Profile: Briscoe Cain’s History of Supporting Voting Restrictions
BY MARICE RICHTER
Some believe that bills moving through the Texas Legislature as efforts to combat election fraud are a solution seeking a problem.
With no evidence of widespread voter fraud or compromised voting and registration systems in Texas, Republicans, at the urging of Gov. Greg Abbott, have made election fraud an “emergency item this session.”
“In the 2020 election, we witnessed actions throughout our state that could risk the integrity of our elections and enable voter fraud,” Abbott stated at a news conference last month.
By his side, were Sen. Paul Bettencourt and Rep. Briscoe Cain, Republican lawmakers who had already filed several bills supporting Abbott’s urgency for restrictive measures, which voting rights advocates seized upon as Jim Crow era voter restrictions that would make casting a ballot more difficult and intimidating for many voters, particularly those who are low-income, disabled, elderly and people of color.
Not only do Republicans have the numbers to pass this legislation, they have the most outspoken, unapologetic, far-right conservatives in charge of ramming the bills through passage.
Presiding over the Senate, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick already pushed through passage of Senate Bill 7, a measure that would limit early voting hours, prohibit drive-thru voting and block local election officials from proactively sending applications for mail-in ballots to voters, even to those who qualify.
