AUSTIN, Texas â Texas Democrats won a battle in a war that they cannot win, unless they get help from President Joe Biden and their fellow party members in Washington.
On Sunday Democrats trickled out of the House chambers to defeat a Senate-driven elections bill that they say discriminated against voters of color.
The bill, which the Senate approved in the wee hours of Sunday morning without input from Democrats, would have set uniform early voting hours, further empower partisan poll watchers, and put new criminal penalties on voting officials and assistants who break the rules. It also would have banned 24-hour and drive-through voting, penalized election officials that send mail-in ballot applications to those who do not ask for them, and required some people who drive voters to the polls to hand over their personal information. The Senate proposal also mandated that early voting on Sunday begin at 1 p.m. instead of a 9 a.m. start time â a provision critics say was aimed at suppressing voter turnout efforts in Black churches.