Plea for Governor Abbott to Call a June 2024 Special Legislative Session to Secure Our November 2024 General Election

182 Grassroots Leaders Lay Out the Case:
Plea for Governor Abbott to Call a June 2024 Special Legislative Session
to Secure Our November 2024 General Election

June 13, 2024

The Honorable Texas Governor Greg Abbott Office of the Governor
P.O. Box 12428
Austin, TX 78711-2428

Electronic dispatch to: Steve Munisteri, Senior Advisor to the Governor; Gardner Pate, Governor’s Chief of Staff: Steve.Munisteri@gov.texas.gov and Gardner.Pate@gov.texas.gov

Dear Governor Abbott:

We, the undersigned, urgently join with Republican Party of Texas Convention delegates from all 31 State Senate Districts – representing Republicans from across Texas – who passed the following Resolution 7, for ELECTION INTEGRITY ENFORCEMENT and ENSURING THAT ILLEGAL ALIENS ARE NOT VOTING IN TEXAS, found on page 42 of the 2024 Republican Party of Texas Platform:

7. Special Legislative Session: The Republican Party of Texas calls upon Governor Abbott to call a special session in June 2024 to address election integrity and other issues. Specifically, the call should include the following items:
a) Legislation to implement independent, state-level prosecution of election integrity; to address abortion, human smuggling, sedition, and riot; and to respond to the Court of Criminal Appeal’s ruling in State v. Stephens.
b) Legislation to require proof of citizenship for new voter registration and a thorough review of existing voter rolls to identify and remove illegal aliens, other non-citizens, those with unauthorized non-residential addresses, and long-time inactive voters from the voter rolls.

We also underscore that these two items flagged as urgent in Resolution 7 are also covered in the 2024 RPT Legislative Priorities Report under Priority #2.

Governor Abbott, we urge you to immediately call an Election Law Enforcement Special Session. We believe you will agree with us that Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and the Republican nominees (especially judicial candidates) in large urban Texas counties should not face the November General Election with election cheaters knowing they are unlikely to face any prosecution in Texas counties where Soros-funded District Attorneys will never prosecute cheating and voter fraud.

The following describes the problem, the solution, and the urgency, which should compel you and the Texas Legislature to rapidly, boldly lead the way in protecting the people of Texas:

STATE-LEVEL ELECTION (AND OTHER) LAW ENFORCEMENT

Problem: The 2022 Texas Court of Criminal Appeals’ State v. Stephens opinion prohibiting the Texas Attorney General from independent, state-level prosecution of the violation of election law makes prosecution of election law violations in the high population counties of Texas in 2024 exceedingly unlikely. Any law without enforcement is worthless.

Additionally, there are reports of mass-scale registration of illegals to vote by Biden administration officials and/or NGOs. This may be the new way elections are compromised in 2024.

Solutions:
1) Legislation to implement independent state-level prosecution of election fraud, public integrity, abortion, human smuggling, sex slave trade, sedition, and riot law in response to and in compliance with the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals’ State v Stephens decision.

The bill that offered a solution in the 88th Regular Session was SB 1927 (Hughes). For a variant on that approach, see also HB 4026 (Schofield).

With the time we have left, we cannot pass a constitutional amendment. And we cannot timely give the prosecutorial power back to the Attorney General by statute because neither the Democrats nor Republicans in the Texas House who voted to impeach Ken Paxton are likely to restore his prosecutorial power. Wisely, Senator Hughes’ SB 1927 solution creates a State Prosecutor Office under the Texas Supreme Court, following the structural logic of the State v Stephens opinion.

If the bill passes and is signed by early July, the law will go into effect in early October, just in time to give potential cheaters pause before they do so.

2) Legislation to require proof of citizenship for new voter registration and a thorough review of existing voter rolls to identify and remove illegal aliens, other non-citizens, those with unauthorized non-residential addresses, and long-time inactive voters from the voter rolls.

Given that these types of amendments to existing law will also not go into effect until October, the cleanup will not likely be done in time for November. But passage, accompanied by independent, state-level prosecution of existing Texas election law prohibiting illegals from registering or voting and prohibiting citizens from knowingly assisting illegals in voting, along with the publicity generated by the passage of these provisions is likely to have a chilling effect on illegal voting and the unlawful exploitation of illegal registration.

Urgency: Texas is unlikely to have effective enforcement of election law in the largest counties in 2024 without this legislation. Donald Trump and Ted Cruz need our assistance!

Recently passed improvements to the law (enabling removal of recalcitrant prosecutors) are worthwhile, but due to long lead times and narrow removal criteria, these improvements will not work to address the looming 2024 problem.

It is no secret that in certain counties, Texans cannot rely on local prosecutors to enforce the rule of law! Adding state prosecutorial resources for human trafficking, sex slave trade, abortion enforcement and election law violations will no doubt save the lives of children and protect Texas voters from organized vote theft.

Governor Abbott, we remind you that Texas Republican Primary voters overwhelmingly supported the two related Primary Ballot Propositions calling for prosecution of election crimes and requiring proof of citizenship before any individual can be registered to vote. The base of the Republican Party is with us!

The time to protect Texas is NOW, Governor Abbott! We implore you to do so!

For liberty – for Texas, we the 182 undersigned conservative Texas influencers,* (Click on the Pdf below to see the entire list of signatures.)