Texas is the next frontier in the voting rights fight

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Sunday 05.30.21

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by Paul LeBlanc and Zachary B. Wolf

: This time, it's Texas

Republican lawmakers in the Lone Star state were moving closer Sunday to imposing a slew of new restrictions on voting, as state Senate members voted along party lines to adopt legislation that would:

Ban after-hours voting.
Prohibit ballot drop boxes and drive-through voting centers.
Mandate all weekday early voting take place sometime between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m., though draft language would further limit Sunday early voting to a maximum between the hours of 1 p.m. and 9 p.m.
Make it illegal for elections officials to send applications to vote by mail to people who did not request one.
Bar counties from helping facilitate the distribution of unsolicited ballot requests.
Require voters requesting absentee ballot to provide their driver's license number or Social Security number on both their request for a ballot and their return envelope containing their ballot.
Impose $1,000-a-day fines on local election officials who do not follow prescribed procedures to update their voter rolls, and criminal penalties on election workers who obstruct poll-watchers.

The bill would also make it easier to overturn an election, allowing courts to throw out results if enough ballots were cast illegally that it could have made a difference -- despite the fact that there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in Texas or any other US state.

Rooted in conspiracy. The measure is just one of many across the country that seizes on former President Donald Trump's lies, dating back to 2016, claiming rampant voter fraud and faulty election security.

'Wrong and un-American.' That's what President Joe Biden called the measure in a Saturday afternoon statement. "It's part of an assault on democracy that we've seen far too often this year -- and often disproportionately targeting Black and Brown Americans."

Fair Fight Action, the voting rights group started by former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, similarly called Senate Bill 7 "an extreme bill" that "attacks the freedom to vote from almost every angle imaginable" while empowering partisan poll watchers and making it easier to overturn elections.

Federal voting rights legislation is unlikely. A Democratic bill called the For the People Act that would make major changes to laws governing campaigns, voting and government ethics faces steep odds in the Senate.

And it's not just Texas. In all, fourteen states have enacted 22 new laws making it harder to vote. See for yourself:

: Judge Amy Berman Jackson strikes again

The trial-level federal judge who handled some of the most politically significant court cases of the Trump era keeps proving why she's one of the most incisive voices on the corruption and political spin.

Read this story from CNN's Katelyn Polantz. Jackson last week called former Attorney General William Barr's considerations for rolling out the Mueller report "public relations" in a records access lawsuit opinion.

Days later, in the criminal cases of two January 6 US Capitol riot defendants, she noted how Trump was continuing to spread lies, potentially inspiring his supporters to strike again.

Trump "continues to propagate the lie that inspired the attack on a near daily basis," she wrote in an opinion Thursday keeping riot defendant Karl Dresch in jail.

"And the anger surrounding the false accusation continues to be stoked by multiple media outlets as well as the state and federal party leaders who are intent on censuring those who dare to challenge the former President's version of events."

📺🔌: CNN's Tom Foreman has more on Jackson's history of taking on the former President and his allies here.

: Dispatch from Marjorie Taylor Greene's district

Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene represents a safely Republican district, but her recent comparison of the House mask mandate to the Holocaust has drawn backlash from some constituents.

Read this report from CNN's Dakin Andone and Maeve Reston. Her most recent incendiary comments have followed her home to Georgia's 14th Congressional District in the northwest corner of the state and the publicity hasn't been welcome. A sample of what some of Greene's constituents are saying:

"I feel like the things she thinks and says -- and of course, the bigger following she has -- that makes people think that everyone in the Republican Party feels and thinks that way when it's not true"
"I don't think anybody should be comparing anything for the Nazis and the Holocaust. It's different worlds."
"I'm more concerned about the bad publicity that Dalton, Georgia, is getting."

Read more here.

: Summer preview

On Memorial Day weekend last year, we wrote about how Americans were reaching for normal as coronavirus cases surged nationwide.

This year, normal won't be much of a reach.

Travel is up, Covid-19 cases are down, and vaccines have been put in many arms. The pandemic isn't over, but Memorial Day is set to look more like it did before the virus upended life more than a year ago.

"Night and Day," Dr. Eric Topol, an expert on the use of data in medical research, tweeted Sunday. "What's the difference between Memorial Day weekend in 2020 and 2021? Vaccines."

People are on the move. AAA estimated that more than 37 million people in the US would travel at least 50 miles from home over the Memorial Day weekend -- 13% down from 2019, but 60% above last year.

And the US set a pandemic-era record number of passengers traveling through US airports in a single day -- 1.96 million -- on Friday, according to the Transportation Security Administration.

Cases expected to keep dropping. The country has averaged more than 21,600 Covid-19 cases a day over the past week -- 69% below the spring 2021 peak of more than 71,200 on April 14, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

On Thursday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicted that daily cases, hospitalizations and deaths will fall over the next four weeks. The CDC ensemble forecasts concluded that there will be a total of 596,000 to 606,000 Covid-19 deaths by June 19.

The unvaccinated are still at risk. "Those who remain at risk are those who are unvaccinated," Dr. Leana Wen, a CNN medical analyst, said this weekend. "And that includes children who are not yet eligible to be vaccinated as well as adults who just have not been vaccinated yet."

Biden's bottom line. On Friday, the President said despite the growing light at the end of the tunnel, "We're not done yet."

"We have to reach those who are not vaccinated and make it as easy as possible for them to get protected."