Recap from yesterday's Texas Senate Nominations Committee Hearing on Confirming Interim SOS Whitley:
1. The citizenship of nearly 100K Texas registered voters was questioned and their names turned over to law enforcement by the Interim SOS before they were vetted to determine if they were or were not US Citizens by the office of the SOS.
2. To date not one person on that list has been proven to not have been a citizen when they registered to vote.
3. Interim SOS David Whitley testified that he ran the directive by the Governor and AG before it was released "because we wanted to get it right."
4. Whitley is a puppet, not the mastermind of the proposed purges.
5. He does not possess a skill set which matches the requirements of the job of Texas SOS.
6. The Governor and AG are fully culpable in this debacle.
7. Republican members of the Nominations Committee and the few witnesses who showed up to speak in favor of Whitley used the same talking points. They are coming up so short in having anything credible to say in defense of this nominee of the Governor of their party. They are attempting to deflate attention by throwing light on the shortcomings of previous SOS's who were nominated by this and previous Republican governors!
8. Mr.Whitley, in his confirmation hearing for SOS (the Chief Administration Officer for Voting in Texas) told Senator Royce West that "I don't think my definition of voter suppression is relevant!"
9. Senator Bob Hall stated or inferred that no one is ever turned away from the polls in Texas! Senator Kirk Watson pointed out that Texas has a long history of voter suppression and in some areas of the state it is still common.
10. This is all playing out in the year of the 100th anniversary of Women's suffrage and during Black History Month.
11. When the list was shown to be incorrect, that tens of thousands of people on it were citizens, the SOS did not rescind or revise his directive.
12. Molly Ivins might not be with us anymore, but I'm sure if she is watching any of this, her ghost is at a chair at her favorite beer garden and her boots are on resting on the bench and she's hooting nd hollering as loudly as ever she did back in the day.
13. The mastermind of this proposed gigantic voter roll purse is Governor Greg Abbott with Attorney General Ken Paxton. They both had their press releases ready to capitalize on the false claims that there was massive voter fraud by non-American citizens in Texas. Interim SOS Whitley stated that he conferred “regularly with the Governor’s office” and he released the numbers to the Governor’s office before he issued the Advisory. Language in the Directive was reviewed by the Attorney General’s office before it was released.
14. Mr.Whitley should not be confirmed as Secretary of State. The voting process should be improved in Texas and it will require the cooperation and confidence of the people which this debacle has seriously damaged. The Governor made this mess and he can end it.
15. To confirm requires a 3/4 vote of the Senate and there are too few members of one party to confirm without help from the other side of the aisle. If all Democrats stand together and all Democrats show up, he will not be confirmed.The Governor will appoint someone else who will be his puppet, but the next person may not appear to be. Mr. Whitley refused to perjury himself by denying that he had conferred with the AG and Governor before he issued the directive and turned the unvetted list over to the counties and to law enforcement.
16. To date not one person on that list has been proven to have not been a US citizen when they registered to vote. Mr. Whitley, Governor Abbott, AG Paxton, and several County Voter Elections Administrators (who mailed letters of Examination of Citizenship to persons on the list supplied by the SOS are named as defendants in numerous lawsuits.
17. Interim SOS Whitley was testifying before the Texas Senate in a video-taped hearing which was streamed live while he is a defendant in a lawsuit in which the Governor and State’s Attorney General is also named
18. He was being questioned about the decisions and actions which prompted the lawsuits.
19. Merely refusing to confirm the nomination of the Governor's former staffer will not clean up this voter suppression debacle.
20. The mastermind of this proposed gigantic voter roll purse is Greg Abbott with Ken Paxton. They both had their press releases ready to capitalize on the false claims that there was massive voter fraud by non-American citizens in Texas.
The Texas Tribune assessed the hearing as:
Analysis: A green appointee’s harsh introduction to Texas election politics
Between his office's bungled efforts to find noncitizens among the state's registered voters and Democrats pouncing on state actions they believe are targeted at Hispanics and other groups, Texas Secretary of State David Whitley's confirmation is in peril.
When the appointed chief elections officer of the state of Texas can’t define “voter suppression,” it’s safe to say his appointment is in trouble.
...
David Whitley’s confirmation as secretary of state is in trouble. It’s not just because of that voter suppression business, either: He was in hot soup before he testified at Thursday’s meeting of the Senate Nominations Committee. Almost two weeks ago, his office released a half-baked roster of 95,000 people who registered to vote and were at some point noncitizens. The names of those folks were referred to the attorney general for investigation and possible prosecution. And that exercise fueled political salvos from Republicans cawing about “illegal immigrants” voting in Texas. After all that, the heat was expected.
Whitley spent his time in the hot seat trying not to say anything controversial enough to cut into his chances at confirmation — or his chances in any of the three lawsuits filed (to date) against his office for producing a bogus list of voters who shouldn’t be voting.
The Houston Chronicle Editorial Board has come out strongly in opposition to Whitley’s confirmation as SOS:
By The Editorial Board
Normally, we wouldn’t weigh in on a confirmation hearing for a gubernatorial pick to a low-profile office in Austin.
This year, we’ll not only weigh in on David Whitley’s appointment to the office of Texas secretary of state. We’ll recommend a loud and resounding: NO.
Whitley was named in December and his short tenure in the obscure and nominally nonpartisan office has been tarnished by a civil rights scandal that garnered national attention and condemnation. Texans deserve an official they can trust to oversee elections across the state. Gov. Greg Abbott, too, deserves an appointee whose every move won’t be justifiably second-guessed. Our state isn’t lacking for Republican politicos who could serve in this role. The governor should simply replace Whitley with a qualified candidate so we can all move on.
The crisis of confidence began when, after only five weeks on the job, Whitley’s office released an advisory to local election administrators claiming that 95,000 noncitizens were improperly registered as voters and should be removed from the rolls. This report seemed to confirm the suspicions of Republican politicians who have crusaded against the spectre of illegal voting for years, with little to show for it. President Trump pounced on cue, railing on Twitter about “95,000 non-citizens registered to vote.”
Just one problem: It wasn’t true.
Whitley calculated the 95,000 number by counting registered voters who, at some point, had told the Texas Department of Public Safety they were not citizens when obtaining a driver’s license or ID. But here’s a funny fact about life in Texas: People can become citizens after legally obtaining a driver license.
Thousands upon thousands of Texans do that every year — and plenty of those new citizens registered to vote and cast ballots in the 2018 election.
That’s why the secretary of state’s office began backtracking almost immediately after releasing its memo. Turns out that roughly 20,000 names were wrongly added. The list included duplicate names and people who had properly become naturalized citizens. In Harris County alone, more than 60 percent of the listed names were quickly tossed out, and that stat keeps growing
….A litany of civil rights organizations and individual voters have lined up to sue Whitley and the county officials who acted on his wrongful report. They allege state officials violated the Voting Rights Act and 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, including claims that the list unconstitutionally burdened minority groups. At a time when symbols of discrimination are being removed from the Texas Capitol, our elected officials should aim similar scrutiny at actions with an actual discriminatory effect.
...Either Whitley had not properly checked his work, recklessly releasing an inaccurate product in a manner unworthy of his office.
After watching the confirmation hearing and reviewing tapes of the hearing, and weighing what I heard with what I know of Texas Capitol politics, I concur that David Whitley should not be confirmed as Secretary of State. Actually, I view him as road kill caught betheath the spokes of the Governor’s fast moving wheel chair. I believe Mr. Whitley attempted to answer the questions of the Senators on the Committee respectfully and truthfully. He also is a young attorney who is cognizant of the lawsuits naming him and the Attorney General and his mentor, Governor Greg Abbott as defendants for actions pertaining to the questions he was being asked in the Confirmation Proceedings. Most observers wanted him to acknowledge that the premise for creating the list, the methodology of assessing who should or should be on it, timing of release of the names, releasing them to the Attorney General before it was proven that any on the list actually registered to vote or voted before becoming citizens, were mistakes, errors or actions which were wrong and he should acknowledge as mistakes. Facing the law suits, (and most probably coaching by his attorney, the Attorney General and Governor) such acknowledgments of mistakes were carefully avoided by the nominee to the frustration of most of the audience.
Legislation was passed in previous legislative sessions instructing the DPS to turn over data to the Secretary of State’s Office. How that data is utilized is at the discretion of the Secretary of State. Those who pushed for passage of this legislation (Governor Abbott) had initiated a process last March with Mr. Whitley’s predecessor. A vendor was hired to match the DPS data with the voter registration file. Mr. Whitley inherited the project and the data match was delivered to him by the vendor within a few days of his appointment as Interim Director. According to Mr. Whitley’s testimony, he “keeps in regular touch with the Governor’s office.” He added: “I used to work for him.”
I suspect that is one of the keys to how this young man finds himself in such deep hot water. Making the transition from mid-level staffer for the Governor to the Secretary of State presented many things (relationships/places) which seemed familiar. He is an appointee of the Governor and his appointment is 100% patronage by the Governor. He is transitioning out of a role where his job performance was judged totally on how well executed directives of the governor to the satisfaction of the governor. In that role, it is detrimental to question what you are instructed to accomplish. He continued following through on initiatives which he knew were priorities of the man who appointed him. The problem is that as Secretary of State, even though he is an appointee of the Governor, he actually works for the people of the State of Texas. The people make their feelings known through pressure on their elected officials. Mr. Whitley acted promptly to fulfill what he believed was the will of the Governor, a man he trusts and respects. He was careful to confer with the Attorney General.
That is also a twist to this saga. Instead of an unbiased cool—headed cautious attorney general, the man in that seat in Texas is Ken Paxton, a controversial, quick-tempered partisan who appears eager to rid this state of undesirable brown liberals. Both Governor Abbott and Attorney General Paxton had their press releases ready to pounce on and magnify the SOS’s charges that 58,000 non citizens voted in Texas elections. Mr. Whitley should have known better. He should have used reason and evaluated the data to see if the SOS’s voting file and DPS contained all necessary information to determine if people were citizens when they registered to vote. Not being a citizen when you apply for a drivers license is vastly different from not being a citizen when you vote. The first is not a crime. The second is.
Mr. Whitley should have known better, but probably had not thought it through. The Governor and the Attorney General CERTAINLY KNEW BETTER. They had clear understanding of the data’s content and limitation. They both understand voter suppression and they both have a much more seasoned understanding of state and federal election law than the green, newly appointed Interim Secretary of State.
Mr. Whitley must be confirmed by a Three-Fourth vote of the Texas Senate. That body does not have enough Republican members to reach the required three-fourths threshold for confirmation. Some Democrats will either have to be absent or vote for him for Mr. Whitley to be confirmed. Any Republican who votes against confirmation faces the wrath of the Governor who is noted for exercising his veto on bills regardless of their content if authored by a member who opposes him. Any Democrat who votes for him faces the wrath of the voters who represent them. After these hearing, Republicans face a divided base who realize that this nominee is seriously flawed. If a Republican senator depends upon support of Independents, it is probable that voting to confirm will weaken their base of supporters. Either way, Republicans are especially in the hot seat when required to vote on this nomination.
The best case scenario would be for the Governor to withdraw the nomination. Whether Mr. Whitley steps down of his own accord or by the direction of the Governor or is rejected by votes of the Nomination Committee and/or Senate, this saga is far from finished. The Governor will appoint someone else whom he knows realizes that his job is dependent upon the pleasure of the man who appointed him. Matching DPS data with Voter Registration data will continue. However,, list maintenance will probably return to being a task accomplished with little fan fare. The SOS will probably be more careful in evaluating who is on lists before they are released. Texas will still be faced with outdated software, worn out voting machines, and many improvements which need to be accomplished by whomever occupies the office of Secretary of State.
This will probably be seen as a failure of David Whitley. I find that unfortunate. Yes. He has made mistakes He doesn’t possess a skill-set which is a good fit for the office to which he has been appointed. He was thrust into a new role without time to learn the job before the eyes of he world were squarely on him . However, I see David Whitley merely as a ‘”bit player” in this drama. He did not develop the plan and he did not execute it without guidance from the Governor and the Attorney General.
Text of the Directive Issued by the Secretary of State:
Secretary Whitley Issues Advisory On Voter Registration List Maintenance Activity
"Integrity and efficiency of elections in Texas require accuracy of our state's voter rolls
Janauary 25, 2019
Contact: Sam Taylor
512-463-6116
AUSTIN – Texas Secretary of State David Whitley today issued an advisory to county voter registrars regarding voter registration list maintenance activities, which include identifying any non-U.S. citizens registered to vote in the State of Texas. For the past year, the Texas Secretary of State's office has worked closely with the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) to evaluate information regarding persons identified to not be citizens of the United States. This voter registration list maintenance activity is being conducted in accordance with federal and state law to ensure that only qualified voters - who must first and foremost be U.S. citizens - are registered to vote in Texas elections.
Through this evaluation, the Texas Secretary of State's office discovered that a total of approximately 95,000 individuals identified by DPS as non-U.S. citizens have a matching voter registration record in Texas, approximately 58,000 of whom have voted in one or more Texas elections. Voting in an election in which the person knows he or she is not eligible to vote is a second-degree felony in the State of Texas. Upon receipt of this information, the Texas Secretary of State's office immediately provided the data in its possession to the Texas Attorney General's office, as the Secretary of State has no statutory enforcement authority to investigate or prosecute alleged illegal activity in connection with an election.
Secretary Whitley issued the following statement:
"Integrity and efficiency of elections in Texas require accuracy of our state's voter rolls, and my office is committed to using all available tools under the law to maintain an accurate list of registered voters. Our agency has provided extensive training opportunities to county voter registrars so that they can properly perform list maintenance activities in accordance with federal and state law, which affords every registered voter the chance to submit proof of eligibility. I would like to thank the Department of Public Safety for providing us with this valuable information so that we can continue to guarantee the right to vote for all eligible Texas voters, who should not have their voices muted by those who abuse the system."
Going forward, the Texas Secretary of State's office will use information it obtains from DPS on a monthly basis to cross-reference with Texas' statewide voter registration database and match potential non-U.S. citizens who have registered to vote. Once a voter registration is identified as a match, the Texas Secretary of State's office will notify the county in which the person is registered so that the county voter registrar can take action.
The following combinations of matches between information in DPS-provided data and the statewide voter registration database are used to identify possible non-U.S. citizens registered to vote:
- Last Name, First Name, and Full Social Security Number;
- Last Name, First Name, and DPS-issued Driver License, Personal Identification Card, or Election Identification Certificate Number; or
- Last Name, First Name, Last Four Digits of Social Security Number, and Date of Birth
If a registered voter is identified as a non-U.S. citizen, he or she should receive a Notice of Examination (PDF) from the county voter registrar indicating that his or her registration status is being examined on the grounds that he or she is not a U.S. citizen. The registered voter will then be required to provide proof of citizenship in order to stay registered, which may be done by submitting to the voter registrar a copy of one of the following documents:
- A certified copy of the voter's birth certificate
- United States passport; or
- Certificate of naturalization (Citizenship certificate)
If the person responds indicating he or she is not a U.S. citizen, or fails to respond to the Notice within 30 days, then the voter registration will be cancelled by the county voter registrar. County voter registrars have been provided with numerous training opportunities to ensure that list maintenance activities are conducted in accordance with state and federal law so as to not affect eligible voters.
Texas voters who wish to check their registration status can visit the Texas Secretary of State's "Am I Registered?" tool online or contact the voter registrar in their county of registration.
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The Feb. 7, 2019 Senate Nominations Confirmation Hearing can be watched on-line. His confirmation begins at 41:51/4:06:3441:51/4:06:34
Link: tlcsenate.granicus.com/...