"The bill, which was hashed out in a closed-door panel of lawmakers over the past week, was rushed to the State Senate floor late Saturday. In a legislative power play orchestrated by Republican lawmakers and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the Senate moved to suspend rules that required a bill to be public for 24 hours before a final vote," the New York Times reported. "The Texas House did not move to suspend the rules, and is likely to vote on the bill on Sunday."
The Republican-controlled Texas Legislature is set to adjourn on Monday. The Washington Post noted that GOP Gov. Greg Abbott "threatened lawmakers with a special session if they did not pass a voting" and is expected to sign S.B. 7. Abbott is a potential 2024 presidential candidate and a major supporter of former President Trump -- who, despite his definitive loss, claimed repeatedly that the 2020 election was "stolen" from him, which a majority of recently polled Republicans still believe.
Critics have called S.B. 7 a clear effort to limit electoral participation in the largely Democratic Harris County because it would outlaw drive-thru and 24-hour voting, which nearly 140,000 county voters used in the 2020 election. Other provisions include barring election officials from sending absentee ballots to all voters, implementing new identification requirements for Texans who request mail ballots, allowing partisan poll watchers additional access, and imposing harsher punishments on election officials who violate state rules.
According to the Post, "In a last-minute addition, language was inserted in the bill making it easier to overturn an election, no longer requiring evidence that fraud actually altered an outcome of a race -- but rather only that enough ballots were illegally cast that could have made a difference."
Journalist and voting rights expert Ari Berman said in response to the addition, "This is insane."
"S.B. 7 remains a racist voter suppression bill that belongs in the Jim Crow era," Common Cause Texas executive director Anthony Gutierrez said Saturday after a conference committee of state House and Senate members released the final version.
"The choice to push this legislation forward in the dark, despite overwhelming opposition from the people of Texas, is about the politicians in power doing everything they can to manipulate the outcome of future elections to keep themselves in power," he continued.
MOVE Texas communications director Charlie Bonner echoed that critique Saturday in comments to The Texas Tribune.
"It is fitting that the final push to get anti-voter Senate Bill 7 to the governor's desk would take place behind closed doors, hidden from public scrutiny," said Bonner. "This bill does nothing to improve the security of our elections -- it only makes our democracy weaker by limiting access for young, disabled, Black, and Brown Texans."
Gutierrez asserted that "the intent of this bill is now and has always been to make it harder for certain Texans to vote or simply discourage others from even trying to take part in our democracy. Nowhere is that made more clear than in this version that cruelly removes an amendment that would have simply made it easier for high schools to register students. There is literally no reason to do that other than the politicians in power being afraid of too many young people voting."
"New voting procedures implemented by innovative county officials like drive-thru voting and after-hours voting were a resounding success and deserve to be celebrated," he added. "Instead, supporters of S.B. 7 decided to end those practices simply because they enabled more people to make their voices heard in our elections."
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