03.11.09
Voter IDiocy – the single most important issue facing Texas today
UPDATED: 3/11/09 12:08pm by dembones: Texas Democratic Party Chair Boyd Richie’s statement is included below.
The Senate finally finished its marathon, almost 24-hour, “Committee of the Whole” debate and hearing on the “Voter ID” (Senate Bill 362). Other than GOP Senator’s frothing and gamesmanship it’s unlikely anything productive will come from this. One refrain from bill author Sen. Troy Fraser (R-Horseshoe Bend) was that in two states that recently passed Voter ID, Indiana and Georgia, minority turnout increased in 2008. Gee, I wonder why that would have happened? Having no evidence of actual in person election day voter fraud, the GOP members had only the same tired ‘ol rhetoric regarding the single most important issue facing Texas today.
The first part of the hearing that struck me as odd, especially with the information that came out over the weekend about his latest voter fraud fiasco, was Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s absence. Wayne Slater had this to say, Abbott’s absence in voter ID debate is conspicuous.
Everybody was there except the one person Democrats really wanted — Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott, the GOP go-to guy on matters of vote fraud.
[...]
“The attorney general is our top lawyer,” said Democratic leader Leticia van de Putte of San Antonio. “Don’t you think it would be important that he appear?”
The Republican senator chairing the hearing didn’t think so.
Sen. Royce West of Dallas suggested a subpoena.
No.
And so as lawmakers Tuesday opened their hearing on the session’s most contentious bill, the state’s legal counsel was nowhere to be seen.
Democrats believe Abbott will help underscore their claim the voter-ID issue is about partisanship, not law enforcement.
A couple of years ago, Abbott announced there was an “epidemic” of voter fraud in Texas and launched an investigation.
A review found that he prosecuted 26 cases — all against Democrats, mostly blacks or Hispanics. Of those, two-thirds were technical violations in which voters were eligible, votes were properly cast and no vote was changed.
Democrats say that’s not exactly an epidemic, but Republicans say the cases where Abbott did win guilty pleas are evidence vote-fraud is real.
[...]
The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, described his bill. He framed the measure in the context of history’s great vote-frauds, including the ballot-stuffing of Box 13 in Duval County that gave Lyndon Johnson his Senate seat in 1948.
Fraser was right about Duval County, but it didn’t start with Johnson.
Fifty years earlier, a sheep rancher named John Buckley — the grandfather of William F. Buckley Jr. — ran for sheriff of Duval County, but lost in a fiercely partisan fight.
Buckley accused his opponents of vote fraud, went to court and won. He was a Democrat. His opponents, who had imported illegal voters from Mexico, were Republicans.
It seemed pretty obvious that the AG didn’t want to go on the record about the lack of prosecutions in his “fraud” investigations.
This was the testimony of a witness from the Brennan Center at NYU, moments ago (around 10:55 p.m.), who said flatly that there are virtually no cases of voter impersonation fraud. I agree with him on that point, but the oft-repeated information that Abbott spent $1.4 million on voter fraud prosecutions is wrong. I learned this during the fact-checking process on my column in the April issue concerning the fight over Voter I.D. Abbott’s office said that the $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Justice was for investigations of several crimes, including white collar crime and money laundering, as well as voter fraud. Only a small amount of the grant, less than $100,000, was spent on voter fraud prosecutions. Unfortunately, by the time I learned the correct facts, it was very late on deadline day and we had neither the time or the space to substitute the correct information.
I stand by my arguments in the column. I believe that voter identity fraud is extremely rare. I think that the public has been led to believe that voter fraud is rampant, in part because of actions like those of ACORN in sending in bogus registration forms during the 2008 election cycle, and, especially in Texas, because so many people think that illegal aliens are voting. I believe that Republicans are taking advantage of this public belief to take the opportunity to suppress Democratic turnout. I don’t think that Abbott should have prosecuted many of the cases that were technical violations on mail-in ballots. But he didn’t spend $1.4 million on those prosecutions. Might as well set the record straight.
It’s key to remember there is a huge difference between voter registration fraud – where the registration goes through a verification process before that person get’s on a voter roll – and actual voter fraud.
For blow by blow’s of the action check out Burkablog, Elise Hu, Floor Pass, and Jenny Hoff. Vince posts on some fireworks from last night/this morning.
While this bill is certain to pass the Senate, since the rules were changed to insure any chance of Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst’s chance at higher office. The bill will face an uncertain future in the House. Kuff points to this from Texas Politics which speculates the bill as is, will not pass the House, Voter ID could paralyze state House, Democrat leaders warn.
“This non-issue of voter ID has the potential to melt down this chamber. If the intent of these sponsors is to shut down the operation of the House, this bill has the potential to do that,” says Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, chairman of the House Mexican American Caucus.
“Who wants to do that when we have public education and the budget, Hurricane Ike and health care (problems)? Nothing’s going to get done and nobody’s going to benefit,” Martinez Fischer said. “We need to take care of the state’s business first.”
Republican investigations have not resulted in a single prosecution of voter impersonation, he said.
“Everybody’s looking for Bigfoot, and no one seems to have been able to bring Bigfoot to the committee,” Martinez Fischer said. “Show us what the problem is… We’re pretty much just shooting in the dark. When we do that, we write the worst policy that this state could have.”
There are compromises in the air but this issue will soon pass to the usually more rancorous Texas House. We’ll just have to wait and see how the new Speaker, Joe Straus, will handle this issue.
Texas Democratic Party chair Boyd Richie has released the following statement on the Senate’s passage of SB 362:
Texas Senate Republicans began the legislative session on a bitterly partisan note, doing away with the venerable two-thirds rule in order to ramrod photo Voter ID legislation through that formerly bipartisan deliberative body. Last night and through this morning, our Senators heard nearly 24 hours of testimony featuring overwhelming evidence that voter impersonation is virtually nonexistent and that photo Voter ID legislation would disenfranchise countless Texans. In spite of this, the Senate “Committee of the Whole” approved the voter suppression bill with a vote along party lines. With this vote, Senate Republicans chose destructive partisanship over preserving the most fundamental cornerstone of our democracy. Instead of choosing to move Texas forward by addressing the real issues, Senate Republicans want to throw our state in reverse, back to the era of poll tax. We remain hopeful that our State House members will rise to the challenge of seeing this bill for what it is – bad legislation for all Texans.