By an 18-4 parry-line vote, the Senate passed Senate Bill 1 by Sen. Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola). Nine of the chamber’s 13 Democrats were in Washington, D.C., with more than 50 House Democrats to advocate for federal election legislation.
Seven amendments were added to the bill, including these by unanimous votes:
- Clarifying the definition of “ballot harvesting” so that it does not affect campaigns
- Clarifying the Voter ID requirement for mail ballots
- Clarifying who can be in the car when a voter casts a ballot curbside
- Permitting county commissioners to use temporary polling sites in certain circumstances; and
- Requiring the Secretary of State to develop a manual for poll watchers.
Amendments to strike prohibitions on 24-hour voting and drive-through voting failed on party-line votes (Note: the Senate does not make floor amendments available online during debate on the bill.).
The bill cannot progress any further once it goes to the House until a quorum is re-established. A companion measure, House Bill 3 by Rep. Andrew Murr (R-Junction), received committee approval but cannot be considered on the House floor until a quorum is re-established.
Campaign Finance: A rare alignment of filing deadlines occurs Thursday as all federal, state and local (where required) officeholders and candidates must file their latest campaign finance reports:
- Federal officeholder and candidates’ July quarterly reports disclose contributions received and expenditures made between April 1 and June 30.
- The two candidates in the CD6 special runoff election will file pre-runoff reports, covering the period beginning April 12 and ending July 12.
- State and local officeholder and candidates’ July semiannual reports disclose contributions received and expenditures made between January 1 and June 30. Incumbent state officeholders were barred by statute from accepting contributions until June 21.
Federal reports tend to be available online in real time, so we expect to be able to update our federal Crib Sheet on Thursday. State reports are typically posted online the next day, so we will be updating our statewide and legislative Crib Sheets through the weekend. Keep in mind that our Crib Sheets include only the campaign accounts for federal officials. For state officials and candidates, we include the candidate/officeholder and any associated specific-purpose political committee. The latter is included because the campaign has access to all of those funds, and most campaigns use exclusively one or the other account.
LTGOV: The campaign of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) announced he raised more than $5M during the last 10 days of June. This is more than $1M more than he reported raising during the corresponding period in 2017 and nearly $3M more than the same period in 2019. Patrick will report having nearly $24M on hand, a new record for a sitting lieutenant governor or candidate for the office, breaking his own record of $19.4M from December 31, 2020. Patrick’s campaign has more doubled its cash on hand in two years.
AG: McKinney civil rights attorney Lee Merritt kicked off his campaign for the Democratic nomination.
SD12 open: U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Waco) endorsed Rep. Tan Parker (R-Flower Mound) to succeed the retiring Sen. Jane Nelson (R-Flower Mound).
SEN: U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R) campaign announced he raised $5M during the second quarter spread across his campaign account, joint fundraising committee and leadership PAC (Only the amount raised for the campaign account will be shown in our Crib Sheets.). His campaign account will report having $6.3M on hand.
Tarrant Co.: Larry Carpenter, grandson of former Sheriff Don Carpenter, announced he would seek the open Precinct 4 seat on the Commissioners Court as a Republican. He faces Precinct 4 Constable Jody Johnson (son of the incumbent J.D. Johnson) and Manny Ramirez, president of the Fort Worth Police Officers Assoc. J.D. Johnson announced last month that he would not seek re-election.
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