Texas GOP’s bill requiring voters to prove citizenship stalls in House

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A high-profile bill that would have required documented proof of citizenship from Texas voters appears likely dead after it missed a key House deadline Tuesday, an unceremonious outcome for a Republican legislative priority.

Senate Bill 16 had 50 Republican co-sponsors in the House, and supporters widely expected it to sail through the chamber. The bill passed the Senate last month along party lines and with little debate. Republicans and allied groups around the country have been aggressively pushing for such citizenship proof measures at the state and federal level.

SB 16 and its companion, House Bill 5337, were among the most sweeping proof-of-citizenship proposals introduced anywhere in the country, applying not only to new applicants for voter registration but also retroactively to 18.6 million voters already registered in the state. Voting rights advocates warned that the bill would have disenfranchised eligible voters, and discouraged future voters by making registration and voting more burdensome.

Under the bill, voters who failed to provide proof of citizenship would have been allowed to cast ballots only in congressional races — and would have been barred from voting by mail. Mail voting is already tightly limited in Texas.

Gov. Greg Abbott could still call a special session on the issue, and Republicans are moving forward with a plan to ask voters to approve a constitutional amendment affirming that only U.S. citizens are permitted to vote in Texas — something already established under Texas law. On Monday, Abbott signed a bill to add the measure to the ballot in the November constitutional amendment election. That amendment does not include the enforcement and maintenance provisions to check for citizenship that were included in SB 16.

The two Central Texas Republicans who carried the proof-of-citizenship bills in their respective chambers, state Sen. Bryan Hughes and state Rep. Carrie Isaac, did not respond to Votebeat’s requests for comment Tuesday.

Some experts said the bill’s failure to reach a House vote may be due to the GOP-led Legislature’s waning focus on voting and election reform this session. In addition, the policy is “legally, procedurally, and financially complicated,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston. “It's just a challenge to make this a new policy out of whole cloth, which would require a significant amount of investment in terms of time and money to facilitate and then legally to defend it.”

Some voting rights advocates who opposed the legislation said Tuesday that they were “cautiously optimistic” about its seeming demise. Lawmakers could attempt to revive the proposal by attaching its provisions as an amendment to another bill, but that would be difficult due to its complexity and scope, said Luis Figueroa, legislative and policy director for Every Texan, a nonprofit organization that advocates for equitable public policies.

“I think the leadership started to realize that it wasn't as easy as they thought,” Figueroa said. “There's a lot of people who would be affected by this. And ultimately, I think what prevailed was that they realized how this was going to create chaos at the polls.”

Inflated claims about noncitizens on the rolls fueled bill

In an analysis that accompanied the House version, Isaac cited an announcement by Abbott last fall claiming that 6,500 noncitizens had been removed from Texas voter rolls prior to 2024. But a joint investigation by Votebeat, Texas Tribune and ProPublica found Abbott’s numbers were inflated and, in some instances, wrong; the governor’s office later edited its own press release to change the description to say those removed were “potential” noncitizens.

In reality, the state removed only 581 people as noncitizens over three years. The rest of the 6,500 had simply failed to respond to a notice asking them to confirm their citizenship, which doesn’t mean they weren’t citizens. The investigation found that some eligible citizens had been flagged as potential noncitizens and removed from the rolls.

During a House Elections Committee debate on the bill earlier this month, state Rep. John Bucy, a Democrat from Austin and committee vice chair, described the data Isaac cited as “misleading” and pointed out that election officials already check the rolls for potential noncitizens.

Bucy said the scrutiny of the bill helped his colleagues in the House understand “how poorly this bill was thought out and written and what its impacts would have been.”

“It was done to harm people and also to scare people out of the process,” Bucy told Votebeat in an interview Tuesday. “It was a terrible voter suppression bill. We're able to celebrate that this bad bill is not going to become law this session.”

Texas bill modeled after Arizona law blocked by federal courts

The legislation was modeled after an Arizona law that requires proof of citizenship to vote in state and local elections. But the Texas bill went further: It also would have barred voters who don’t provide citizenship proof from voting in presidential elections, a restriction currently blocked by federal courts in Arizona.

The Texas legislation would have also required local election officials to continually verify voters’ citizenship status — and subjected the officials to potential felony charges for any lapses. In Arizona, a similar requirement led to widespread confusion after a state error made it hard for officials to administer the law consistently.

Election administrators in Texas warned lawmakers that the bill could confuse voters about eligibility requirements and prove difficult to administer. They also had questions about how implementation would work at the county and state levels.

According to the bill’s fiscal note, the Texas Secretary of State’s Office would need to overhaul the state’s voter registration system to track proof of citizenship — something it currently does not do. The projected cost: $578,931 in 2026, followed by $84,000 annually.

The office said it would need two additional staff members to conduct citizenship verification reviews and to coordinate with counties, each costing $70,662 a year, plus benefits and other expenses totaling about $45,000 per year. The agency also estimated that the positions would require roughly $16,000 in setup costs in 2026.

That didn’t include costs that would have been borne by the counties.

Bucy said the Texas Legislature will likely continue to push for ways to ensure that only eligible Texans are registering to vote by looking at similar policies in other states.

“Hopefully by having a more thoughtful conversation, our counterparts across the aisle will realize how effective our current system already is,” Bucy said.

Read more of Votebeat’s coverage of Texas’ push for a proof-of-citizenship requirement:

• Texas lawmakers hear warnings about requiring proof of citizenship for voting
• Texas Republicans want voters to provide proof of citizenship. Arizona’s law holds lessons.
• Texas Senate approves bill requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote

Natalia Contreras covers election administration and voting access for Votebeat in partnership with the Texas Tribune. She is based in Corpus Christi. Contact Natalia at ncontreras@votebeat.org.

Disclosure: Every Texan, Texas Secretary of State and University of Houston have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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