Texas House passes controversial 'election integrity' bill

AUSTIN, Texas — After a marathon floor session at the Texas House of Representatives that began Thursday night and continued to early Friday morning, members returned to the floor just hours after leaving to give final passage to Senate Bill 7, the so-called "election integrity"bill at the center of criticism over charges it will lead to voter suppression.

Early Friday morning, the Texas House of Representatives gave initial passage to SB 7 around 3 A.M., by a vote of 81-64, after several hours of discussion and negotiations.

The bill got final passage by a vote of 78-64, after a night that spilled into morning characterized by several hours of debate, delays, and a quick flurry of amendments accepted and adopted.

After a number of delays on discussion of SB 7, the House discussed and passed other bills on the agenda, allowing time for both sides to come to an agreement on amendments to tack on to the bill.

In total, Cain accepted and adopted 18 amendments, down from more than 130 originally filed. This compromise came after a 2-hour point of order that was eventually withdrawn to allow for this. A point of order is a procedural tactic to kill utilized to kill amendments or bills over technical issues.

The House floor began debate Thursday evening on the committee substitute of Senate Bill 7, which has identical language to their version of the bill, House Bill 6. Opponents have said this will increase the number of hurdles for Texans to vote.

If signed into law, it would require a person assisting a voter to complete a form including their name and address, and how and why they're helping, even if it's for medical reasons. Additionally, it would increase protections for poll watchers appointed by the political parties by spelling out criminal penalties if election officials kick them out for essentially any reason, which has some bill critics worried this could foster an environment conducive to voter intimidation.

Perhaps the most criticized measure would ban election officials from mailing out applications to vote by mail. This is a direct response to what Harris County elections officials did during the 2020 election, which was a measure taken as a health and safety precaution during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Both HB 6 and its Senate version, SB 7, have been vocally supported by Gov. Greg Abbott, who made election security an emergency item and legislative priority this session.

The state's top Republicans have repeatedly made claims that Texans have lost faith in elections because they believe widespread voter fraud affected the results of the 2020 elections. These claims have been unfounded or disproven.

State Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, is the author of the bill language that has replaced that of SB 7, and was barraged with questions about statistics supporting these claims, with lawmakers pointing to statistics showing how few cases there were in the state.

This year, the Texas Secretary of State received 414 election complaints, but referred only 69 of these complaints to the Office of the Attorney General.

A Houston Chronicle report in December found Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had successfully prosecuted only 16 minor voter fraud cases, none of which led to jail time since all of them involved putting the wrong address on a voter registration form. This is .000141 percent of the more than 11 million votes cast in 2020, as well as only half the number of cases from 2018, despite spending twice as much time on voter fraud cases compared to two years ago.

Even Abbott could not name an instance of voter fraud when pressed in a March news conference.

Additionally, top officials in former President Donald Trump's administration refuted claims of voter fraud impacting this election.

Former Attorney General William Barr, one of Trump's most ardent supporters until his resignation from the administration, stated there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud, and former Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Christopher Krebs said the "2020 election was most secure in US history." Both drew criticism from Trump, with the former president firing Krebs after pushing back against his false claims of voter fraud costing him the election.

State Rep. Chris Turner, D-Grand Prairie, questioned the motivation behind these election bills.

"Is this bill simply a part in the continuation of 'The Big Lie' perpetrated by Donald Trump that somehow he actually really won the presidential? Is that really what this is all about, to validate the former president's falsehoods that he somehow actually won an election he lost by more than 7 million votes? Is that what this is about," Turner asked.

Cain claimed these bills had nothing to do with the 2020 election, though it should be noted he did travel to Pennsylvania to offer legal services to Trump's legal team while they were unsuccessfully suing swing states in an attempt to overturn their results.

The Deer Park Republican is also the chair of the House Committee on Elections, and has become a lightning rod of controversy recently.

In order to even pass SB 7 to the floor, Cain, who is also the chair of the House Committee on Elections, tried passing the bill without putting it on the agenda or holding a public hearing.

Right before the committee had to recess to attend a floor session, Cain called up SB 7, to the loud protests of Democratic members.

At that point, Cain quickly adopted the committee substitute for the bill after a shouting match, and called for a vote to send the bill to the Calendars Committee to be scheduled for a hearing on the full floor.

The Republican chair and supporters of the bill argued they could do this without public notice because the committee substitute was identical to House Bill 6, which the committee heard testimony on and passed strictly along party lines earlier this month.

A source explained to CBS Austin this maneuver was technically allowed because the committee would essentially be voting on bill language they already passed, though this is typically reserved for shorter bills that are not so partisan. However, now that the bill has passed, the original language of SB 7 can still be added to the bill behind closed doors during a conference committee, which is out of the public eye.

A key Republican vote chose not to vote on the bill during roll call, almost simultaneously as Vice Chair and state Rep. Jessica González, D-Dallas, voiced her frustration with Cain's tactic by saying, "This is bull-[expletive]." Cain withdrew the bill, but brought it back up and got it passed strictly along party lines when the committee returned from the floor.

A key complaint by opponents on the committee over the passage of SB 7 was the fact HB 6 - the language they're going to be voting on instead of the Senate bill's original language - is a gutted version of the bill.

The House bill is missing key provisions in the Senate bill, such as decreasing early voting hours, allowing poll watchers to video record voters, and limiting the ability of urban areas from having large voting centers commonly seen.

In addition to statistics disproving claims of voter fraud, race was a common theme in Thursday's debate.

"Would you agree the suppression of lawful voters, and voiding lawfully cast votes threatens the stability of a constitutional democracy," asked state Rep. Nicole Collier, D-Fort Worth.

These election bills have been accused by opponents as being forms of voter suppression, claiming these bills would make it disproportionately tougher for voters in communities of color to vote.

Even while discussing the gutted version of SB 7, state lawmakers raised these concerns.

"Every single member on this floor believes election fraud is a crime, and should be prosecuted. Where we disagree is we do not believe legal voters should be rejected and disenfranchised because of extraordinarily rare crime of election fraud that, again, doesn't really exist," González said."How is that increasing participation, by adding more restrictions?"

Among a chorus of complaints from House Democrats, Cain continued with the same talking points he has repeated throughout the lawmaking process.

"Idon't think this is voter suppression. I believe it's voter enhancement. I think this bill seeks to improve things for all Texans," Cain said."The whole point is it protects every single Texan. I believe that's the goal of everyone. Any amount of fraud is too much fraud."

Thursday was not the first time the elections committee chair and vice chair have publicly butted heads.

In a late-March meeting, while presenting HB 6 to the committee for the first time, Cain handed over chairmanship of the committee to Vice Chair González, which is a common practice whenever a chair of a committee is about to present a bill he or she authored.

After about an hour of fielding questions on the bill from members, González tried to recognize Collier and state Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, D-Austin, to allow them to ask questions, despite not being committee members. Collier and Rodriguez are chairs of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus and the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, respectively. Both have been vocal in their criticism of such election laws, saying they target minority communities disproportionately while not actually making elections more secure.

Before they could ask Cain questions, he blocked their testimony by regaining control of his position as chair.

RELATED:Texas voters sharply divided on fairness of elections and what to do about it, poll finds

Cain then quickly motioned to recess, but did not set up a time to reconvene, meaning he had to end the meeting before listening to public testimony according to parliamentary rules. This led to more than 100 witnesses who traveled to the Capitol to testify had to go back home without being able to comment on the bill until the next meeting.

The committee eventually passed the bill after 22 hours of public testimony, with the language now being the language of the Senate bill after last week's meeting.

Back to Thursday's floor session, state Rep. Rafael Anchía, D-Dallas, brought up the racist history of some of the language used in the bill, which Cain insisted was in the Texas Constitution.

"Did you know that this 'purity of the ballot box' justification was also used during the Jim Crow era to prevent black people from voting," Anchía asked.

Cain repeatedly claimed he did not know this was the history of the language.

Eventually, this led to the following exchange between the two representatives:

Anchía: "What is 'good law' here?"

Cain: "I think it's anything that treats everybody equally, and makes sure watchers aren't excluded, that they're able to watch the process to make sure it's fair, that we don't have people needing assistance being taken advantage of."

Anchía: "But, in making good law, it doesn't sound like you're including understanding what the impact is on African Americans or Latinos, right? Because you did not do that, is that correct?"

Cain: "Did we have an impact study done? No."

Anchía: "Why did you not have one done if you were trying to figure out what might constitute good or bad law and you knew that rather than having a discriminatory intent that you're telling us today this bill does not have, that it might have a discriminatory effect?"

Cain:"This bill is designed to protect all voters. I didn't think this was treating anyone differently. I wouldn't have thought there was a reason to study. It's literally about all voters."

While SB 7 was being discussed in its Senate committee, critics pointed out the fact bill author and state Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, did not consult with civil rights groups while writing the piece of legislation.

The bill will now get sent back to the Senate, where they can accept the amendments and send the bill to the governor's desk. If they don't accept the amendments, both chambers hash out differences in a conference committee.