Texas Republican lawmakers say we should assume a person walking down the street, gun holstered to hip, is a law-abiding citizen entitled to carry that gun. No need for a permit. No reason for a cop to stop and ask what that person is up to.
“Citizens need to be trusted,” Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, emphasized last Wednesday before the Senate passed House Bill 1927, which would allow Texans to carry a handgun in public without the license, background check and firearm training currently required by state law.
“Do we believe people and our fellow man?” Schwertner added with a hint of exasperation. “Or should we assume them guilty until proven innocent?” He argued that a person exercising a basic constitutional right should be treated with the presumption they are acting lawfully, and allowed to proceed accordingly, without the government placing any speedbumps in their path.
Amazing how quickly that logic evaporated just 24 hours later, when the rights being debated at the state Capitol belonged to Texas voters.
Indeed, Republican lawmakers say, we cannot assume a person casting a ballot is a law-abiding citizen. We need to see a photo ID. We need to eliminate drive-through voting and restrict mail-in voting. We need documentation from anyone who helps a voter who has a disability or a language barrier. And we need to grant even greater access to partisan poll watchers who stake out polling places to scrutinize the legitimacy of voters and ballot counts.
“We don’t need to wait for bad things to happen in order to try and protect and secure these elections,” Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, said last Thursday evening in defense of SB 7, which adds new voting restrictions in a state that is already among the most difficult places to vote in America. The House advanced a version of the bill on a party-line vote at 3 a.m. last Friday, quite literally chipping away at our democracy in the dead of night.
The hypocrisy on display last week was galling but not surprising. When it’s a Texan carrying a gun, GOP lawmakers assume the best, even as our nation grapples with horrific mass shootings and the drumbeat of everyday gun violence. When it’s a Texan trying to vote, GOP lawmakers assume the worst and set up more hurdles, even in the stark absence of substantial voter fraud.
Republican lawmakers are governing from the extremes instead of doing the difficult work of balancing individual and community interests — the serious work we should expect of elected officials. Yes, gun ownership is a Constitutional right, but communities expect reasonable guardrails for everyone’s safety. Yes, we need elections we can trust, but the security measures must be crafted with care, mindful that voting is a Constitutional right.
Instead, GOP lawmakers have weaponized both issues to excite their base, while showing blithe indifference to the burdens they’re imposing on Texans. In nixing the handgun license requirement, Republican lawmakers ignored the pleas of police chiefs and law enforcement agencies who said this would make officers’ jobs more difficult. They disregarded studies that found other states saw a 13% to 15% increase in violent crime rates a decade after dropping a similar handgun permit requirement. Schwertner even scoffed at recent polling by the University of Texas/Texas Tribune showing 59% of Texans opposed the unlicensed carry of firearms.
“You can word a poll in a certain way that usually engenders a response that you’re seeking,” he told one senator who highlighted the poll results. “Mark Twain said it best: ‘You have lies, damned lies and statistics.’ And right after that would probably be polls.”
A similarly stubborn denial of the truth has accompanied the Texas GOP’s push to pass “election integrity” bills — despite the fact no one could identify any substantial voter fraud in last year’s elections in Texas. No instances of ballot harvesting or vote tampering found by the bipartisan Harris County Elections Security Task Force, which reviewed hundreds of complaints. No bounties paid by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who offered up to $1 million in rewards for proof of election malfeasance.
No matter. Distrust of the 2020 election results is now a defining feature of the Republican Party. Fealty to the big lie is the GOP loyalty test. Passing new voting restrictions is good for the party — even if it’s terrible for Texas voters and destructive for democracy.
Rep. Jessica González, D-Dallas, noted that many people who testified last month said SB 7 would disproportionately hurt voters of color and those who have disabilities. “We heard more people testify against the bill than (for) the bill,” González said during the debate last Thursday night. “Our job is to pass legislation for our state, for our constituents. We’re here to pass policy that they want, not force legislation on them that they don’t agree with.”
Republican lawmakers beg to differ.
Austin American-Statesman
