Texas Senate votes to bring Jim Crow back
The Texas Senate recently advanced a bill that would require a passport, original birth certificate, or citizenship papers in addition to a photo ID to register to vote.
Senate Bill 16, which passed along party lines, marks the latest effort by Texas Republicans to further restrict the right to vote under the guise of election integrity. Critics warn that this latest bill would disenfranchise tens of thousands of Texans, particularly low-income residents, seniors, and people born outside of hospitals who may lack official birth records.
This latest effort would essentially bring Jim Crow back to Texas. The cost of a passport or certified copy of a birth certificate is prohibitively expensive and obtaining both documents usually entails a long and expensive bureaucratic process. It’s quite apparent what Texas Republicans are trying to accomplish with this legislation.
As of April of 2025, it is already illegal to register to vote, or vote in the State of Texas if you are not a U.S. citizen. In order to register to vote, individuals have to provide their Driver License number or Social Security number, that information is then verified by their local election office to make sure the information matches and the individual is an eligible voter. It is also currently not possible to register to vote online in Texas, as is the standard in many other states, including red states such as Alabama, Florida, and Utah, to name a few. This means that Texas residents already have one of the most difficult voter registration processes in the country and Senate Bill 16 threatens to take us back to the days of Jim Crow.
Not only does Senate Bill 16 aim to increase the criminal penalties for individuals who are not U.S. citizens, it also introduces penalties for election volunteers and workers who register somebody to vote without first verifying their citizenship. This move is intended to strike fear into public servants and political activists who are not usually equipped to determine somebody’s citizenship status. Texas already has one of the lowest rates of voter fraud, and Attorney General Paxton’s own office found that voter fraud was not widespread. According to the Texas Tribune, between 2004 and 2021 the Texas Attorney General’s Office closed 150 voter fraud cases out of the 90 millions votes cast in that period.
This crusade against non-existent voter fraud by Texas Republicans gets even more strange when you realize they have been in power for over 30 consecutive years. Since the early 2000s, Texas has only elected two Republican governors and two Republican attorney generals, so who, if anybody is benefiting from this alleged massive voter fraud? It’s certainly not Democrats, who have had their power in the legislature diminished through gerrymandering and the collapse of their historic voting base. So, what exactly is the goal of Senate Bill 16?
Federal courts have already struck down a similar bill pass by Arizona Republicans two months ago and yet Senate Bill 16 goes even further, calling into question Texas Republicans’ motivations. Perhaps Governor Abbott and Attorney General Paxton are hoping for the federal courts to step in, so they can petition all the way to the Supreme Court. Texas Republicans seem to be trying to force the conservative-dominated Supreme Court to decide whether or not to completely rewrite our election laws.