Election bill, a Senate GOP priority, dies in the House

Time ran out this week for a bill that was a priority for Senate Republicans that would stiffen penalties for certain state election law violations.

Senate Bill 9, by Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, was approved 5-4 along party lines Friday by the House Elections Committee and needed to be scheduled by Sunday for an initial House-wide vote on Tuesday to meet a deadline for the House to approve Senate bills. The bill was initially scheduled to be heard in committee Thursday, but was postponed after a key Republican member was out sick.

For a bill to be planned for a vote, the committee’s report must be written and delivered to schedulers, a process that can take days to complete.

House lead scheduler Rep. Four Price, R-Amarillo, told the American-Statesman on Friday that if the bill was made a priority, committee workers could have the report delivered by Sunday. But even though the report was sent just after noon Sunday, Price’s calendar committee adjourned that evening without placing it on Tuesday’s calendar.

Price declined to answer questions about the bill Monday.

Opponents of the bill, including many Democrats, said that increasing the criminal penalties for filing false information on a voter application and improperly assisting voters to felonies would deter voters and poll workers from participating in elections.

At least one provision from SB 9 is still in circulation in an amendment Hughes made to House Bill 2911 and tentatively approved by the Senate on Monday. The provision would prevent prospective voters from using applications that are pre-checked to say that the applicant is a citizen and 18 years old or older, a change Democrats supported.

Another change to HB 2911 authored by Hughes would require voter registration information be verified against information from the Department of Public Safety every month. Such information would include whether the voter is lawfully residing in Texas and whether the voter is a citizen.

That new provision would require the Texas Attorney General to investigate possible voter registration violations every three months.

Secretary of State David Whitley, Texas’ chief elections officer, made national news when he announced in January that data provided by the Department of Public Safety identified more than 95,000 registered voters who were apparently noncitizens, including 58,000 who had voted at least once in the previous 22 years.

County officials, however, quickly discovered flaws in the data, and about 25,000 names on the list eventually were identified as naturalized citizens.

Whitley agreed to halt the investigations into the citizenship status of registered voters in a settlement agreement in April, ending three lawsuits filed by civil rights groups and naturalized citizens.

Hughes said his addition to HB 2911 would require data to be more up-to-date, preventing the problems that Whitley encountered.

HB 2911 was approved with all Republicans voting for it and all Democrats opposing it.

Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, said he was afraid that the bill would fly in the face of Whitley’s settlement agreement.

Sen. José Menéndez, D-San Antonio, said he was worried that eligible voters would be discouraged from voting.

"That’s a concern to me that we do everything we can to make sure that people who have the right to vote … have that ability to exercise that right," Menéndez said.