Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Rest in peace: A bad bill that would have made voting harder meets a deserved fate in the Texas Legislature 

Once again a minority bulwark of Democratic state senators has blocked the advance of sloppily crafted, partisan legislation in Austin. The legislation would have required Texas voters to produce a confusing welter of identification in order to cast ballots.

The demise, at least temporarily, of SB 218 in the Senate was as vituperative and tacky as the process that pushed it through the House. Although none of the bill's proponents produced evidence of widespread voter impersonation, the bill still received easy approval on a largely party line vote.

The bill would have required Texas voters to present at the voting place either photo IDs or substitutes in addition to a valid voter registration card. Republicans said the purpose was to increase voting integrity. Democrats charged the real aim was to suppress voting by their prime constituencies, including the elderly and minorities, who are less likely to have the required identification than more affluent, working-age citizens.

Under Senate procedure, all 11 Democrats in the body needed to vote no to prevent the two-thirds majority necessary to bring legislation to the floor. A long-running plotline during this session of the Legislature has been whether Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who presides over the Senate, would attempt to push the bill to a vote while state Sen. Mario Gallegos, a Democrat from Houston, was out of town recuperating after a liver transplant. Dewhurst had promised to give Gallegos notice to allow him to return to Austin.

On Tuesday, another Democrat, Sen. Carlos Uresti of San Antonio, was sidelined by illness and absent. Apparently seeking to capitalize, Dewhurst initiated a motion to suspend the rules to consider the bill. In a swirl of confusion, the vote was taken while Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, was busy marshaling supporters in a backroom and his vote was not counted.

That led to an acrimonious exchange between Whitmire and Dewhurst, followed by a decision to take a second vote. By then, Uresti had been alerted and returned to the Senate floor in time to cast the key vote blocking the bill from consideration.

With Texas ranked next to last in the United States in voter participation, the last thing this state needs is a law that would suppress turnout at the polls. Although Dewhurst might still try to sneak the measure through if another Democrat is incapacitated before the session ends May 28, he should abide by the rules of the Senate and of fair play and let SB 218 rest in peace.

Rather than trying to fix a problem — widespread voter fraud — that does not exist, lawmakers should turn their focus to the real issues: the poor reliability of electronic voting systems and the need for a paper trail to verify the accuracy of the count.