The Republicans tackle another pressing problem.
It’s already a felony for individuals to knowingly vote or try to vote if they are ineligible from doing so for any number or reasons, including being a non-citizen or illegal immigrant. But Republican lawmakers campaigned on promises to strengthen Texas’ voting laws.
[Thursday] the House tentatively passed HB 804, by state Rep. Tryon Lewis, R-Odessa, which would make it a separate punishable offense for an illegal immigrant or non-citizen to vote or attempt to vote. The bill makes it a second-degree felony — punishable by a jail term of two to 20 years and as much as a $10,000 fine — for a non-citizen to vote in an election. (The violation was originally a third-degree felony but was amended by state Rep. Jose Aliseda, R-Beeville to increase the penalty.) An attempt by an illegal immigrant to vote would be a state jail felony.
As Trail Blazers notes, this makes attempting to vote by a non-citizen the criminal equivalent of rape or aggravated assault. This is normally where Grits would complain about the promiscuous enhancement of penalties, abetted by the Legislative Budget Board not assigning a fiscal note to any of them. In this case, if they claim there will be no cost to the state I’ll believe them, because I seriously doubt anyone will ever get arrested for it, no matter what the monsters under Leo Berman’s bed say to him. It’s not like a whole lot of people had been arrested under the existing law, and enhancing penalties does do anything to make it easier or more likely to catch offenders, assuming there are any. But hey, it’s some free red meat for the cheap seats, and that’s what it’s all about.