Is it a done deal that the Texas legislature will pass a highly-controversial voter ID law this spring?

On paper it seems it will.

Two years ago, the House passed a bill that for the first time would require all voters to show photo IDs at the polling place before voting. Most Democratic legislators are strongly against such a law because they think it will prevent many more elderly and poor citizens from voting than it will discourage unqualified people from voting.

But a dramatic scene in the Senate led to the bill’s death. Under a long-standing Senate rule, no bill can be taken up without the consent of two-thirds of the members present. Republicans, who comprised 20 of the Senate’s 31 members, learned that Sen. Carlos Uresti (D-San Antonio) was laid up in his apartment with the flu.

Dramatic entrance

They surprised Democrats by calling for a vote on the voter ID bill. Republicans won on a straight-party vote.

After some debate and a temper tantrum by Houston Democrat John Whitmire, who said his vote hadn’t been counted, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst agreed to a second vote, noting that a Republican’s vote also hadn’t been counted. The result, Dewhurst predicted, would be the same.

But midway through the vote, Uresti made a dramatic entrance into the chamber, holding up two fingers as a sign of a “no” vote.

‘Partisan gamesmanship’

This year Democrats hold 12 seats, meaning that one member could be sick without consequence. But in a bitter session Tuesday, Sen. Tommy Williams (R-The Woodlands) won passage of rule change that exempts a voter ID bill — and only a voter ID bill ­— from the two-thirds rule.

The rule change requires only a simple majority. The only Republican voting against it, Sen. John Carona of Dallas, said he favors voter ID legislation. But he called the rule change “partisan gamesmanship” at a time when voters have clearly said they want politicians to rise above such bickering. According to Texas Monthly’s Patty Kilday Hart, he also said he was told his vote “would affect my legislative package” and that he would probably get a primary opponent.

That sound’s like Tom Craddick’s House, not David Dewhurst’s Senate. And that brings us back to our original question. Now that the Senate seems guaranteed to pass a voter ID bill, will the House also do so?

Probably not. One shrewd member notes that in 2005, the University of Texas at Austin won passage in the House of a bill reforming the rule requiring the university to admit all students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their classes.

But the bill failed in the Senate.

“In 2007, UT started in the Senate, working the senators one at a time, and got a compromise bill,” he said. “Then it died in the House.”

It’s not unusual for members of one chamber to vote for a bill if they are confident the other chamber will kill it.

In 2007, the House passed the voter ID bill by 76-68. Two Republicans joined all Democrats in opposition. In November’s elections the Republican advantage in the House shrank to two votes, so the same dynamic would lead to a tie.

More likely, newly-elected Speaker Joe Straus, who won with overwhelming Democratic support after pledging to end the bitter divisions of the Craddick era, will ensure that the bill doesn’t make it to the floor, something that can easily be done in committee without leaving fingerprints.

It is likely that Straus is aware that the voter ID effort is a solution without a problem.

In 2007, Straus’s fellow Bexar County Republican, Disrict Attorney Attorney Susan Reed, joined federal officials in announcing an investigation into voting by non-citizens. Suspicions began when the feds found that some potential jurors called from voter registration rolls notified the court clerk that they weren’t citizens.

A 16-month joint probe found that over the previous 10 years, 41 non-citizens had cast votes — out of more than 800,000 registered voters.

None was indicted, either because of the 3-year statute of limitations or because they were “politically unsophisticated” people who didn’t appear to know they were breaking the law, according to officials.