Purity of the ballot box : The Jim Crow-era history behind phrase stripped from Texas voting bill washingtonpost.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from washingtonpost.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Texas House advances restrictive voting bill after late-night vote
• 8 min read
Is the census wrong? | FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast
The crew digs into why Democrats underperformed in a special election in Texas and addresses concerns that the 2020 census undercounted Hispanics.Dan Tian/Xinhua News Agency via Getty Images, FILE
After weeks of debate and political maneuvering, Senate Bill 7 legislation supported by Republicans that would revise Texas election laws to restrict voting access passed early Friday morning along a party-line vote.
Texas Republicans replaced House Bill 6 with SB 7 due to identical language and because SB7 is further along in the legislative process. The bill went through a third reading and final House vote Friday before it was sent back to the Senate for advancement.
Purity of the ballot box, an echo of Jim Crow, stricken from Texas voting bill
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Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, center, stands with co-sponsors as he answers questions and speaks in favor of HB 6, an election bill, in the House Chamber at the Texas Capitol in Austin, Thursday, May 6, 2021.Eric Gay, STF / Associated PressShow MoreShow Less
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Gerald Welty sits the House Chamber at the Texas Capitol as he waits to hear debate on voter legislation in Austin, Texas, Thursday, May 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)Eric Gay, STF / Associated PressShow MoreShow Less
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Democratic lawmakers gather in the House Chamber at the Texas Capitol as they wait to hear debate on voter legislation in Austin, Texas, Thursday, May 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)Eric Gay, STF / Associated PressShow MoreShow Less
In 2015, Juan A. Espinoza, a current third-year student at Harvard Law School, spent his summer participating in one of the Law Schoolâs enrichment programs. Espinoza recalled walking through a famous hall where the portraits of professors were displayed. He remembers asking himself how it was possible there was so little representation.
âHow crazy is it that there isnât a single Latino up on these walls?â Espinoza said. âI remember having a very visual image of custodial staff â two Latino immigrants â cleaning the portraits of these professors and yet, there being no one from my community or any Latino immigrants represented on the faculty.â
“Election Integrity” or Voter Intimidation?
Texas Republicans are pushing changes to election laws that would let partisan poll watchers record voters in polling places.
Texas Republicans are pushing changes to election laws that would let partisan poll watchers record voters in polling places.
During a March webinar, Bill Ely pulled up a map of Harris County while presenting the local Republican Party’s ambitious plan for the 2022 midterms: building an “army” of 10,000 conservative election monitors. Ely, a local Tea Party leader who heads the committee within the Harris County GOP dedicated to ballot security, pointed to the northwest Houston suburb where he lives, where “almost seven out of 10 homes are Republican.” Ely stressed to other party leaders on the call the importance of recruiting more election monitors from neighborhoods like his, then he dragged the cursor down to the heart of the city. Pointing to majority Black and brown neighborhoods, Ely said th