June 1, 2021 8:40 PM | With information from EFE
15 minutes. The Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, assured that he will veto the article of the new budgets for the legislature that collects the salary of congressmen, after this weekend the Democrats absent themselves from the House of Representatives to avoid the approval of a new electoral law, which has dozens of restrictions to exercise the right to vote.
“I will veto Article 10 of the budget approved for the legislature. Article 10 finances the Legislative Branch. Those who abandon their responsibilities are not paid“said the governor of Texas, who planned to sign the bill blocked by Democrats.
From the Democratic Party they warned that this will not affect state representatives, most of them with other jobs when they are not in plenary sessions. Nor will it affect the rest of the administrative and maintenance personnel who work in the House of Representatives and who collect directly from the Legislative Power.
“Punishing the working class, office staff, maintenance and other support services, because they did not receive each and every one of their demands is very typical of Texas Republicans,” Democratic Rep. Gene Wu criticized on Twitter.
Punishing working class office staff, maintenance, and other support services because he didn’t get every single one of his demands is very on-brand for Texas Republicans. https://t.co/f48j1KJV5p
– Gene Wu (@GeneforTexas) May 31, 2021
The controversial law
The Electoral Integrity Protection Act was endorsed on Sunday in the Senate after a debate, later passing to the House of Representatives. However, they had to suspend the session after the departure of the Democratic congressmen.
The text, among other things, prohibits voting by car, provisional polling stations, 24-hour voting centers, such as those used in the presidential pasts in Harris County (where President Joe Biden prevailed with 56% votes), and even go to the polls on Sundays before 1:00 p.m. local time.
In turn, the rule would impose greater penalties against authorities that offer applications for voting by mail to citizens who do not request it. It would also toughen the conditions for identification, admitting only the driver’s license and the Social Security number as valid documents.
The rule would also allow an election to be annulled “if the number of illegal votes is equal to or greater than the number of votes required to change the election result“without the need for any fraud to be proven.
On the eve of the vote, the president of the United States, Joe Biden, criticized the legislative project, considering that not only was it “not an American”, but that it was part of “an attack on democracy”, already seen “too often this year and is often targeted primarily at black and brown Americans. “
“In the 21st century, we should make it easier, not harder, for all voters to vote,” Biden said.
Since Donald Trump’s defeat in the November presidential elections, at least 14 Republican-majority states have passed more restrictive electoral laws. In the same way, almost 400 legislative projects have been counted so far this year with the same purposes, points out the NBC network.
