Democrats flee Texas....Fear of "Common Sense" to blame.....

[Mongoose]

What's in the GOP voting bills that Texas Democrats fled their state to block

Grace Panetta
Tue, July 13, 2021, 12:21 PM·4 min read

Supporters gather on the street as Democrats from the Texas Legislature arrive by bus to board a private plane headed for Washington, D.C., Monday, July 12, 2021, in Austin, Texas. AP Photo/Eric Gay

• Democrats in the Texas legislature left the state to stop two voting bills in a special session.
  
• House Bill 3 and Senate Bill 1 limit the ways that local officials expanded voting in 2020.
  
• They also include new regulations for absentee voting and protections for poll watchers.
  
• See more stories on Insider's business page.

On Monday, dozens of Democratic lawmakers in the Texas state House boarded two chartered planes and left the state altogether to head to Washington, DC to deny the quorum necessary to pass a slew of legislation in Texas' ongoing special legislative session.
The stated purpose of their walkout is specifically to block two proposed omnibus election bills, House Bill 3 and Senate Bill 1, that are part of an ambitious list of conservative priorities that Gov. Greg Abbott is trying to pass.
State House Democrats previously walked out at the end of the last legislative session in May in order to deny a quorum and run out the clock to pass Senate Bill 7, a bill that included new restrictions on voting and criminal penalties for election officials.
After the first walkout, Republicans dropped two of SB 7's controversial provisions from the new bills: one that would have limited early voting hours on Sundays to began after 1 pm and a measure that would have made it easier for losing candidates to overturn election results.
But many lawmakers say their bold action isn't as much about the specific provisions of the bills themselves than the overall principle of Republicans aiming to pass legislation that tightens voting rules in the wake of the 2020 election, - in addition to Abbott vetoing funding for the legislative branch in response to the previous walkout.
Texas already has strict voting rules, with no online, automatic, or same-day voter registration; requiring an excuse to vote absentee for those under 65; and mandating a photo ID to vote.
Biggest highlights of HB 3 and SB 1:

• New early voting hours. Both bills require counties to hold at least nine hours of voting during the early voting period that can start as early as 6 am and end as late as 9 pm in SB 1 and 10 pm in SB 1. The bills set a more specific set of hours than current law, which just requires early voting to be held at a county or city clerk's office during "regular business hours."
  
  
  • Both bills also require early voting to be held for 12 hours a day during the last week of early voting in larger counties and allow small counties with less than 1,000 voters to hold fewer hours.
    
  • The new hours for early voting, however, would ban local officials from offering early voting overnight 24 hours a day, as Harris County did in 2020 during the pandemic.
• Bans on drive-thru voting. Both bills prohibit officials from offering early voting in a "moveable structure" after officials in heavily Democratic Harris County offered it as a COVID-19-specific measure, prompting several unsuccessful last-minute lawsuits against the practice.
  
• ID information needed to vote absentee. Texas, which already uses signature matching to verify absentee ballots, will now require voters to provide the number on their driver's license, other state ID, or the last four digits of their Social Security number on the outer envelope when requesting an absentee ballot.
  
• More restrictions on absentee applications. Both laws make it a state jail felony for election officials to send out absentee ballot applications unsolicited to voters both eligible and not eligible to vote absentee.
  
• More protections and access for partisan poll watchers.
  
• Enhanced criminal penalties for paid ballot collection, sometimes called ballot or vote harvesting, on behalf of a candidate or party.
  
• More rules for people assisting voters, including requiring assistors to fill out a form stating their relationship to the voter.
  
• The option for voters to "cure" or fix issues with their absentee ballots. In a move advocated by Democrats, both bills include a new provision that will require officials to notify voters if their absentee ballot is missing a signature on the outer envelope or has a mismatched signature, and give them an opportunity to fix the problem.
  
• In another provision sought by Democrats, HB 3 protects against a person being convicted of a crime for voting a provisional ballot while unknowingly ineligible, a response to the prosecution of Crystal Mason, who was sentenced to five years in prison for trying to vote on supervised release.
  

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[FoxtrotOscar]

They should lose their seats, lose any per Diem/Pay they are receiving...

Children run when confronted...

[Cpl Keller]

The fact that these people get elected, re-elected, and are allowed to pull childish stunts like this is a disgrace.

[Mongoose]

Thing is, Michael. They aren't allowed to do this "My way or no Way" bullshet. Our Governor had warrants issued on them. These traitors are staying at a 200 dollar a night Hotel. There is 50 of them. The tax payers in Texas is paying for this childish antic. All the staffers and anyone else that works for these azzwipes have already lost all their pay, from the previous episode they pulled. These traitors will go to any means to throw roadblocks into anything that resembles the right thing to do. If in fact, the Democratic Party gets buy with this Dictatorship policy, there will never be another Republican President or Republican majority in Congress. In other words, we will be under Communist, Socialist, Progressive Rule. Take you pick, the Demo Party has an abundance of all three. If we don't get nasty.....we're doomed as a Free Nation. We are already close to it....just saying....

[Cpl Keller]

Billy, you have one of the few governors who doesn't seem to have his head up his ass. You also have a couple of good congressmen.
A few states need to form an alliance and say f*ck the feds, and do what's correct, no matter what nonsense is is coming from DC.
Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota would be a good grouping.
Texas and Arizona would make a great combo, too bad NM is stuck right in the middle.

[oldtop]

give them 24 hours to return, or vacate their seats...now there's a "quorum" and vote on the bills... reason for vacating the seats would be "failure to perform the duties of their respective elected office(s)"...

[etakerns]

3 of these demonrats have gotten the corona virus. They also weren’t wearing mask on the plane. Thought it was a federal mandate that all passengers on planes have to wear mask. “Rules for thee but not for me”.

[etakerns]

I’ve said it before, the left is dead set on trying to take Texas for some strange reason. I don’t believe they will turn it, but Damn they sure are trying.

[advanced]

Well, thank God the Governor of the FREE state of Florida has gone to Texas to share our Florida agenda of what works with Texas. o'biden has through his proxy already said that no Cubans fleeing Cuba will be allowed in. Helll, you can't have a bunch of conservative Cubans coming in to make Florida even more red. The dammn Cubans are demonstrating down there carrying American flags of all things. They have to be stopped any way possible.

[Mongoose]

Well.....just to be honest......I blame all this bullshet that's happening on Climate Change........just saying

[irpat54]

Well.....just to be honest......I blame all this bullshet that's happening on Climate Change........just saying

I knew Al Gore had to be involved somehow...

[advanced]

I knew Al Gore had to be involved somehow...

Yeah Pat, there must be some money in it or he'd be sitting back.

[oldtop]

3 of these demonrats have gotten the corona virus. They also weren’t wearing mask on the plane. Thought it was a federal mandate that all passengers on planes have to wear mask. “Rules for thee but not for me”.

GOOD on the 3... maybe they'll give it to all of the other crybaby dems that run off every time there is a bill up for vote that they don't like and can't defeat....