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      Texas Republicans veer further right despite state’s demographic shifts

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      TexasTexas Republicans veer further right despite state’s demographic shiftsGovernor Greg Abbott appears to be filling out a ‘bingo card’ of rightwing policy desires, even though those proposals are not popular with Texans Alexandra Villarreal in AustinThu 15 Jul 2021 05.00 EDTLast modified on Thu 15 Jul 2021 05.01 EDTFrom restricting voter access and politicizing the US-Mexico border to targeting transgender student athletes and further rolling back abortion rights, Texas’s current legislative agenda set by its governor, Greg Abbott, reads almost like a conservative bingo card.Death toll from Texas February cold spell rises by 59 to reach 210Read moreBut in the shadow of next year’s Republican primary contest, Abbott is already facing hostile challengers in his own party who are ideologically even more extreme and are pushing the radical governor even further to the right as he seeks re-election.So it may not be a coincidence that, during recent legislative overtime in Texas, he’s heaped on enough red meat to try to foil his rivals, who claim he’s only Republican in name – to the shock of many civic society activists in the state.“We’re really seeing a race of who can throw Texans under the bus in the fastest and most cruel way, simply to score political points and to remain in power,” said Juan Benitez, the communications director for Workers Defense Action Fund.For years, Democrats have been slowly chipping away at Republicans’ ironclad grip on Texas in a belief that the state may eventually turn blue. But the state’s conservative leadership in the Republican party is now doubling down on rightwing talking points ahead of 2022, relying on hot-button, emotional issues to rile up supporters.“What they’re doing is working harder and harder and harder, in my judgment, to stimulate a shrinking base, and going so far to the right they no longer represent the consensus view of Texans,” said Mike Collier, a Democrat who plans to run for Texas lieutenant governor next year.Despite Texas’s rapidly changing demographics, so far, it has remained staunchly red in terms of who wins.That, in turn, makes the state’s primaries the real contest in most races, said Juan Carlos Huerta, a professor of political science at Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi.“I think there is a bit of a disconnect between the overall sense of what Texans want and what our elected officials do,” Huerta said. “They take care of those who vote for them.”Texas’s Republican primary voters are often rightwing Donald Trump loyalists, and statewide incumbents who want another term have little choice but to court those votes. If they succeed, they’re more than likely to prevail in the general election, regardless of how radical their platform is.So the Texas government is dominated by Republicans who have been hand-picked by their most extreme constituents, then rubber stamped by a wider electorate that is guided by party identification. Oftentimes, that means a minority’s beliefs – and not the broad will of the people – are reflected in state policy.“We are veering more and more right, without really taking a close look at the fact that democracy is just slowly and slowly getting more and more eroded,” said Benitez.The impact of this disconnect is clear in the politics of the state.A majority of Texans agree with the landmark US supreme court decision on Roe v. Wade, recognizing the constitutional right to choose an abortion. Yet earlier this year, lawmakers passed a strict new “heartbeat” bill, which restricts abortion access around six weeks into a pregnancy, and which more Texas voters oppose than support.Permitless carry will also become the law of the land come September, even though 57% of Texans are against gun owners being able to carry handguns without a license or training.And, despite most voters wanting background checks for gun purchases, the state legislature has failed to act.“Elections have consequences, all right? And the fact that Republicans win – conservative Republicans win in Texas – yes, that’s what they’re gonna advocate: conservative policies,” Huerta said.During a pandemic that has killed more than 51,000 Texans so far, far-right Republican party members chastised Abbott for instituting a statewide mask mandate and other precautions against their wishes.After critics were so peeved that they gathered in protest at the governor’s mansion, the state’s ultra-conservative politicians evidently smelled blood. Some, including the former Texas GOP chairman Allen West and one-term state senator Don Huffines, have already announced they’ll try to oust Abbott next year.“Why isn’t he here?” Huffines asked an audience at ​​the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas earlier this month. “He’s not here because he doesn’t want to face you.”But in reality, Abbott has a $55mn re-election war chest and a higher approval rating in Texas than Senator Ted Cruz, Senator John Cornyn, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and a slew of other prominent state politicians, according to the Texas Tribune.In case that’s not enough, he has started brandishing his conservative credentials ahead of the election. Some believe he’s branding himself as the standard bearer for the new GOP, not only to win in 2022 but also for a potential presidential bid.“I don’t think of him in terms of moderate or conservative. I just see him as someone who you can expect to adopt, you know, the consensus worldview, or the predominant –the dominant – worldview of the Republican party at any given time,” said Jason Lee, a strategist for Texas Right to Vote.In March, before the Covid-19 vaccine was widely available, Abbott opened Texas 100% and abandoned his mask mandate – a decision Joe Biden called “Neanderthal thinking”. Abbott has also banned government-mandated vaccine passports to avoid “treading on Texans’ personal freedoms”.He has recently made migrants and asylum seekers into political punching bags, announcing his intention to build a wall dividing Texas from Mexico. And following Trump’s endorsement, he echoed the former president’s anti-immigrant rhetoric when they met for a photo op last month, according to the Dallas Morning News.“It is time to make sure we seal this border and close it down,” Abbott said. “The people coming across the border are cartels and gangs and smugglers and human traffickers.”After Democrats walked off the state House floor to block a restrictive voting bill during the regular legislative session in May, Abbott vetoed the legislature’s funding and convened a special session to force them to address his priorities. When lawmakers thwarted him again by flying to Washington DC on Monday, he vowed to arrest them.“This special session to me is to get the bingo card filled out, to hit all the hot button issues that they identified, and basically take away any arguments from his conservative challengers that he didn’t, you know, fulfill his conservative mission,” Lee said.The session amounts to “political theater to build up to 2022”, Benitez said, and state leaders are using the opportunity to “see who can run farthest to the right”. Agenda items don’t include fixing Texas’s failing electric grid that left hundreds dead during a devastating winter storm last February.Instead, Abbott instructed the legislature to pass bills that would go after abortion medication, put up more obstacles for people trying to get out of jail and make it harder for Texans to vote.“It’s a two-step process,” Collier said. “First, frighten the base with nonsense. Second, propose so-called solutions and then try to win your primary. And what they aren’t doing is addressing the real issues.”TopicsTexasUS politicsRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More

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      The Battle Over State Voting Rights Is About the Future of Texas

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      The current skirmish is the latest in a tug of war being waged between the state’s increasingly Democratic cities and its deeply conservative rural areas.HOUSTON — The flight of Texas Democrats to Washington, a last-ditch effort this week to stop Republicans from passing new statewide voting rules, is perhaps the most dramatic illustration of a broad national fight over access to the ballot.But it is something more than that in Texas. The battle over voting rights is also the latest in a tug of war over the future of what it means to be Texan, one being waged between the state’s rapidly diversifying and increasingly Democratic cities and its deeply conservative rural areas, which wield overwhelming power in the State Capitol.The tension grew during the coronavirus pandemic, when cities like Houston, Dallas and Austin clashed with Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, over mask mandates and business restrictions. But it had already been increasing for years, with each political session marked by Republican state officials rolling back progressive changes made in cities led by Democrats.The most direct new restrictions sought by Texas Republicans, who have maintained control of the state for nearly two decades, are a reaction to local polling innovations, notably in Houston, the state’s largest city, and surrounding Harris County.The county introduced drive-through voting for the first time in November, when people were concerned that traditional polling places would spread the coronavirus, and it proved popular, accounting for more than 130,000 votes. Access also expanded at eight polling sites that held a day of 24-hour voting.Officials believed that drive-through polling, which has been used in three subsequent municipal and state elections in Harris County, would soon expand to other areas. “In a place like Houston and Texas that loves cars so much, why shouldn’t we offer drive-through voting?” said Christopher Hollins, who served as interim election chief in the county last year and oversaw the expansion of voting options during the presidential election.Turnout increased in Harris County as it did throughout the state, and out of more than 11 million votes cast, President Biden got within about 600,000 votes of winning Texas — the closest a Democrat has come in decades.Now Texas cities are ground zero in the fight over whether to expand access to the vote, as state Democrats did during the pandemic, or curtail it, as Republicans are seeking to do with a measure that would ban 24-hour and drive-through polling.Drive-through voting was offered in Harris County, which includes Houston, last fall.Go Nakamura for The New York TimesThe conflict is a national one, heightened by former President Donald J. Trump’s false insistence that he lost in 2020 because of voter fraud. On Wednesday, Democratic members of the Texas House met with senators in Washington and urged the passage of bills aimed at expanding and safeguarding voter access.The group fled Austin on chartered planes this week, just days into a 30-day special legislative session, to delay passage of the state’s voting measure. They vowed to stay out of Texas until early August, when the session expires.But in Texas, the fight over voting is only the latest skirmish in the deepening chasm between progressive and conservative versions of the state.“Harris County is being attacked already at a base level because it is one of the most diverse counties in the country,” Mr. Hollins said. “This certainly predates the pandemic.”Elected officials in Texas cities have found themselves forced to govern with the knowledge that many of the things they do in their backyard will be undone the next time lawmakers meet in the Capitol, which they do every other year.“I see a lot of our job as to do 50 good things a year, knowing that the Legislature will only have time, while it’s in session, to undo half of it,” said Greg Casar, a progressive Democratic councilman in Austin.“Each marquee issue over the last three sessions has been the state wanting to attack local governments,” he added, listing efforts to protect immigrants, transgender Texans and workers that each faced stiff resistance at the state level.Texas House Democrats at an airport outside Washington after fleeing Texas in an effort to block a voting restrictions bill.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesThat view is something more than a hunch on the part of Democrats. Before the previous legislative session, in 2019, the speaker of the Texas House at the time shared an animus toward cities in a private conversation with a Republican lawmaker and a conservative activist.“My goal is for this to be the worst session in the history of the Legislature for cities and counties,” the speaker, Dennis Bonnen, a Republican who represented a district just south of Houston, said in a conversation that was secretly recorded.His comments about cities reflect a commonplace view among some Republicans in Texas, even if they are not always as pointedly expressed. Republican operatives and officials described the dynamic as one of concern over the progressive turn in the state’s cities, a change in culture and politics that has accelerated rapidly over the past decade.And the changes have begun spreading into the suburbs. Populous counties outside of Houston and Austin that once reliably voted Republican have swung in recent years toward the Democrats, said Mark Jones, a professor of political science at Rice University.“With the bluing of the major urban counties and the blushing of many of the major suburbs, what has allowed the G.O.P. to continue to win statewide has been its increasing dominance in the state’s rural counties,” Dr. Jones said.Most states have similar divisions between blue cities and red rural areas. But in Texas, the divisions have taken hold only relatively recently — Houston voted for a Republican, George W. Bush, for president in 2004 — adding to the alarm among Republicans and anticipation among Democrats that the state could soon be up for grabs.In the meantime, said Richard Peña Raymond, a Democratic state representative from Laredo, cities are being punished by the Republican majority in the Capitol for daring to extend voting opportunities, particularly in places where it benefited low-income communities of color and disabled people.“They are trying to thin out the crowd,” Mr. Raymond said of the Republicans in the state. “And that’s just wrong.”Republicans have disputed such characterizations. They have said their efforts to pass the voting bill are a way to instill confidence in future elections and to make uniform the rules that govern Texas elections.“It increases transparency and ensures the voting rules are the same in every county across the state,” the lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, said in a statement after the State Senate passed its version of the voting measure on Tuesday.Signage in Austin ahead of the presidential election.Tamir Kalifa for The New York TimesThe Senate bill, and one before the House, includes provisions to ban 24-hour voting and drive-through voting; limit third-party collection of ballots; increase criminal penalties on election workers for violating regulations; grant more freedom of movement to partisan poll watchers; and require large counties — which include the state’s largest cities — to make available a livestream video during vote counting.Democratic lawmakers have described the changes as a means of voter suppression in a state with a long history of such tactics.But without enough votes to block the bills, more than 50 Democrats, representing the state’s largest cities and suburbs, opted to leave the state in order to deny Republicans the quorum necessary for the House of Representatives to conduct its business. Mr. Abbott has threatened to arrest Democrats to bring them back to the State Capitol, though his jurisdiction to do so stops at the state line.“Everything that the Democratic cities do, particularly if it’s progressive, they attack it and they say cities can’t do that,” Eddie Rodriguez, a Democrat representing Austin, said on Wednesday as he rushed between meetings in Washington. “Which is ironic because they were the party of local control.”Like other Democrats, he vowed to remain outside Texas until Aug. 7, when the 30-day special session ends.Back in Austin, Mayes Middleton, a Republican representing Galveston, awaited the Democrats’ return and bemoaned their flight as hypocritical.“The Democrats say that the state should not dictate how counties run their election laws, but at the same time, they’re in Washington trying to have the federal government dictate how Texas should run its elections,” Mr. Middleton said. “We’ve got to let Texas run Texas.”Edgar Sandoval More

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      Biden Speaks on Voting Rights in Philadelphia

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      WASHINGTON — President Biden said on Tuesday that the fight against restrictive voting laws was the “most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War” and called Donald J. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election “a big lie.”In an impassioned speech in Philadelphia, Mr. Biden tried to reinvigorate the stalled Democratic effort to pass federal voting rights legislation and called on Republicans “in Congress and states and cities and counties to stand up, for God’s sake.”“Help prevent this concerted effort to undermine our election and the sacred right to vote,” the president said in remarks at the National Constitution Center. “Have you no shame?”But his words collided with reality: Even as Republican-led bills meant to restrict voting access make their way through statehouses across the country, two bills aiming to expand voting rights nationwide are languishing in Congress. And Mr. Biden has bucked increasing pressure from Democrats to support pushing the legislation through the Senate by eliminating the filibuster, no matter the political cost.In fact, the president seemed to acknowledge that the legislation had little hope of passing as he shifted his focus to the midterm elections.“We’re going to face another test in 2022,” Mr. Biden said. “A new wave of unprecedented voter suppression, and raw and sustained election subversion. We have to prepare now.”He said he would start an effort “to educate voters about the changing laws, register them to vote and then get the vote out.”The partisan fight over voting rights was playing out even as the president spoke, with a group of Texas Democrats fleeing their state to deny Republicans the quorum they need to pass new voting restrictions there.In his speech, Mr. Biden characterized the conspiracy theories about the 2020 election — hatched and spread by his predecessor, Mr. Trump — as a “darker and more sinister” underbelly of American politics. He did not mention Mr. Trump by name but warned that “bullies and merchants of fear” had posed an existential threat to democracy.“No other election has ever been held under such scrutiny, such high standards,” Mr. Biden said. “The big lie is just that: a big lie.”About a dozen Republican-controlled states passed laws this spring to restrict voting or significantly change election rules, in part because of Mr. Trump’s efforts to sow doubt about the 2020 results.Republicans, who have called Democrats’ warnings about democracy hyperbolic, argue that laws are needed to tamp down on voter fraud, despite evidence that it is not a widespread problem. They have mounted an aggressive campaign to portray Mr. Biden’s voting-rights efforts as self-serving federalization of elections to benefit Democrats.The president’s speech, delivered against the backdrop of the birthplace of American democracy, was intended to present the right to vote as a shared ideal, despite the realities of a deeply fractured political landscape.Democratic efforts to pass voting rights legislation in Washington have stalled in the evenly divided Senate. Last month, Republicans filibustered the broad elections overhaul known as the For the People Act, and they are expected to do the same if Democrats try to bring up the other measure — the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, named for a former Georgia congressman and civil rights icon — which would restore parts of the Voting Rights Act struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013.In a statement, Danielle Álvarez, the communications director for the Republican National Committee, said that Mr. Biden’s speech amounted to “lies and theatrics.” Republicans had unanimously rejected the For the People Act as a Democratic attempt to “pass their federal takeover of our elections,” she said.There were also concerns among more moderate members of Mr. Biden’s party that the legislation was too partisan. Senators Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have publicly said they would not support rolling back the filibuster to enact it.But other Democrats see a worrying increase in efforts by Republican-led state legislatures to restrict voting, along with court rulings that would make it harder to fight encroachments on voting rights.A Supreme Court ruling this month weakened the one enforcement clause of the Voting Rights Act that remained after the court invalidated its major provision in 2013. Mr. Biden said last year that strengthening the act would be one of his first priorities after taking office; but on Tuesday, he sought to shift responsibility to lawmakers.“The court’s decision, as harmful as it is, does not limit the Congress’s ability to repair the damage done,” the president said. “As soon as Congress passes the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, I will sign it and want the whole world to see it.”His rallying cry only underscored the impossibility of the task: Neither bill currently has a path to his desk.Activists who had wondered whether Mr. Biden would stake out a public position on the filibuster got their answer on Tuesday: “I’m not filibustering now,” the president told reporters who shouted questions after his speech.“It was strange to hear,” Eli Zupnick, a spokesman for the anti-filibuster group Fix Our Senate, said after watching the speech. “He did a great job of laying out the problem, but then stopped short of talking about the actual solution that would be needed to passing legislation to address the problem.”As Mr. Biden spoke in Philadelphia, the group of Texas Democrats had traveled to Washington, where they were trying to delay state lawmakers from taking up restrictive voting measures.Representative Marc Veasey, Democrat of Texas, speaking at a press conference with Democratic members of the Texas Legislature on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York TimesBoth measures would ban 24-hour voting and drive-through voting; prohibit election officials from proactively sending absentee ballot applications to voters who had not requested them; add new voter identification requirements for voting by mail; limit the types of assistance that can be provided to voters; and greatly expand the authority and autonomy of partisan poll watchers.In Austin, Republicans vented their anger at the fleeing group, and Gov. Greg Abbott vowed to call “special session after special session after special session” until an election bill passed. The handful of Democratic lawmakers who did not go to Washington were rounded up and ordered onto the Statehouse floor. Shawn Thierry, a Democratic state representative from Houston, posted to Twitter a video of a Statehouse sergeant-at-arms and a state trooper entering her office to order her to be locked in the House chamber.“This is not an issue about Democrats or Republicans,” Vice President Kamala Harris told the Texas lawmakers when she met with them on Tuesday. “This is about Americans and how Americans are experiencing this issue.”James Talarico, 32, the youngest member of the Texas Legislature, said the group of Democrats had gone to Washington, in part, to pressure Mr. Biden to do more.“We can’t listen to more speeches,” Mr. Talarico said. “I’m incredibly proud not only as a Democrat but also an American of what President Biden has accomplished in his first few months in office. But protecting our democracy should have been at the very top of the list, because without it none of these issues matter.”The restrictions in the Texas bills mirror key provisions of a restrictive law passed this year in Georgia, which went even further to assert Republican control over the State Election Board and empower the party to suspend county election officials. In June, the Justice Department sued Georgia over the law, the Biden administration’s first significant move to challenge voter restrictions at the state level.“The 21st-century Jim Crow assault is real,” Mr. Biden said as he listed the details of the Texas bills. “It’s unrelenting, and we are going to challenge it vigorously.”Zolan Kanno-Youngs More

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      What’s at Stake in the Fight Over Voting Rights

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      Here’s a breakdown of the themes in the state laws that Republicans are passing.Texas Democrats left the state for the nation’s capital in an effort to prevent passage of a new restrictive voting law in the Republican-controlled state legislature and to bring national attention to their cause.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesWith President Biden set to give a speech on voting rights in Philadelphia today and the Texas Legislature engulfed in chaos over a Republican effort to change election rules, we want to update you on the latest developments on the issue.We’ll break down the major themes in the new state laws that Republicans are passing, as well as the responses from Democrats. The short version: Democratic leaders have no evident way to stop the Republican-backed laws — but the effect of those laws remains somewhat uncertain.First, the newsIn his Philadelphia speech, Biden will call efforts to limit ballot access “authoritarian and anti-American,” the White House said.Some Democrats hope that presidential attention will persuade Congress to pass a voting-rights bill that outlaws the new Republican voting rules. But that’s unlikely. Congressional Republicans are almost uniformly opposed to ambitious voting-rights bills. And some Senate Democrats, including Joe Manchin, seem unwilling to change the filibuster, which would almost certainly be necessary to pass a bill.So why is Biden giving a speech? In part, it helps him avoid criticism from progressive Democrats that he is ignoring the subject, as Michael Shear, a White House correspondent for The Times, told us.But Biden also appears to be genuinely concerned about the issue, and the use of the presidential bully pulpit is one of the few options available to him. Over the long term, high-profile attention may increase the chances of federal legislation, Michael said.In Texas, Democratic legislators fled the state yesterday to deny the Republican-controlled Legislature the quorum it needs to pass a restrictive voting bill. The move is likely only to delay the bill, not stop it from becoming law.The G.O.P. lawsIn 17 states, Republican lawmakers have recently enacted laws limiting ballot access, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Texas could become the 18th.Republican officials have justified these new laws by saying that they want to crack down on voter fraud. They passed the laws after Donald Trump spent months falsely claiming that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent.Studies have repeatedly found that voter fraud is not a widespread problem. Some of the very few cases have involved Republicans trying to vote more than once.The substance of the laws makes their true intent clear: They are generally meant to help Republicans win more elections.Increase partisan controlSo far, at least 14 states have enacted laws that give partisan officials more control over election oversight — potentially allowing those politicians to overturn an election result, as Donald Trump urged state-level Republicans to do last year.In Georgia, a Republican-controlled commission now has the power to remove local election officials, and has already removed some. In Florida, elections officials who fail to supervise drop boxes continuously can be fined $25,000. Arkansas has empowered a state board to “take over and conduct elections” in a county if the G.O.P.-dominated legislature deems it is necessary. Arizona Republicans took away the Democratic secretary of state’s authority over election lawsuits and gave it to the Republican attorney general.It’s not hard to imagine how Republican legislators could use some of these new rules to disqualify enough ballots to flip the result of a very close election — like, say, last year’s presidential election in Arizona or Georgia. The election-administration provisions, The Times’s Nate Cohn has written, are “the most insidious and serious threat to democracy” in the new bills.Making voting harderMany Republican politicians believe that they are less likely to win elections when voter turnout is high and have passed laws that generally make voting more difficult..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Some of the new laws restrict early voting: Iowa, for example, has shortened the early-voting period to 20 days from 29 and reduced poll hours on Election Day. Georgia’s new rules on early voting hours will most likely limit access for voters with less flexible schedules. Others make it harder to cast a ballot in person on Election Day. Montana has eliminated same-day registration and will require voters to show a photo ID.Still other states have made it harder to vote by mail: Florida has reduced the hours for ballot drop-off boxes and will also require voters to request a new mail ballot for each election. Georgia and Iowa have banned elections officials from automatically mailing absentee ballot applications to voters — as Texas may soon do. Idaho and Kansas require that a voter’s signature on an absentee ballot match the voter-registration signature.Notably, some of the provisions are targeted at areas and groups that lean Democratic — like Black, Latino and younger voters. Georgia has lowered the number of drop boxes allowed for the metropolitan Atlanta area to an estimated 23 from 94 — while increasing drop boxes in some other parts of the state. Texas Republicans hope to ban drive-through voting and other measures that Harris County, a Democratic stronghold, adopted last year. Montana has ruled that student IDs are no longer a sufficient form of voter identification.There are a few laws that go in the other direction. In Kentucky and Oklahoma, bipartisan groups of legislators voted to expand early voting, while Louisiana made it easier for former felons to vote. Several Democratic-leaning states, including Vermont and Nevada, have also taken steps to make voting easier.And the impact?That’s not so easy to figure out. The laws certainly have the potential to accomplish their goal of reducing Democratic turnout more than Republican turnout. In closely divided states like Arizona, Florida or Georgia — or in a swing congressional district — even a small effect could determine an election.But recent Republican efforts to hold down Democratic turnout stretch back to the Obama presidency, and so far they seem to have failed. “The Republican intent behind restrictive election laws may be nefarious, but the impact to date has been negligible,” Bill Scher wrote in RealClearPolitics on Monday. The restrictions evidently have not been big enough to keep people from voting, thanks in part to Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts.The Republicans’ latest restrictions — and the ones that may follow, as in Texas — are more significant, however, and that creates uncertainty about their effect.“Our democracy works best when we believe that everybody should have free, fair and accessible elections,” Myrna Pérez, a longtime elections expert, told us (before Biden nominated her to a federal judgeship). “And while it may turn out that their self-interested anti-voter efforts may backfire, make no mistake: Our democracy is worse just because they tried.”The Supreme Court has taken a different view. Its Republican-appointed majority has repeatedly ruled that states have the right to restrict voting access. More