Texas House committee advances election bill

A bill that would stiffen penalties for election law violations was approved 5-4 along party lines by a Texas House committee Friday. The vote was delayed by a day after one of the Republican committee members was out sick Thursday.

Senate Bill 9, tweaked by the House Elections Committee, must get a vote in the House by a Tuesday deadline to stay on track for reaching Gov. Greg Abbott's desk.

SB 9 includes several provisions the bill author, Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, says are intended to protect election integrity. The bill’s provisions include raising the penalties for voters and voting assistants who knowingly violate state election laws from misdemeanors to state jail felonies.

Opponents include Texas Democratic Party leaders and minority rights activists, who say the bill is Republicans' latest attempt to suppress voters. State law say that breaking the law requires knowingly making a false statement on a voter application or improperly assisting voters, but Democrats say the move will be used to scare Hispanic and African American voters from turning out.

"House Democrats are disappointed at the party-line passage of the bill in the Elections Committee, but we will keep fighting to stop this bill," said the committee’s top Democrat, San Antonio Rep. Philip Cortez, in a statement. "When Texans with disabilities, voters young and old, non-English speaking citizens, people of color, and members of both parties stand together against a piece of legislation, that’s a tell-tale sign of a very, very bad bill."

Disability rights groups say insufficient training of poll watchers could lead them to incorrectly flag actions as influencing a voter’s decision, such as pointing to communicate with someone with an intellectual disability.

The bill is also opposed by the Texas Association of Election Administrators, whose president, Chris Davis, says the legislation would turn away hard-to-get poll workers and election judges because it expands an already long list of rules.