WASHINGTON — During the latest in a series of congressional hearings on federal voting legislation, some members of Congress on Monday praised the actions of the Texas Democrats who broke quorum to thwart a Texas elections bill they call restrictive.
It was the sixth hearing held by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, meant to examine voting restrictions in several GOP-led states and to consider the proposed John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
The Texas House Democrats who left Austin earlier this summer believe their quorum bust lit a fire under Congress to consider voting rights in earnest. They have been pushing for federal legislation that in part would restore and bolster portions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that were struck down by Supreme Court rulings in the past decade.
U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., lauded Texas legislators for their “ingenuity and courage” in his opening statement.
“An effort to pass a similarly sweeping and egregious bill is currently underway in Texas,” Nadler said, comparing Texas’ “election integrity bill” to a restrictive voting law in Georgia that would impose certain ID requirements for absentee voting and impose criminal penalties for offering food and water to waiting voters. “While some Texas state legislators, through their ingenuity and courage, have managed to temporarily halt that effort, the ultimate responsibility lies with us in Congress to fix the Voting Rights Act to ensure that such bills never become law.”
Up for debate was Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which deals with a “preclearance” provision that required states with a history of discrimination against voters of color — like Texas — to obtain approval from either the U.S. Department of Justice or a federal court before they can make any changes to their election laws. In 2013, that provision was struck down in Shelby County vs. Holder.
Members of Congress grilled legal and academic experts on Section 5 and other nuances of the proposed federal legislation. Questioning fell mostly along party lines, with Republican members, including Mike Johnson of Louisiana and Jim Jordan of Ohio reiterating their view that the legislation sought by Democrats is unnecessary.
“Instead of recognizing that progress this country’s made, our Democrat colleagues seek to propagate legislation that would amount to an unconstitutional federal power grab over local election laws,” Johnson said in an opening statement.
Many witnesses who testified, however, expressed concern that without federal guidelines, the spate of bills coming out of GOP-led state legislatures would curtail voting rights for communities of color in particular.
Kristen Clarke, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights for the Justice Department, criticized Texas and North Carolina’s voting laws in particular, pointing to those states as evidence that the Justice Department had lost its “most important tool” for safeguarding voting rights.
“Since the (Supreme) Court’s ruling in 2013 we have seen states move swiftly to reinstitute discriminatory changes,” Clarke said. “We saw that the day the court instituted its ruling in Texas, when it moved forward with a discriminatory voter ID law that had been previously blocked by Section 5.”
Clarke and other witnesses also sounded the alarm about potential impacts of those restrictions as Texas and other states prepare for the redistricting cycle.
There is “no doubt that this new round of Census data may prompt the kind of discriminatory changes that we have seen in the past,” Clarke said, responding to questions from Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Houston, who had highlighted a large surge in the Latino population in Texas and asked whether that could translate into efforts by lawmakers to dilute their voting power.
The House comes back from its recess Aug. 23. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has signaled that members will take up the John Lewis Act then, though it faces an uncertain future in the Senate.
Texas Democrats did not hesitate to tie the hearing to their month in Washington.
“This important hearing is reflective of the work Texas Democrats did in Washington, D.C. over the last few weeks,” state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, said in a tweet.
U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, again thanked the Texas Democrats before the hearing concluded.
“I want to thank them personally, on the record, for this,” Jackson Lee said. “You know the sacrifice they are making.”
Jackson Lee also indicated the next phase of the fight to come: “I fear the redistricting that will be coming up in Texas.”
