ objection triggered backroom talks to strip the Mason amendment before the bill could come up for a final vote.
The votes mark the end of a legislative saga that encompassed two sessions of legislative overtime and featured marathon hearings, a dramatic decampment to Washington, D.C., and escalating tensions between the Democrats who fled in protest of what they saw as a danger to their constituents’ votes and the Republicans left behind unable to conduct business.
Republicans pushed for SB 1 citing their desire to further safeguard elections from fraud — for which there is no evidence of a widespread problem — and to standardize election procedures. The legislation establishes new ID requirements for voting by mail, enhances protections for partisan poll watchers and sets new rules, and possible criminal penalties, for those who assist voters.
It also makes it a state jail felony for local election officials to proactively distribute applications for mail-in ballots, even if they are providing them to voters who automatically qualify to vote by mail or groups helping get out the vote.
Throughout the last few months, Republicans also strived to leave intact provisions of the bill that will ban drive-thru voting and set new limits on early voting hours to outlaw overnight voting. They were clear they were targeting initiatives carried out by Harris County last year, which county officials have said were disproportionately used by voters of color.
“Democrats counter Republican-led voter restrictions with early, aggressive outreach”
“The Obvious Voting-Rights Solution That No Democrat Will Propose”
Russell Berman in the Alantic:
Democrats in Congress are considering a policy that was long unthinkable: a federal requirement that every American show identification before casting a ballot. But as the party tries to pass voting-rights legislation before the next election, it is ignoring a companion proposal that could ensure that a voter-ID law leaves no one behind—an idea that is as obvious as it is historically controversial. What if the government simply gave an ID card to every voting-age citizen in the country?
I proposed national voter id coupled with universal voter registration in my 2012 book, The Voting Wars. This is hardly a new idea.
Must-Read Michael Wines: “As Washington Stews, State Legislatures Increasingly Shape American Politics; From voting rights to the culture wars, state legislatures controlled by Republicans are playing a role well beyond their own state borders”
With the release of the 2020 census last month, the drawing of legislative districts that could in large part determine control of Congress for the next decade heads to the nation’s state legislatures, the heart of Republican political power.
Increasingly, state legislatures, especially in 30 Republican-controlled states, have seized an outsize role for themselves, pressing conservative agendas on voting, Covid-19 and the culture wars that are amplifying partisan splits and shaping policy well beyond their own borders.
Indeed, for a party out of power in Washington, state legislatures have become enormous sources of leverage and influence. That is especially true for rural conservatives who largely control the legislatures in key states like Wisconsin, Texas and Georgia and could now lock in a strong Republican tilt in Congress and cement their own power for the next decade. The Texas Legislature’s pending approval of new restrictions on voting is but the latest example.
“This is in many ways genuinely new, because of the breadth and scope of what’s happening,” said Donald F. Kettl, a scholar of state governance at the University of Texas at Austin. “But more fundamentally, the real point of the spear of Trumpism is appearing at the state and local level. State legislatures not only are keeping the flame alive, but nurturing and growing it.”
He added that the aggressive role played by Republican legislatures had much further to run.
“There’s all this talk of whether or not Republicans are a party that has any future at this point,” he said, “but the reality is that Republicans not only are alive and well, but living in the state legislatures. And they’re going to be pushing more of this forward.”
The next battle, already underway in many states, is over the drawing of congressional and state legislative districts. Republicans control 26 of the legislatures that will draw political maps, compared with 13 for Democrats. (Other states have nonpartisan commissions that draw legislative districts, or have just one seat.)
“House Passes a Voting Rights Bill, but a G.O.P. Blockade Awaits in the Senate”
The House voted on Tuesday to restore federal oversight of state election laws under the 1965 Voting Rights Act and expand its reach, as Democrats moved to strengthen a crowning legislative achievement of the civil rights era amid a renewed national fight over access to the ballot box.
The legislation, named after Representative John Lewis of Georgia, the civil rights icon who died last year, is a linchpin of the party’s strategy to combat voting restrictions in Republican-led states. It would reverse two Supreme Court rulings that gutted the statute, reviving the power of the Justice Department to bar some discriminatory election changes from taking effect and easing the path to challenge others in court.
Up against urgent deadlines before next year’s midterm elections, Democrats votedalong party lines to adopt the bill 219 to 212 in a rare August session, just days after it was introduced. But stiff Republican opposition awaits in the Senate, where a likely filibuster threatens to sink it before it can reach President Biden’s desk.
That outcome is becoming familiar this summer, as Democrats on Capitol Hill try to use their party’s control of Congress and the White House to lock in watershed election changes — only to be blocked by their Republican counterparts. In the meantime, more than a dozen G.O.P.-led states have already enacted more than 30 laws this year making it harder to vote.
“Judge strikes down part of Georgia voting law that banned photography”
A federal judge ruled against a broad ban on photographing voted ballots Friday, throwing out a part of Georgia’s new election law while allowing the rest of it to stand.
The decision is the first time a judge has invalidated a section of the 98-page voting law, which also limits ballot drop boxes, requires more ID to vote absentee and allows the state government to take over county elections.
U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee rejected the law’s sweeping prohibition of photographing or recording any filled-out ballot, finding that such far-reaching restrictions violate freedom of speech protections guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Boulee upheld other parts of the law fought in the lawsuit, including a requirement that voters request absentee ballots at least 11 days before election day and a prohibition on election observers communicating information to anyone other than election officials.
“The court recognizes that a preliminary injunction is an extraordinary remedy that should be granted sparingly, especially when it enjoins enforcement of a statute, but finds it is appropriate here given the constitutional rights at stake and plaintiffs’ satisfaction of the requisite burden,” Boulee wrote in a 39-page order.
I Spoke with the Legal Talk Today Podcast About the Voting Rights Act and New Restrictive Voting Rules
You can listen here.
“Texas GOP voting bill on fast track after standstill ends”
The sudden end of Texas Democrats’ 38-day walkout has put Republicans back on a fast track to pass a sweeping voting bill and is causing rifts among some Democrats who said Friday they felt “betrayed” by colleagues who returned to the state Capitol.
Texas is the last big GOP-controlled state that has not passed more restrictive voting laws driven by former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. But it is now likely only a matter of weeks after enough Democratic lawmakers ended their holdout Thursday to restore a quorum — by the slimmest of margins — in the state House of Representatives.
It broke a stalemate that brought the Texas Capitol to a standstill, and already Republicans are working fast to advance a sweeping bill to the House floor as early as Monday. The collapse of Democrats’ holdout frustrated a faction that appeared ready to torpedo the bill for a third time in Texas, even though a commanding GOP majority in the Texas statehouse made it unlikely that Democrats could permanently stop the bill from passing.
“Fight Over Voting Rights in Texas Nears End as Democrats Return”
A 38-day walkout by Democrats in the Texas House of Representatives effectively ended on Thursday as three previously absent members arrived in the Capitol, clearing the way for Republicans to establish a quorum and pass restrictive voting rules.
Despite efforts by Democrats to maintain a solid block even as most returned from Washington this month, the three representatives from Houston decided to return together, an apparent effort to deflect any criticism from their colleagues or liberal activists.
The House adjourned until 4 p.m. Monday without any votes, but hearings were expected to take place over the weekend. The passage of sweeping voting restrictions — to undo last year’s expansion of ballot access during the coronavirus pandemic in places like Houston and empower partisan poll watchers — appeared quite likely in the coming days.
Georgia: “State Appoints Bipartisan Panel To Review Fulton Election Board’s Actions”
Stephen Fowler for GPB:
The Georgia State Election Board has appointed a bipartisan three-member panel to initiate a performance review of Fulton County’s elections board, the latest step in a lengthy process allowed under a new GOP-backed state law overhauling elections.
Gwinnett County Elections Board member Stephen Day, Catoosa County Elections Board chairman Ricky Kittle and Secretary of State general counsel Ryan Germany will begin a review of Georgia’s most populous county after a number of Republican lawmakers initiated complaints about the 2020 election cycle in late July.
They will have an undetermined amount of time to “make a thorough and complete investigation of the local election official with respect to all actions of the local election official,” including maintaining election equipment, oversight of registration and elections and compliance with state law. The investigation process will likely take several months.
Presumably, this review board would also look into the numerous allegations made about Fulton County’s elections, from unfounded claims of fraud to more concrete examples of problems with the voting process that did not affect the outcome of the election.
From there, a report will be issued to the Secretary of State’s office, the State Election Board and the Fulton County Commission with its findings, which will include “evaluations, judgments and recommendations as it deems appropriate.”
After the report is finished, the panel ultimately could recommend Fulton’s bipartisan elections board be suspended and replaced by a temporary superintendent with the authority to make many elections decisions, including staffing and polling place choices — but that outcome is unlikely.
“Texas Supreme Court says House Democrats can be arrested and brought to the Capitol, siding with Republicans trying to secure a quorum”
Texas House Democrats who refuse to show up to the state Capitol in their bid to prevent Republican lawmakers from passing a voting restrictions bill can be arrested and brought to the lower chamber, the Texas Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.
The all-Republican court sided with Gov. Greg Abbott and House Speaker Dade Phelan — and ordered a Travis County district judge to revoke his temporary restraining order blocking the civil arrest of Democratic lawmakers whose absences have denied the chamber the number of present members needed to move any legislation.
“The legal question before this Court concerns only whether the Texas Constitution gives the House of Representatives the authority to physically compel the attendance of absent members,” Justice Jimmy Blacklock wrote in the court’s opinion. “We conclude that it does, and we therefore direct the district court to withdraw the TRO.”
“‘Center of the maelstrom’: Election officials grapple with 2020’s long shadow”
Zach Montellaro for Politico:
The nation’s secretaries of state used to be little-known, wonky bureaucrats who operated in near-anonymity. But after the 2020 election, they are now on the frontlines of the battle over trust in American democracy.
Since the last time they gathered in person more than a year-and-a-half ago, the secretaries of state have seen their jobs — and U.S. elections — change completely. And they are still grappling with how to respond.Interviews with a dozen state chief election officers at the National Association of Secretaries of State summer conference here, along with panel discussions and conversations with other conference attendees, paint a picture of a radically different American election system post-2020, reshaped by a once-in-a-generation pandemic on one side and a near-unprecedented wave of misinformation on the other.
Now, those officials — who in many states also manage bureaucracies around things like business registration and licensing barbers and hairdressers — find their jobs dominated by elections. They have been besieged by conspiracies about what happened last year, and they’re increasingly being targeted personally by those same misinformation campaigns.
“I can’t help to think that it undergirds everything we’re doing here,” Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan, a Democrat first elected to the office last year, said of the 2020 election and its aftermath. “It has just changed the game.”
The conference also made clear that the shadow of 2020 was still hanging over their offices for the foreseeable future.
There were persistent rumors that there were, as the group’s executive director put in the closing meeting, “crazy people” who snuck into the conference and were trying to secretly film the secretaries. One longtime attendee noted that security, while not overwhelming, was significantly more visible than in years past, and uniformed police officers were a regular presence at the conference. At least one secretary had private security at the conference, and another noted that they had contacted law enforcement while in Iowa to report a new violent threat they received back home.
“Voting Rights Groups File Federal Lawsuit Challenging Arizona’s New Voter Suppression Laws”
Details on the RNC’s future election litigation strategy
Breitbart (ed.: not often linked on the pages of ELB?) interviews Justin Riemer, chief counsel at the Republican National Committee:
The Republican Party has built a “permanent” structure to battle the left nationwide on election integrity over the last eight months and is winning the longer war with Democrats, senior Republican National Committee (RNC) officials revealed exclusively to Breitbart News through lengthy interviews and documents detailing the efforts.
Justin Riemer, the chief counsel of the RNC who is overseeing the party’s efforts, in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News last week, broke down the GOP’s election integrity push into “three separate categories” which include a permanent staffed infrastructure nationwide and a broad law-fare legal strategy to counter Democrats.
“The first is what we’re doing in the courts and litigating,” Riemer said. “The second is sort of our operational organization out in the field to send teams into the states and the third is the more sort of communications and efficacy efforts we’ve made at the state level and pushing back on HR1 and the congressional overreach that we’ve been pushing back with.”
And some stats later in the piece:
A memo the RNC prepared detailing said efforts, also obtained exclusively by Breitbart News, noted the RNC spent more than $30 million in 2020 in dozens of lawsuits — 59 in particular last year — but that the party is expanding and bolstering that legal strategy now heading into the 2022 midterms and eventually the 2024 presidential cycle. Already, the RNC has engaged in at least 19 lawsuits more than a year before the 2022 midterms — with lots more planned on the way. The operation has a multimillion dollar investment from the party as well, and it is a broad effort that the RNC is overseeing in coordination with other party committees like the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), and perhaps most importantly, the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC).