Major Victory in Lawsuit Against Texas Anti-Voter Law, S.B. 1
Judge rules in favor of civil rights groups, stating a provision of Senate Bill 1 violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS - A federal court Saturday against a key provision of Texas’ anti-voter law in a victory for voting rights in the state.
The lawsuit, filed in 2021 by the Texas Civil Rights Project, American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Texas, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Disability Rights Texas, and the law firm Jenner & Block LLP, challenged numerous provisions of the bill, including that its prohibition against certain interactions in the presence of a ballot violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Texas, Register, Educate, Vote, & Use your Power - Texas (REV UP Texas), and OCA Greater Houston.
This ruling comes after a six week trial last October. The state has announced at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to review the ruling and request a stay of the decision while the appeal plays out.
This latest decision follows an August 2023 win in this case where the district court ruled that the mail-ballot ID-matching provisions of Senate Bill 1 violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The groups await the court’s findings on whether the same provisions of the law, as well as the bill’s expanded Oath of Assistance, violate the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, along with if S.B. 1’s limitations on compensated mail-voting assistance violate Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act. This decision also follows a separate and successful 2022 challenge to S.B. 1’s limitations on the type of assistance that may be rendered to Limited English speaking and disabled voters.
“This ruling is a major triumph in our fight to protect voting rights in Texas,” said Rochelle Garza (she/her), president of the Texas Civil Rights Project. “By striking down these unconstitutional restrictions, the Court has made it clear: voter suppression has no place in our democracy. With Election Day approaching, this decision will make it easier for Texans to vote without fear of being punished. At the Texas Civil Rights Project, we will keep pushing back against these harmful anti-voter laws to protect the basic right that belongs to everyone—the right to vote.”
“This provision of S.B. 1, which the district court rightfully dubbed ‘the canvassing restriction,’ served no purpose but to illegally suppress core political speech under threat of criminal prosecution,” said Zach Dolling (he/him), senior supervising attorney, Voting Rights Program at the Texas Civil Rights Project. “This victory is a powerful repudiation of Texas’s unconstitutional restriction of our clients’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. As a result, community organizers like our clients and their members can again engage in the canvassing, voter assistance, and other protected activities that S.B. 1 had forced them to cease.”
“We are incredibly pleased with the federal court’s ruling. This is a significant step towards ensuring equal access to voting, a foundation of our democracy,” said Jessica Ring Amunson and Alex Trepp, partners at Jenner & Block. “We are proud to partner with co-counsel on this important work to protect the right to vote.”
Dayton Campbell-Harris, staff attorney (he/him), ACLU Voting Rights Project: “This ruling is a major victory for voting rights in Texas and a testament to our clients’ relentless commitment to Texans and to our democracy. The law criminalized and severely restricted people’s interactions with voters and GOTV efforts: something Texas should encourage, and not try to stop.”
"This ruling affirms what we have known all along: It is unconstitutional for state leaders to criminalize organizers in Texas for getting out the vote when a mail ballot may be present," said Savannah Kumar (she/they), staff attorney at the ACLU of Texas. "Weeks of powerful testimony by our clients led the court to conclude that this provision of Senate Bill 1 is unconstitutionally overbroad, vague, and an unconstitutional restriction on free speech. We are optimistic that the law’s other harmful changes will be struck down as well. Democracy cannot thrive when civic engagement is criminalized, and this decision affirms that Texans have the right to talk with their neighbors about politics without fearing being locked up."
“Yet another Texas measure to address a manufactured “voter fraud” threat has been exposed for what it is, an unconstitutional and crass attempt to criminalize fundamental voting rights,” said Susana Lorenzo-Giguere (she/her), associate director for democracy at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund. “The court also explicitly chided Texas’ failure in basic common courtesy to voters, many of whom are elderly Asian Americans with limited English ability, who brought their mail-in ballots to our clients’ community meetings with questions about the voting process and seeking assistance.”
"We are celebrating this successful outcome. S.B. 1’s canvassing restrictions chilled all of our civic engagement activities that prior to S.B. 1 had benefited hundreds of voters in our community in each election. We even feared criminal consequences just giving Gatorade and water to hydrate our canvassers working in the Texas heat of a hundred degrees or more,” said Deborah Chen, OCA-GH’s civic engagement programs director. “One of our missions is to educate and develop a pool of leaders, not to expose our student volunteers to criminal charges.”
“LWV of Texas is energized by this ruling,” said Joyce LeBombard, president of the League of Women Voters of Texas. “Voter engagement is part of LWV's core work — helping voters make their voices heard. As we testified at trial, this provision would have criminalized voters and League members for being engaged in routine voter outreach. Voters, especially those with disabilities and first-time voters, rely on the services of groups like the League to participate in our democracy.”
"Laws that stand in the way of the freedom to vote are intolerable and rightly prohibited in our democracy,” said Celina Stewart, CEO of the League of Women Voters of the United States. “Texas voters must not be silenced by unnecessary laws that restrict vital voter engagement. We are pleased that this ruling that unfairly criminalized our civic engagement work was struck down so that Texans can make their voices heard.”
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