AUSTIN - A senate bill that was left pending on the Senator floor Monday will prevent 75,000 El Pasoans from being eligible to vote in all elections involving the management and supervision of the El Paso County Water Improvement District.

The bill, S.B. 547, was left pending on the floor by its sponsor, Senator Frank Madla (D-San Antonio), after several Senators, including Gonzalo Barrientos (D-Austin) and Robert Duncan (R-Lubbock), joined Senator Eliot Shapleigh in an attempt to stop the bill.

"All El Paso should know what's behind this bill,” Shapleigh said. “Three families and their lawyers have run the water district for 26 years. The District controls half of all our water. Last year, the Board had real contested elections for the first time ever. So their response is to eliminate 75,000 people from voter rolls, and intimidate the remaining few with an inspection and registration at headquarters. That is how the same three families plan to keep control for another 26 years. Forty years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, our government institutions should no longer be fiefdoms for the privileged few."

The bill requires anyone who may eligible to vote in EPCWID elections to first register at the district’s headquarters and then to show proof that they are eligible to vote, even though voter registration for all other elections is done at the El Paso County Elections Department.

On the senate floor, Senator Duncan said, this bill is about “finding who we want to protect and excluding everyone else.” Duncan made the point that “corporations can buy all the water rights and control all the water.”

The EPCWID controls about 45 percent of the water used in El Paso and is often at odds with El Paso’s Public Service Board.