People showed up to say something about it, that much is for sure.
Hundreds of Texans lined up at the state Capitol on Saturday for their first opportunity during the special legislative session to testify before lawmakers over the renewed effort to pass new voting restrictions.
Both House and Senate committees are expected to take up the respective versions of GOP-backed legislation, and as of early Saturday afternoon more than 300 people had signed up to speak.
Lufkin Republican Rep. Trent Ashby, chair of the select committee hearing the House’s voting bill, said he expected bills to be advanced out of committee at the close of the Saturday hearing, meaning the House’s bill could get a floor vote as early as next week.
In other words, there’s a chance that this passes the House before restoring legislative funding does. As of this writing, that hadn’t even gotten a committee vote in the Senate. Way to assert your agency, y’all.
I drafted this yesterday afternoon, when things were just getting started. I will not be staying up late to see the inevitable result. That Trib story will surely be updated at some point, and they have a video embed for the hearings as well. The redoutable Emily Eby is doing the live-tweet thing again, and that will be a rich source of information for you. Catch up on what happened, likely well into the night, and then try to enjoy your day today.
UPDATE: Here’s the Chron story. Testimony on the bills from the public – which is to say, people who showed up by 8 AM to have their voices heard – did not begin until 1:41 AM, more than 17 hours later. As I type this, it is still going on. This is how little the Republicans who are pushing this legislation care about public opinion.
UPDATE: Here’s the Trib story about how long it took for anyone to be heard on this.
Beto’s non-partisan testimony regarding the special-session election reform bill (with cross-reference to real-problem power grid issue) has already raked up 145.6K views.
And it’s worth it, including some good Q & A, not all of it friendly (such as the comparison with Delaware and other states regarding early voting).
You can the embedded video on his twitter.