Texas House Democrats ask for public hearings on election bills in preview of special session tactic - The Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN — Ahead of the special legislative session that starts Thursday, most House Democrats on Monday sent Speaker Dade Phelan a list of discussion points, including requests that there be full transparency and public hearings on an election bill that is bitterly contested and has put Texas in the national spotlight.

The Democrats’ letter also sought a pledge by Phelan, a Beaumont Republican, to not move anything on the agenda through the House until legislative-branch funding that was vetoed by Gov. Greg Abbott is restored.

The letter, drafted by San Antonio Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer and signed by 36 of the chamber’s 67 Democrats, affords the first glimpse at tactics for the special session.

It’s not clear, though, that House Democrats are eager to deny the Legislature’s ruling Republicans a quorum, as required by the Texas Constitution for either chamber to conduct business.

The regular session’s final version of a proposed election-law rewrite, muscled through by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and the Senate, is anathema to Democrats, who say it amounts to voter suppression, aimed especially at minorities.

But because Abbott has vetoed funding after Sept. 1 for more than 2,000 legislative-branch employees, a repeat of the “quorum break” House Democrats pulled off in late May would lead to their staff members not being paid. Some have discussed raising money nationally. But raising enough to pay salaries and benefits — even for a subset of their employees — for two years would be costly.

Democratic leaders, such as party caucus chief Chris Turner of Grand Prairie and letter author Martinez Fischer, did not respond to queries about whether, if Phelan doesn’t grant the requested assurances, Democrats won’t show up Thursday.

Eight-term Austin Rep. Donna Howard, who signed the letter, said late Monday, “I’m not being led to believe by anyone at this point in time that folks are not going to show up.”

The letter, signed by Turner and at least four other of Phelan’s committee chairmen, rehearsed the turbulent end-of-session battle over the election bill, Senate Bill 7.

Democrats, even those on the conference committee negotiating a final version, claimed to have been excluded from final talks. New language not in either chamber’s bill appeared. Talk of typographical errors that would inadvertently have outlawed Black churches from conducting early-vote drives on Sunday mornings — called “souls to the polls” — made national news. So did a provision making it easier for judges to overturn an election. House Democrats’ late-night quorum break, hours before a bill-passing deadline, derailed the measure — at least, temporarily.

Democrats reminded Phelan that although they had disliked the House-passed version, they worked with his lieutenants to make it more palatable.

The stakes are high, they wrote.

“We are meddling with the very core of our democracy and with the most fundamental rights of our constituents,” the letter says. “We cannot deliberate on these issues through a process that is at best a blundering mess and at worst a deceptive, hyperpartisan sham.”

Venting wrath at Patrick, the House Democrats pleaded with Phelan to defend their chamber.

“It is a time-honored tradition for the Speaker to defend the position of the House and not bow in deference, especially when the policy in question was cultivated by leaders from both sides of the aisle as specified by you and your leadership team,” the letter says. “It is important that you communicate in no uncertain terms your intention to continue to stand up for the House and not allow the Lieutenant Governor to set the tone and the pace for the session, as he attempted to do in the final days of the 87th Regular Session.”

A Patrick spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Asked for Phelan’s reaction, the speaker’s spokesman, Enrique Marquez, texted: “We look forward to seeing everyone on the 8th.”

The Democrats requested that committee substitutes of election bills be laid out for at least 24 hours before votes are taken; votes be taken at regularly scheduled meetings, not hurry-up “formal meetings” called with little notice; public testimony be taken virtually; and hearings be held on weekends if possible, “to allow our constituents with full-time jobs and family obligations to participate in the process.”

They also asked Phelan not to retaliate against members who broke quorum in late May, and to admonish House members to show “decorum and respect” toward colleagues, including on their social media. Noting the House this year rebuffed three Patrick priority bills — on transgender sports, preemption of local ordinances on paid sick leave and a ban of taxpayer-paid lobbying — Democrats urged the speaker to “defend the chamber’s position on these issues over the next 30 days.”

In the past, state troopers have been sent to try to intercept quorum-breaking lawmakers.

The Democrats pleaded for Phelan to pledge to “not recognize a motion for a Call of the House to secure a quorum proactively,” which presumably would require use of law enforcement to be effective. He should only do so, they wrote, “if quorum is not present” – meaning members already would have exited the chamber, or would not have shown up.

“With the special session upon us in mere days, we look forward to your expeditious response,” the Democrats concluded.

Howard and Austin Rep. Celia Israel, who headed the House Democratic Campaign Committee last year, said they wouldn’t read too much into the absence of 31 Democrats’ signatures from the letter.

“Some people are out of town and may not be looking at their messages,” Howard said.

Added Israel, “Maybe the holiday weekend slowed responses?”

Martinez Fischer, a lawyer and veteran of redistricting and voter-ID law battles of the past two decades, is known for his impassioned rhetoric.

It’s possible the letter’s tone was too confrontational for some. Missing were key Phelan Democratic allies such as Speaker Pro Tem Joe Moody of El Paso, Licensing & Administrative Procedures Committee Chairwoman Senfronia Thompson of Houston, Appropriations Committee Vice Chairwoman Mary González of Clint and Transportation Committee chief Terry Canales of Edinburg.

“The ask here is legitimate and honors the traditions of the House, and recognizes the work that the House already did,” said Howard, who said Abbott, Patrick and House GOP leaders are the ones feuding, not House Democrats.

On Abbott’s veto of the next state budget’s two-year appropriation of $410.4 million for the Legislature and its support agencies, Democrats said Phelan must demand the money be restored before House members conduct any other business this summer.

All but one of the 67 House Democrats have joined a lawsuit, filed late last month, challenging Abbott’s authority to wipe out funding for a coequal, separate branch of state government. Other plaintiffs include the Texas AFL-CIO and legislative staffers. The suit is pending before the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court, on which Abbott formerly served.

On Monday, two former high-ranking Republican state leaders, former Speaker Joe Straus of San Antonio and former Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff of Mount Pleasant, and former Democratic Speaker Pete Laney of Hale Center filed a friend of the court brief supporting House Democrats’ position that Abbott’s erasure of “Article X” in the budget, which funds the Legislature, is unconstitutional.

“The Governor’s veto of Article X of SB 1 is an attempt to intimidate members of the Legislature and circumvent democracy by vetoing the appropriations that fund operations of a separate branch of government,” the three former leaders wrote. “This action should be rebuked by people of all political persuasions. By constitutional design, Members of the Legislature are not controlled by any Governor — Republican or Democrat.”

In a reply brief filed by Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is defending Abbott, state lawyers said the governor can put a check on lawmakers because “the Legislature abdicated its governing duties.” Also, no harm has occurred yet, so the suit isn’t ripe, Paxton said. He said lawmakers, whose $7,200 annual salaries are set in the state Constitution, are unaffected and lack standing to sue.

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