Friday, March 29, 2024

Texas NAACP and LULAC blast GOP maneuvers over SB7

Texas is one of many states looking at its voting practices in the wake of a contentious election many on the right still call questionable.

SB 7 is the product of a GOP-led push in the State Senate to clamp down on voter fraud. Opponents of the legislation liken it to voter suppression. The bill passed in the Senate, and then the House. But the house version came back with changes that lawmakers on the senate side are not happy with.

One example of this is a ban on drive-through voting, which was removed in the House version. That, along with other actions which include limiting the available hours of polling locations, has some on the Democratic side of Austin feeling that the legislation will significantly impact minority voters.

In an effort to reach a piece of legislation that can be acceptable to both sides of the Texas government, the measure will now move to a conference committee.

 

(Unseen Histories / Unsplash)

On Tuesday, Gary L. Bedsoe and Rudy Rosales, presidents of the state NAACP and LULAC respectively, issued a joint statement in the form of a letter to Lt. Governor Dan Patrick and Texas Senator Brian Hughes after discovering a lack of minority voices in the committee which will be crafting the amended legislation.

“We have just received word that the Conference Committee for SB7 has been announced and no African-American nor Latino members were appointed,” the letter signed by both Bledsoe and Rosales read. “Since SB7 and HB6 will have a far greater and negative impact on the Black and Brown communities of this State, we are sorely disappointed in this decision. In 2010 the Census recorded the Texas adult population as 49.4 percent Latino and African-American combined, and our State Demographer says of 4 million new Texans, 52 percent are Latino and 15 percent are African-American. This means that one of the primary purposes of the Voting Rights Act, to give meaningful and equitable voices to Latinos and African-Americans, is being transgressed upon once again. Our organizations have come together to express our outrage and disappointment of this seemingly intentional oversight.”

Texas is not alone in addressing this issue. Similar legislation has been raised in Florida and Georgia, the latter of which raised enough ire to move a MLB baseball game out of the state. Democrats are also tackling this issue on the national stage by trying to pass the For the People Act, which aims to ease demands on voters access, combat gerrymandering and address “dark money” in political campaigns. The act passed the U.S. House, but has stalled in the Senate where it has met with fierce resistance from Republican senators.

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