SB 7 goes to conference committee

AUSTIN — The fate of the state’s controversial Republican election reform legislation is now in the hands of ten state lawmakers. A House and Senate conference committee will try to hash out their differences in Senate Bill 7. The Senate bill would limit the number of polling places and voting hours, enhance the power of poll watchers, and put restrictions on those assisting voters. Then the House added 18 amendments. That didn’t sit well with the bill’s author, Mineola Senator Bryan Hughes. He cited “significant changes” made by the House and moved that a conference committee take up the matter. Whatever the committee comes up with will again need to be passed by the House and Senate before Governor Abbott could sign it into law.