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.
Alexa Ura
Alexa Ura reported for The Texas Tribune from 2013 to 2023. She covered the complex dynamics of race, ethnicity, wealth, poverty and power and how they are shaping the future of Texas and Texans, in the long and short term. Alexa started at the Tribune as a reporting intern before graduating from the University of Texas at Austin and joining the staff full time. Originally from Laredo on the Texas-Mexico border, she is a native Spanish speaker and is based in Austin.
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Texas Legislature 2021
Secretary of State Ruth Hughs, Texas’ top elections official, to resign after Senate takes no action on her confirmation
The Senate Nominations Committee never took up Hughs’ nomination, requiring her to leave office at the end of the legislative session.
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Texas Legislature 2021
Texas GOP’s voting restrictions bill could be rewritten behind closed doors after final House passage
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.
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Texas Legislature 2021
Major corporations come out against proposed voting restrictions in Texas
Dozens of big companies, local businesses and chambers of commerce issued a statement reflecting the biggest pushback yet by the business community against Texas Republican efforts to further tighten the state’s restrictive voting rules.
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Texas Legislature 2021
Here’s how Texas elections would change, and become more restrictive, under the bill Texas Republicans are pushing
Senate Bill 7 would create new restrictions on early voting, how voters can receive applications to vote by mail and the distribution of polling places in diverse, urban counties. Here’s our breakdown of the proposed changes.
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Texas Legislature 2021
In push for new Texas voting restrictions, House panel sets up GOP faceoff over which chamber’s legislation will advance
The House elections committee gutted the Senate’s priority voting bill and replaced it with language from the House’s preferred legislation, signaling a divide over which new restrictions will make it to the governor’s desk.
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Redistricting Texas
Texas will gain two seats in Congress as residents of color drive population gains
Texas will have 38 congressional seats as a result of the latest U.S. census. It’s one of six states to gain seats, and it’s the only state that will get more than one.
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Texas Legislature 2021
Texas Republicans say their proposed voting restrictions are color blind. But many see “Jim Crow in a tuxedo.”
An outraged Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick castigated those implying that GOP efforts to restrict Texas voting are racist. But the state has a history of marginalizing voters of color, and many business leaders, voting rights advocates and Democrats see it taking another step down that path.
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Texas Legislature 2021
Texas House committee advances bill that would make it a crime for election officials to send unsolicited vote-by-mail applications
Like other Republican proposals, the measure would target Harris County’s initiatives from the 2020 general election, including a shift to proactively send out vote-by-mail applications.
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Texas Legislature 2021
Corporate giants come out against Republicans’ efforts to restrict voting in Texas
American Airlines and Dell Technologies on Thursday publicly declared their opposition to Republican legislative proposals that would impose new restrictions on voting.