Unseemly Perry veto shows how GOP fear of felon voters creates self fulfilling prophecy

With the 80th Texas Legislature behind us, now we can look forward to seeing how much of what was passed survives Governor Perry's veto pen. Already Governor 39% has vetoed a bipartisan bill that drew no organized opposition at the Lege: HB 770 notifying ex-offenders when they become eligible to vote and sending them a voter registration card (see Grits' discussion here, and testimony from TCJC).

Perry's veto message on this bill is a bit of mealy mouthed flotsam masking base political fears that more ex-offenders might vote. It reads like one of Terry Keel's parliamentary rulings, avoiding the central questions and dressing up an unreasonable, politicized stance whose only real justification is political gain.

The Governor's main, stated reason for a veto is that registering ex-offenders isn't part of TDCJ's "mission," but the state took away the voting right when offenders went to TDCJ, and it doesn't seem like a stretch to notify them when that restriction is removed. When offenders get "off paper" they already receive a packet of information from TDCJ, and this would just add the notice that they're eligible to vote and a registration card.

Besides, the Department of Public Safety's "mission" is not voter registration, but that doesn't stop Texas from operating its "motor voter" program to let people register to vote when they obtain or renew their driver's license. If there's a difference, I don't see it.

Indeed, Perry's veto message is full of such red herrings and misreprsentations. Perhaps the biggest one: "the state does not currently provide this service to law-abiding citizens, such as high school graduates who are new to voting. I find it unseemly that the state would make a greater effort to register former inmates to vote than we would any other group of citizens in this state."

Well, Mr. Perry, we do notify kids they can vote. I was handed my first voter registration application in a high school government class, and most kids get a driver license so the motor voter program gets them a registration card.

For ex-offenders, though, if they're not "off paper" when they re-apply for a driver's license, they won't be eligible to register then like others would be. The main reason for the bill is that many ex-offenders don't know what are the laws surrounding when they become eligible to vote again - a voter registration drive last year among ex-offenders found many people eligible to vote who believed they weren't allowed to do so. The 18-year old voters the Governor describes don't suffer similar misunderstandings.

Plus, the 18-year old voting age is uniform nationwide, while every state has different laws on when ex-felons can vote. The situations simply aren't analogous. We're not talking about just a few people. Nearly one in 20 adult Texans today are in prison, on probation or on parole.

In reality, it's Governor Perry's position on this that's "unseemly." The real reason for his opposition: Many GOP political consultants believe ex-offenders will be more likely to vote Democratic. OTOH, that could just be a self-fulfilling prophecy - perhaps it's policy stances like this one that make these voters less likely to support the GOP. Two thirds of Republicans in the Texas House and 75% of GOP senators voted for HB 770, but thanks to Governor Perry's veto, it will be hard for Republicans to avoid appearing as though this is their party's stance.