By Jane C. Timm - NBC News
The debate over a broad election bill in Texas took a strange turn Thursday after Republican House Speaker Dade Phelan asked members not to use the word "racism" while debating a bill. law that Democrats say will make it difficult for people of color to vote.
"Intentional discrimination of people of a certain race, is that racism?" Said Democratic State Representative Gina Hinojosa, as other members shouted angrily within the House of Representatives.
"We can talk about the racial impacts of this legislation without accusing members of this institution of being racist," Phelan asked from the speaker's podium.
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"Respectfully, I am not accusing members of this body," he said, before returning to his questioning despite audible frustration from other members.
"When there is an act that intentionally discriminates against people of a certain race, is it racism?"
Questions from Democrats were directed at Democratic State Representative Rafael Anchía, who had cited several court rulings that he claimed found that certain recent rules related to elections and redistricting plans were intentionally discriminatory.
Anchía agreed with her and said the court rulings were "quite clear."
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Texas lawmakers have been debating for months a radical election bill that, if enacted, would restrict voting by mail, eliminate some early voting options, add criminal penalties for violations and empower partisan election watchers.
After a session that lasted more than 12 hours on Thursday, the House passed Bill 79-37. But a final and required vote was scheduled for Friday.
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Republicans say the legislation is necessary to prevent voter fraud from occurring, despite ample evidence indicating that voter fraud is extremely rare.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's office spent 22,000 hours looking for voter fraud in 2020 and discovered only 16 cases of false addresses on registration forms, according to the Houston Chronicle.
Almost 17 million voters are registered in Texas.
Democrats have declared the Jim Crow 2.0 bill and denounced that it is designed to suppress the votes of voters of color.
"I'm sorry that some people get upset when you talk about intentional discrimination," Anchía said, before directly questioning the Republicans' motives.
Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, on July 8, 2021 in Austin, Texas.Tamir Kalifa / Getty Images
"If it is not about expanding access to suffrage, if it is not about the very, already very low incidence of fraud and where no example is reported. If it is not about the secrecy of the polls because no voter has complained well, my deduction is that it may be the same as the other bills, "he added.
The bill is about to be approved imminently and is expected to land in the conference committee, where a group of lawmakers will reconcile differences between the different versions of the House and Senate legislation.
It will then return to the House of Representatives and the Senate for final votes before arriving at the governor's table.
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The bill's advancement was made possible after three Houston Democrats broke ranks and returned to the full House of Representatives last week, ending the Democrats' boycott of a special legislative session that had paralyzed the institution by failing to reach the quorum necessary to carry out the negotiations.
Half a hundred Democrats fled to Washington in July to hinder the bill's approval, and were threatened with jail time to pressure them to return to the Legislature.
They spent nearly a month in Washington advocating for federal voting legislation that would amputate many of the changes Republicans have proposed.
While federal legislation is stagnant, Republicans in Austin have kept up the pressure.
It was clear that a quorum was easy to reach on Thursday, when 110 members were present for the first votes of the day.
By the time the House of Representatives began considering amendments to the electoral bill, more members had joined the room, and at least 119 members were present.
Hinojosa supported the boycott, tweeting that he had only returned to Austin on Thursday after it became clear there was a quorum.
"I will not be censored in the plenary session of the House of Representatives," he said in a text sent to NBC News, the sister network of Noticias Telemundo, after his statements.