Time ran out on the Texas House floor last night due to a lack of quorum! At the end of the session, we need to celebrate and give credit to the many voting rights heroes who fought against this anti-voter legislation! The League of Women Voters of Texas partnered with local, state and national organizations to provide support to legislators who understood the negative impact of this bill.
Heroic legislators, voting rights organizations, and individual Texans spoke up and shed light on how SB 7 would restrict voting in Texas. Almost 18,000 League members and supporters sent close to 139,000 emails to their Texas legislators.
The demise of SB7 was also precipitated by the bill authors' manipulation of the democratic process; waiting to make changes to the bill behind closed doors with just a few legislators. The bill went from 27 pages to 61 pages without ANY public hearing or legislative debate regarding the impact on Texas voters.
Grace Chimene, President of LWVTX, noted “This is a victory for all Texas voters! Texans want elections to be free, fair, and accessible. They want a transparent process they can trust, where Americans have equal freedom to vote, no matter what they look like or where they live, whether in a small Texas town or one of Texas' major metropolitan areas. SB 7 is not what Texas voters want .”
SB 7 provisions added requirements and civil penalties to make it much more difficult and complicated to register to vote, vote by mail, and assist a voter. It also eliminated extended voting hours, prohibiting polling places from opening before 6 a.m. or staying open after 9 p.m. On Sundays, polling places could not open before 1 p.m. impacting Black voters' "souls to the polls."
Governor Abbott has already indicated that voting and election will be added to the special session when one is called. We need to persist.
LWVTX is committed to continuing its work in collaboration with others to ensure that every eligible Texan has the opportunity to cast a safe and secure ballot. “Texans all over the state during the last election benefited from more voting opportunities, such as the expansion of early voting, extended hours at the polling places, and more options to return vote-by-mail ballots. These are the kinds of measures that Texans want” Chimene stated. "We hope that legislators will respond to their constituents’ needs when they address this legislation again."