Cain Gets Back at House Democrat Pair
with Tradition Spurning at HB 6 Hearing

Capitol Inside
April 1, 2021

GOP State Rep. Briscoe Cain sought to reassert control over the Texas House Elections Committee on Thursday when he denied the Democratic vice-chair the right to preside over a hearing while he was pitching a landmark voter restriction measure as the sponsor.

Cain appeared to exact a measure of payback at the outset of the Elections Committee meeting on House Bill 6 when he turned the gavel over to Republican State Rep. Travis Clardy of Nacogdoches instead of State Rep. Jessica González as the panel's second highest-ranking member.

Cain - a Deer Park attorney in his third House term - had stumbled badly last week in his first major appearance as a committee chief when he recessed a hearing on HB 6 abruptly to prevent Democratic State Rep. Nicolle Collier from asking questions on the bill as a representative who's not on the elections panel. Collier also chairs the Texas Legislative Black Caucus.

Cain learned during the break that he'd have to cancel the hearing because he'd failed to set a specific time for the committee to return after the hasty decision to recess in a razzle dazzle move that backfired. A significant number of people had traveled hours to testify on the controversial election integrity measure that Cain was forced to delay as a consequence of the bumbling.

But Cain appeared to blame González for the embarrassing moment as the lawmaker who'd been chairing the committee and preparing to allow Collier to speak before he cut her off with the procedural maneuvering.

“I’m the chair of the committee," Cain declared, "and I’m taking it back now.”

Cain was ready when Collier was back for the reboot on Wednesday on HB 6. A fifth-term legislator who's in the midst of her second regular session as the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee chair, Collier was finally given the opportunity to speak when Clardy recognized her.

“I was under the impression Representative Jessica González was vice chair and I’ve never seen in my history a time where the vice chair doesn’t have the gavel or the chair has it,” Collier said in a reference to longstanding tradition in the west wing of the statehouse.

Gonzales countered with a series of questions that Cain tried to dodge on how HB 6 would affect minority voters.

“It will affect all Texans the same because it was designed for all voters," Cain said.

The House committee hearing that spilled into Friday morning was purely a formality in a chamber where none in a long line of witnesses had any hope of actually turning a vote. All of the Republicans who control the Legislature's lower chamber appear poised to support an election security plan regardless of anything that's said in committee.

While Democrats have had an accidental ally in Cain in the early stages of the election security fight, they are destined to lose on a party line vote like the Senate conducted in the wee hours of Thursday morning on its version of limitations at the ballot box.

more to come ...

 

 

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