Two Texas bills that would have minimized the straight-ticket device have failed to advance, and now it is too late for them to pass. HB 1037 would have put the device at the bottom of the ballot instead of the top. The author thinks it is good policy to have all voters at least look at all parts of the ballot, whether they use the device or not. He felt putting it at the bottom of the ballot would motivate people to look at the entire ballot in order to find it.
HB 1857 would have said that the device doesn’t apply to partisan county office elections. Opponents said it would be confusing to voters to have the device apply to some office but not all office. Thanks to Jim Riley for the news about these two bills.
That stinks.
The deadline for 2nd reading in the House is May 9. But these bills have not been reported by the Elections Committee, and it is unlikely that they will be.
Besides being confusing, there is not a consensus to eliminate the straight-ticket device. Dallas County Republicans don’t like it because they lose elections on a countywide basis, but Tarrant County Republicans like it because they win elections on a countywide basis.
A note on terminology. The “author” of a bill is what is known as the “sponsor” or “prime sponsor” in other legislatures. So the representative who presented the bill thinks it a good policy to have voters to scan the full ballot, not necessarily the author of the blog, Richard Winger.
Typically, it is pretty easy to get a hearing on a bill. Just arrange your witnesses, and the bill can be worked into a committee schedule. If you have the votes to get it out of committee, a week or two later the committee will approve it. Sometimes, there will be some work on language to make the bill acceptable and this will be approved by the committee a few weeks later.