Legislative shell game adds to Texas disappearing democracy scheme

Every so often, the jaded political observer must pause in his labors to marvel at some display of self-serving, politically motivated deceit in the Texas Legislature, a spectacle worthy of inclusion in the Machiavellian bag of tricks that scheming and unscrupulous politicians keep close by. And so I paused last week to marvel at a political shell game so illusionary it will confound most voters unaccustomed to critical thinking and thus pass by ignored. Then again, what transpired in the Texas House Elections Committee last Thursday is really no Rubik’s cube at all – just plain outrageous and audacious.

Thursday morning, boyish-looking Rep. Briscoe Cain, 36, a Deer Park Republican, apparently tried to hoodwink his own committee and the public. As chairman, he tried to scuttle Senate Bill 7 – an election-reform bill painstakingly crafted by Republican Sen. Bryan Hughes and co-authored by our own Sen. Brian Birdwell – and nonchalantly replace it with a “committee substitute” that turned out to be Cain’s own rival election-reform bill, House Bill 6. Democratic representatives cried “bullshit” – literally – and Republican Rep. Travis Clardy declined to vote at all on this trickery.

That might well have been the end of Cain’s Machiavellian effort – his motion failed because Clardy quite correctly abstained – except that when the committee reconvened come evening, Clardy had either been admonished by House higher-ups or experienced a political epiphany – and this time Senate Bill 7 disappeared in the lower chamber and in its place was Cain’s HB 6 which, to quote committee vice chairwoman Jessica González, is “substantially different” from the Senate bill.

Interestingly, when Cain first explained to fellow committee members he was offering a “committee substitute” to SB 7, he didn’t exactly volunteer it was his very own House bill masquerading as the committee substitute. What’s more, Cain – and whoever put him up to this skullduggery – escaped the rigors of another grueling public hearing on the logic that because the committee substitute to SB 7 was HB 6, and because HB 6 had already undergone a 17-hour-long public hearing on April Fool’s Day, further public input was unnecessary.

Thus, the public would be unable to cry “bullshit” on Cain’s switcheroo with high-priority Senate and House legislation in a public hearing. The spectacle in the Texas House of Representatives, unfolding with the apparent blessing of new Speaker Dade Phelan, means rival election bills House Bill 6 and Senate Bill 7 are no longer rivals at all but one and the same, at least in the lower chamber, even though SB 7 continues forward as the work of Hughes and his Senate colleagues.

For those who compare the art of legislation with sausage-making, welcome to the slaughterhouse.

Quite a guy

Cain is certainly emerging as the poster boy for the Trump-infused Republican Party. A month ago he created an unnecessary stink by refusing to allow questions about his election bill from Rep. Nicole Collier, chairwoman of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus – her presence hardly surprising, given credible claims Cain’s bill is hostile to minorities, restricting voting measures statistically favored by them. More? How about a seemingly bungled procedural move by Cain that ended a hearing on this same election bill, sidelining hundreds of Texans who traveled to the Capitol to testify on HB 6, some in his favor? This also ironically slowed the legislative progress of Cain’s bill in a time-limited Legislature.

And if all that’s not enough to question Speaker Phelan’s judgment in tapping Briscoe Cain as House Elections Committee chairman, consider Cain’s tweeted threat to Beto O’Rourke upon the latter’s suggestion of restricting so-called “assault weapons” after the 2019 mass targeted shooting of Hispanics in El Paso: “My AR is ready for you.” Pretty mature, huh? Cain clearly sought to score points with the NRA crowd, notwithstanding 23 dead in Texas. More? Well, Cain offered his legal skills to the Trump bandwagon suing to overturn citizens’ votes in Pennsylvania after the contested 2020 presidential election – a misguided effort that won a slapdown from no less than a Trump-appointed federal appeals judge outraged at what he saw in the lawsuit.

Political observers more seasoned than I suggest Cain’s move last week was taken as an unorthodox means to speed up the legislative process on bills given high priority by Gov. Greg Abbott, simplifying matters for House members who, till Cain’s actions, faced not one but two main options for election reform in two different omnibus bills. Cain’s move and the committee’s belated approval (by a 5-4 vote) would ultimately leave sorting out of differences in the bills to Senate-House conference committee members whose final patchwork bill would presumably include parts of SB 7 (as Hughes and the Senate crafted it) and HB 6 (or SB 7 in House guise). Key Senate compromises could also die there, especially in the mad rush that typically ensues in the final weeks of the legislative session. The result could be a crazy-quilt, even more oppressive bill for legislators to then vote up or down on. There’s evidence such a scheme is indeed underway: Neither Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (who a month ago voiced great pride in Senate debate producing SB 7) nor Sen. Bryan Hughes (who voiced great pride in public testimony offered on SB 7) has voiced any public protest over the latest House machinations. Are they complicit in some conspiracy to stifle public protest regarding all this? To add insult to injury, Cain added to the deception on his Facebook page a day after his effort to pull a fast one on at least some committee members, not to mention the public: “Great to see House Bill 6 in the Calendars Committee! Senate Bill 7 is close behind after being voted out of committee last night.”

Who's being played?

Take it from me after hours of hearing testimony and debate on Senate Bill 7 and House Bill 6: Sen. Hughes not only graciously entertained public testimony for and against his bill as chairman of the Senate Committee on State Affairs but withstood tough questioning from fellow senators during floor debate. He managed SB 7 throughout with patience, professionalism and civility – and even included Democratic suggestions for improving the bill. For instance, a toxic provision requiring that disabled citizens furnish documentation proving they’re truly disabled – a de facto poll tax – was jettisoned from SB 7 before Senate passage. Smart restrictions, too, were placed on poll-watcher videos being downloaded anywhere but the Texas Secretary of State’s Office. (That would mean poll-watcher video of your decrepit Aunt Bertha hobbling into a polling place with her cane and fumbling forever for her voter registration couldn’t end up on YouTube for all eternity). In contrast to Hughes, who seems familiar with every iota of his legislation, Cain has shown stunning confusion not only about what’s in his own election bill but in state election law.

Make no mistake about SB 7 or HB 6. For any red-blooded, fully cognizant patriot who appreciates democracy in America, these bills are an affront to everything in our founding documents as well as the 14th and 15th Amendments and the hard-won Voting Rights Act of 1965, the latter the work of civil rights icons Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis. These bills demonstrate continuing fealty to a pouting, self-indulgent former president and his spurious and destructive claims of a stolen election. They’re the flip side of the insurrection that on Jan. 6 overwhelmed the U.S. Capitol, halted Congress in fulfilling its constitutional duties of certifying Electoral College results and left several dead and many injured in its violent wake.

One question yet unanswered: Is the public now witnessing the spectacle of Texas Republicans sandbagging Texas Republicans in the State Capitol? Or is the public itself being played in some bewildering Machiavellian drama so operatic as to leave Trump himself envious? Either way, this much is clear: Democracy remains in the crossfire.