Newsletter

Tomorrow is Elections Day in the lege

And ladies get the "now listen here, young lady" treatment in the voucher hearing

There will be a flurry of election-related bills discussed on Thursday in both the House and Senate. I’ll break them down best I can.

House Elections, starts at 10:30 a.m.:

HB 429 Guillen
Relating to the reading and marking of a ballot by a person occupying a voting station or by the person's child. — This would allow children to participate in the voting process and mark the ballot on their parent’s behalf without penalty. *shrug*
HB 496 Swanson
Relating to a ballot option to not vote for any candidate. — I mean, sure? Let’s make ballots EVEN LONGER.
HB 640 Bumgarner
Relating to the office hours of an election authority during an election period. — No idea what this is about.
HB 657 Bucy
Relating to requirements for counties posting election information on an Internet website. — “a county shall use the top-level domain ".gov" for an Internet website used to post election information as required by this code.” — I suppose this just makes county election websites appear more official? Again, don’t know what problem this is trying to solve.
HB 665 Bucy
Relating to the secretary of state posting on the secretary of state's Internet website databases containing certain information about elections. — Absolutely no idea.
HB 677 DeAyala
Relating to the restrictions on political activities of a county elections administrator. — This would ban county elections administrators from holding political office at the same time. Does this happen anywhere?
HB 952 Toth
Relating to identification of early voting ballots voted by mail by electronic code. — An attempt to make it difficult to replicate mail-in ballots and send in a bunch, which DOESN’T HAPPEN.

Senate State Affairs, 9 a.m.:

SB 108 Hall
Relating to the appointment of election clerks. — Dunno.
SB 318 Creighton
Relating to the establishment of the election integrity division in the office of the attorney general. — Big Lie nonsense, giving Paxton more power to tilt at windmills and punish innocent people who don’t know they’re not allowed to vote.
SB 507 Bettencourt | et al.
Relating to election supplies and the conduct of elections; creating criminal offenses; increasing criminal penalties. — If Harris County runs out of ballots again, it’s prison time for the person in charge.
SB 511 Bettencourt | et al.
Relating to prohibiting an officer or employee of this state or of a political subdivision of this state from distributing certain voter registration application forms. — You might not know that Republicans make a big stink all the time about mailing voter registration forms to people who haven’t asked for one. This is just another piece of that.
SB 533 Sparks
Relating to the election date for the authorization of the issuance of bonds or a tax increase. — Ok.
SB 1026 Hughes
Relating to the duty of the attorney general to prosecute criminal offenses prescribed by the election laws of this state. — Giving Paxton more power to perpetuate voter fraud nonsense.
SB 1434 Bettencourt
Relating to a prohibition on the use of public money by a school district to transport district students or employees to or from a polling place. — God forbid a school uses a school bus to take teachers to a polling place.

Also in this Senate hearing, this outlier, which would make it easier to own sawn-off shotguns, I think?:
SB 1596 Hagenbuch
Relating to the prohibition of short-barrel firearms.

In other news, yesterday’s House voucher bill hearing, which started 8 a.m. Tuesday, went all the way until 6:30 a.m. Wednesday morning! I checked in before going to sleep late and found everyone to still be alert and appropriately snippy. I clipped a couple of notable comments.

First, from a school trustee and the mother of a son who has Down Syndrome:

I love the other woman who pointed out how checked out the men on the panel were as this woman lovingly described how public education has helped her son. And of course the men muttered about how disrespectful that was. And here’s more defensiveness:

Buddy, you are ALL deep in the pockets of a pro-voucher Pennsylvania billionaire who has bought Greg Abbott’s time and attention. Stop yer whining.

Three Good Things: