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Alexa Ura is an associate editor and reporter at The Texas Tribune. As the Tribune’s demographics reporter, she covers the intersection between politics and race with an emphasis on the state’s surging Hispanic population. She also covers voting rights issues for the Tribune, where she started as a reporting fellow in 2013. She’s a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin.
Three of the Democratic legislators who went to Washington, D.C., to deny the Texas House a quorum have been invited to detail their concerns at a specially called hearing on the contentious legislation that includes new restrictions on voting. Full Story
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Whose voices will be heard in Texas halls of power? That question beats at the heart of the Democratic quorum break that has brought the Legislature to a halt and focused national attention on GOP efforts to make voting in Texas harder. Full Story
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Texas Democrats said they are urging Congress again to pass federal voting laws, acknowledging that Gov. Greg Abbott would continue to call special sessions until the GOP elections bill was passed. Full Story
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A majority of Democrats in the Texas House left for Washington, D.C., Monday afternoon in a bid to again deny Republicans the quorum needed to pass new voting restrictions with 26 days left in a special legislative session called largely for that purpose. Full Story
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Members of the public arrived at the Texas Capitol as early as 6 a.m. to sign up to speak before lawmakers considering the legislation. In the House, public testimony wouldn't begin until early the next morning. Full Story
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Authors of the legislation are moving to ban drive-thru and 24-hour voting options, enhance access for partisan poll watchers and prohibit local election officials from proactively distributing applications to request mail-in ballots. Both bills also include language to further restrict the state’s voting-by-mail rules, including new ID requirements for absentee voters. Full Story
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Senate Bill 1 and House Bill 3 will be the starting points for the Legislature's efforts to tighten Texas voting laws. Here's what the bills would do. Full Story
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As the Legislature's special session dawns, political developments have raised the stakes for how far Republicans might go in enacting new voting restrictions, and how they might impact voters of color. Full Story
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The extent to which Republicans’ proposed voting restrictions might affect voters of color has received much attention, but Texans with disabilities also face the prospect of new barriers to the ballot box. Full Story
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With no evidence of widespread voting fraud to cite, Republicans are shifting their argument to insist that new voting restrictions are needed to forestall even isolated instances of ineligible voters casting ballots. Full Story
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After their walkout to derail a priority GOP voting bill, Harris met with Texas Democrats at the White House as lawmakers call on Congress to pass legislation to restore federal oversight of elections. Full Story
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After temporarily derailing a GOP priority voting bill, Texas Democrats looked to Washington this week to make the case for a federal legislation to overhaul elections and reinstate protections for voters of color. Full Story
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All they could get was a temporary win. But the lawmakers said taking the extraordinary measure of breaking quorum in the Texas House was justified by the harm they felt their mostly Black and Hispanic constituents would face under the GOP’s voting bill. Full Story
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Midnight was the deadline for the House to approve the legislation that would alter nearly the entire voting process, create new limitations to early voting hours, ratchet up voting-by-mail restrictions and curb local voting options. Full Story
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Senate Bill 7 includes provisions to limit early voting hours, curtail local voting options and further tighten voting by mail. The upper chamber suspended its own rules to approve it after debating it for hours overnight. Full Story
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Senate Bill 7, a Republican priority voting bill, would limit early voting hours, curtail local voting options and further clamp down on mail-in voting, among several other provisions. Full Story
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House and Senate negotiators have reached a deal on competing versions of Senate Bill 7. Once both chambers sign off on the agreement, it will head to the governor’s desk before it becomes law. Full Story
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Voters in some urban, Democratic areas of Harris and Tarrant counties would see a drastic drop in polling places under the Senate version of Senate Bill 7, a Texas Tribune analysis shows. Full Story
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The Senate Nominations Committee never took up Hughs’ nomination, requiring her to leave office at the end of the legislative session. Full Story
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In a 78-64 vote, the House on Friday passed a pared down version of priority GOP legislation to place new restrictions on voting. Now the bill likely will be reshaped in conference committee with the Senate, largely out of public view. Full Story
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