Still the only voter ID anyone should need
Texas’ top election official is opposing a GOP lawsuit that seeks to close the state’s primaries, arguing in new legal filings that a decision to restrict voting to registered party members should be up to lawmakers, not the courts.
Quoting from an earlier court decision, Republican Secretary of State Jane Nelson wrote in her filing that a court ruling on the GOP lawsuit now, just before the March primaries, threatens to “confuse voters, unduly burden election administrators, or otherwise sow chaos or distrust in the electoral process.”
In her filing, Nelson also took aim at Attorney General Ken Paxton, a fellow Republican who has sided with the Texas Republican Party in court, calling a joint motion he filed with the party “brazen and misguided.” The motion asked the court to require Nelson to close the primary.
Texas Republicans say the state’s open primaries violate their constitutional right to freedom of association, alleging in their legal filings that some Democratic and independent-leaning voters are casting ballots in Republican primaries and boosting more moderate candidates.
The party sued Nelson in federal court in September, asking the court to close primaries and restrict voting to registered Republicans only.
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Paxton, the state’s top lawyer, typically defends state laws when challenged, in election and voting-related lawsuits. But in this case, he joined the Republican Party of Texas in a motion asking the court to find Texas’ open-primary law unconstitutional, grant the GOP request, and resolve the case without a trial. Paxton will be on Republican primary ballots in March as he and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt of Houston each seek to unseat U.S. Sen. John Cornyn.
Instead of “fighting this lawsuit with expensive out-of-state lawyers, the Secretary of State’s office should respect the will of Texas voters and defend their freedoms by creating a process that will allow the RPT to immediately close its primaries,” Paxton said in a news release.
In her filings Thursday, Nelson said a ruling now declaring the state’s open primary system unconstitutional could lead to confusion for voters ahead of the 2026 primary. She reminded the court that mail ballots for that election must be sent less than four months from now. Early voting begins Feb. 17.
“Even if heroic efforts by state and local authorities are enough to avoid chaos and confusion and the open primaries are held, the proposed judgment would cast a pall on the results, because they would be the product of a system that a federal court declared unconstitutional,” Nelson’s filing says.
According to Nelson’s filing, lawmakers filed at least six bills in 2025 to close the primaries, but the proposals failed.
Nelson added that state lawmakers can take up the matter in the 2027 legislative session.
See here for the background. I must have missed Paxton’s weaselly intervention in the case, which is totally on brand for him. The RPT says in its lawsuit that it is seeking the court’s intervention now so it can prepare for a closed primary in 2028. Which would still be a massive undertaking, with all sorts of possible ramifications. SOS Jane Nelson is no hero, but she’s old school enough to respect the law and the process for changing it, and good on her for that. Now we wait to see what the court does.