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Now the government accountability group Common Cause Texas — which published the footage Thursday — is raising the alarm that such an effort could instead serve to intimidate and suppress voters in metro Houston. “It’s very clear that we’re talking about recruiting people from the predominantly Anglo parts of town to go to Black and Brown neighborhoods,” Anthony Gutierrez, the group’s executive director, told The Washington Post. “This is a role that’s supposed to do nothing but stand at a poll site and observe,” he added. So “why is he suggesting someone needs to be ‘courageous’?” Gutierrez asked. ... Gutierrez said the video highlights his concerns with the state Senate’s voting bill. He said the “brigade” of poll watchers would effectively be empowered to intimidate the most vulnerable voters.

“The election in 2020 helps give them confidence that they could act quickly in expanding access and not have to go slowly,” Sylvia Albert, the director of the voting rights group Common Cause, said of these states. She said that Kentucky did not fall into the category of true expansion, because its new law will provide fewer options than the emergency orders of 2020. “This might be a political calculation made by Democrats in the state, so that Republicans don’t go even further in suppressing the vote like other states have,” she said. “But as an election, voter access bill, it is not successful.” While Kentucky’s compromise — expanding voting access while enacting some more restrictive policies in the name of election security — could serve as a model for other Republican-controlled states, it is more likely to be a blip in a year of G.O.P.-led pushes for voting restrictions.

Sylvia Albert, national voting and elections director of the government watchdog group Common Cause, called Republicans’ voter suppression efforts “shameless”. “These bills are shameless, partisan efforts to silence us,” Albert said in a media briefing last week. “And it’s not a coincidence that these bills are being introduced after a free and fair and secure election with record turnout. Americans exercised their right to vote and, in response, these politicians are saying, ‘actually, we didn’t really want you to vote’.” Quentin Turner, Michigan program director for Common Cause, said that Republican suppression efforts in the state targeted communities of color, particularly a proposal to restrict access to absentee ballot drop boxes after 5pm. “A lot of working-class people in Michigan, in Detroit especially, may not be out or done with their day by 5pm,” said Turner. “So they may not be able to go to a drop box that’s close to them. “While it doesn’t specifically say in the bill that it’s targeting Black and brown voters, the nature of the specifications of the prohibition would have a larger adverse impact in those communities.”

For example, in the name of standardized voting practices, SB 7 would close mega-voting centers at arenas and stadiums in large cities and ban extended voting hours, Common Cause Texas spokesman Anthony Gutierrez said. It also would allow poll watchers to shoot video of disabled voters getting help casting a ballot, change mail-in ballot drop-off rules and ban local officials from sending a vote-by-mail application unless requested by voters, he said. "SB 7 is over 30 pages of substantive and discriminatory changes to how voting works," Gutierrez said. "Dan Patrick is straight-up lying to Texans in an attempt to save his floundering voter suppression bill."

Elias has also been scrutinized by watchdog groups for his work on campaign finance issues, including his role in convincing the Federal Election Commission to loosen restrictions on congressional lawmakers engaging with Super PACs. “He is not a big fan of restrictions on money in politics,” says Paul S. Ryan, Vice President of Policy and Litigation at the non-partisan accountability group Common Cause. “He has done a very good job as an attorney of fighting for the ability of political parties to raise and spend money however they choose.”

Anthony Gutierrez, the executive director of the Texas chapter of Common Cause, a government watchdog group, said those statements were significant and could help sway lawmakers, including Dade Phelan, the speaker of the Texas house of representatives. Gutierrez has been involved in fights over voting rights for over a decade and said he could not recall another instance where there was the kind of broad opposition to the bills that exists now. “A lot of us are thinking that Texas is the next Georgia, but I think the big difference is all these prominent voices weighing in are coming in much earlier,” he said.