House Speaker: The House General Investigating Committee will meet tomorrow (Monday) beginning at 10 a.m. to take invited testimony regarding the June 12 meeting between Speaker Dennis Bonnen (R-Angleton), Rep. Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock) and Empower Texans CEO Michael Quinn Sullivan. The Austin American-Statesman’s Ryan Autullo and Jonathan Tilove reported that Bonnen has not been asked to appear before the committee.

HD93: Arlington community organizer Nathaniel Walters let us know he is seeking to challenge Rep. Matt Krause (R-Fort Worth) as a Democrat. We previously reported that he had established a campaign committee for the race, but we were unable to determine his political affiliation conclusively at the time.

HD136: Cedar Park attorney and council member Michael Guevara established a campaign committee for a potential challenge of Rep. John Bucy (D-Cedar Park) as a Republican. Guevara was first elected to the council in 2018 and appointed Mayor Pro Tem earlier this year.

Mail Ballot Suit: The Texas Civil Rights Project last week filed a federal lawsuit (PDF) on behalf of two Texas registered voters whose mail-in ballots were rejected based on mismatching signatures. The suit claims state law violates the Fourteenth Amendment, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

“Current rules authorize untrained local election officials to arbitrarily and subjectively reject mail-in ballots if officials believe, based on their own layman analysis, that the signature on a ballot is not in fact the voter’s signature,” the suit alleges. “No advance notice is given to voters before their vote in rejected, and the decision to reject a mail-in ballot is final.”

The suit claims nearly 2K mail-in ballots were rejected during the 2018 general election based on local election officials’ determinations that the signatures did not match. The Coalition of Texans with Disabilities and League of Women Voters of Texas, among others, joined the suit.

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