Texas Democrats Stage Walkout to Deny GOP Majority's Quorum & Block Election Bill

What’s the story?

• Democrats in the Texas legislature staged a walkout on Sunday to thwart the enactment of an election bill backed by their Republican colleagues and Gov. Greg Abbott (R). By walking out and breaking the quorum that allowed the Texas legislature to conduct business, Democrats effectively ran out the clock to prevent the enactment of the election bill before the end of the 140-day legislative session. 
• As a result, the controversial election overhaul will be delayed until a special session is called later this year, and Abbott said he expects lawmakers to be prepared to prioritize the election bill when they return. He was already expected to call a special session this fall focused on the redistricting process and it’s unclear at this time whether the election bill will be considered during that session or in a separate special session, and how quickly the session(s) will occur. 
• Abbott tweeted that he plans to rebuke lawmakers for not completing work by using a line-item veto on the portion of the budget that funds salaries for legislators and said, “No pay for those who abandon their responsibilities. Stay tuned.” Abbott said the bill is about preventing voter fraud to ensure election integrity and pushed back on suggestions the bill was advanced in response to former President Donald Trump’s objections to election results in other states:

“In Texas, every session we focus on making sure we have safe and secure elections and this has absolutely nothing to do with the past presidential election.”

• Texas Sen. Carol Alvarado (D-Houston), the chair of the Texas Senate Democratic caucus, called the voting bill “Jim Crow 2.0” while former Democratic presidential candidate and congressman Beto O’Rourke said Texas “is the toughest state in the Union in which to register and cast a ballot, bar none ― and they’re going to make it even harder to vote.”
• Here’s a look at the notable contents of the controversial Texas election bill and what “quorum busting” entails.

What’s in the Texas voting bill?

EARLY & MAIL VOTING

• The bill would standardize early voting hours across the state by requiring they run for 9 hours per day in the first week and 12 hours per day in the second week, with local officials given discretion for setting that window between 6am and 9pm.
• Only seniors, active-duty military personnel, people with disabilities, or those who will be out of the county on election day would be permitted to vote by mail. 
• The bill would make it a felony for an elections official to solicit the submission of a vote by mail application from a person who didn’t request an application; distribute a vote by mail application to a person who didn’t request it unless they were expressly authorized by another part of the election code; authorize the use of public funds to allow a third-party to distribute vote by mail applications; or complete any portion of a vote by mail application distributed to an applicant unless they’re providing lawful assistance.
• Counties would be prohibited from sending applications for mail-in ballots to ineligible voters.

VOTING RECORDS

• The bill would speed up the timeframe for reporting notices regarding the death of voting-age residents to county and state elections officials. Under the current law, the notices must be sent by the 10th day of the next month after the death certificate abstract is prepared. The bill would require the notice to be made “as soon as possible” and mandate that it be sent within one week of the death certificate abstract being prepared.
• Election officials must maintain a register of spoiled ballots from electronic voting machines in the same manner in which they already do so for spoiled paper ballots.

ELECTION MONITORING

• Poll watchers’ purpose and purview would be defined as to “observe the conduct of an election and call to the attention of an election officer any observed or suspected irregularity or violation of law in the conduct of an election.” 
• Poll watchers entitled to observe an activity would also be entitled to sit or stand near enough to see and hear the activity or procedure and would be permitted to record a video of election officials they reasonably believe are violating the election code. Poll watchers would not be permitted to record video of voters casting ballots, which is currently prohibited by Texas law. Cameras would be required in all central vote-counting centers.
• Poll watchers would be allowed to observe the sealing and transfer of a memory card, flash drive, hard drive, data storage device, or other medium now existing or later developed and used by voting system equipment. 
• They would also be entitled to observe the delivery of ballots in a manner that allows them to determine how the ballots are delivered and potentially how election officials are making decisions about the delivery of ballots. A poll watcher would not be allowed to disrupt the process of delivering ballots.
• The bill would make it a violation of the election code to obstruct a poll watcher’s ability to observe activities and procedures they’re lawfully permitted to view in a manner that makes observation not reasonably effective (including by distancing them from the activity).
• It would be a misdemeanor violation of the election code for an elections official to intentionally or knowingly refuse to accept a poll watcher for service who is required to be accepted by law.
• Judges would be prohibited from having a poll watcher appointed or removed, or requiring a poll watcher to leave a polling place they’ve been appointed to observe.

POLLING PLACE ACCESS

• The bill would exclude bystanders from maintaining a presence at an early voting board or at a counting station while election activities are ongoing, and would codify a list of groups of people who are permitted to be at the site of an election.
• It would expressly allow access at polling places to voters, along with their children, dependents, or caregivers; elections officials and staff from the local, county, and state levels; poll watchers; appointed peace officers; election officials from political parties conducting a primary election; voting system technicians; and others as authorized by an election judge.

BALLOT HARVESTING

• The bill would prohibit paid vote harvesting (also known ballot harvesting) in which a person collects the ballots of others and receives a benefit or pay for their services from a candidate, campaign, or third party. "Benefit" would be defined by the bill as including a promise or offer of employment, a favorable discretionary official act, or a benefit to any person in whose welfare the beneficiary has an interest.
• It would be a third degree felony to knowingly provide paid vote harvesting services or to possess a mail ballot in connection with vote harvesting services. 
• The bill would clarify that the paid vote harvesting prohibition doesn’t include political speech or other acts that merely involve promotion of a candidate or measure and that don’t involve direct interaction with an application for a mail ballot in the voter’s presence or a voter’s official ballot or envelope.

ELECTION ASSISTANCE

• A person who assists a voter and is not an elections official would be required to complete a form with their name and address; the manner in which they’re assisting the voter; the reason the assistance is necessary; and their relationship to the voter. Related changes would be made to mail-in ballot envelopes.
• The bill would revise criminal definitions related to providing unlawful election assistance to a voter by clarifying that it would be a crime to offer to compensate a person for providing unlawful assistance to voters; soliciting or receiving compensation for providing unlawful assistance. Compensation would be defined as including political favors.
• The bill would make it a third degree felony to provide unlawful assistance to a voter.

ELECTION ADMINISTRATION

• The bill would make it a felony to alter another voter’s ballot to not reflect the voter’s intent.
• It would also be a felony to count invalid votes or alter a report to include invalid votes or fail to count valid votes or alter a report to exclude valid votes.
• The Texas Supreme Court and appellate courts would be required to prioritize proceedings related to injunctive relief under the election code for alleged offenses if the claim is filed on or after the 60th day before a general or special election. The court would be required to grant parties to such a case the opportunity to present an oral argument and begin hearing the argument as soon as practicable but not later than 24 hours the last brief is due to be filed with the court.

What are legislative quorums?

• The U.S. Congress and state legislatures around the country require that a quorum of lawmakers be present for business to be conducted on the floor. The Constitution defines a quorum in Congress as a majority of each chamber, which amounts to 51 senators and 218 House members when the chambers are at their full complement of lawmakers. Similar definitions have been adopted by state legislatures.
• In Congress, both chambers presume that a quorum is present when they’re in session for floor votes based on unanimous consent from leaders, so each can conduct business without a quorum being physically present in the chamber, although a member can “suggest the absence of a quorum” and initiate a quorum call to verify it. 
• The Senate often holds routine quorum calls to bide floor time ahead of a vote or to allow work to continue off the floor without adjournment. These are occasionally punctuated by a senator asking to “vitiate the quorum call” so that they can deliver remarks, and are usually rescinded by unanimous consent so senators aren’t actually being asked to register their presence. Occasionally, the Senate will hold a “live” quorum call in which senators are asked to come to the floor ahead of a key vote or to verify there is a quorum.
• To deter the practice of “quorum busting” ― in which lawmakers collude to not respond to the quorum call so as to prevent the chamber from conducting business ― legislative bodies often allow a minority party to compel the attendance of absent members. While this can theoretically entail the arrest of the absentee lawmaker, that route has been used rarely as the Senate Historical Office notes the first physical act of compulsion didn’t occur until 1988 when then-Sen. Bob Packwood (R-OR) was carried feet-first into the chamber by Capitol Police in an effort to establish a quorum on a campaign finance reform bill.
• This isn’t the first time the Texas legislature has seen quorum busting. In 2003, Texas House Democrats fled to Oklahoma to stop a redistricting bill in the regular session while their Senate counterparts fled to New Mexico during a special session later that year.
• There have also been quorum busting efforts or “walking filibusters” embarked upon in other states in recent decades. Oregon Democrats staged walkouts in 1971, 1995, and 2001, with the most recent being over redistricting, while Oregon Republicans walked out three times in 2019-2020 to block climate, gun control, and tax increase bills with many traveling to Idaho. In 2011, Indiana Democrats held a six-week walkout to block a right-to-work bill while across Lake Michigan, Wisconsin Democrats fled to Illinois to stall a budget bill. Tennessee Democrats also attempted a walkout to stop a 2019 bill that created block grants for Medicaid in the Volunteer State.

— Eric Revell

(Photo Credit: runneralan2004 via Flickr / Creative Commons)