Dripping Springs’ freshman State Rep. Carrie Isaac (R), District 73, has proposed a bill that would prohibit any and all polling locations on college campuses in the state. For her, Isaac said, it’s a school safety issue, but opponents don’t agree.
House Bill 2390, as the bill is called, would prevent county commissioners courts from designating a polling place “on the campus of an institution of higher education located within the county.” Its language mirrors the opposite House Bill 93 — filed in the previous legislative session by State Rep. Gina Hinojosa (D), District 49 — which would have required polling places on any general academic teaching institution with at least 8,000 students. If HB 2390 passed, it would go into effect Sept. 1, according to the document filed on Thursday, Feb. 16.
While the bill would affect voting locations, Isaac said its main purpose is not concerned with voting accessibility.
“The bill is designed to avoid bringing people onto school campuses that wouldn’t otherwise be there,” she explained. “I have one son in college and one who’s a senior in high school. As a concerned mother, I think the last thing we should be doing is inviting people into such a target-rich environment.”
Isaac said the motivation for the bill comes from an increased desire for school safety following the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on May 24, 2022.
“I’m looking forward to Texas making all campuses more safe,” she said.
Initial response to HB 2390 was mixed, with many voicing their disapproval.
Neighboring representative, Driftwood’s State Rep. Erin Zwiener (D), District 45, shared her thoughts on Twitter.
“The Texas GOP’s biggest fear is young people voting,” Zwiener wrote. “It’s sad to see the fights over Texas State students having fair access to the ballot box emerge in this particularly ugly form.”
The bill would impact polling locations in Hays County, such as those traditionally placed on campus at Texas State University.
In the same vein, Isaac said she plans to propose two more bills improving safety in academic institutions: one which would not allow polling locations in public K–12 schools and another which would expand the existing School Marshal program to include active duty, retired and dishonorably discharged peace officers.
“The sole purpose of a School Marshal is to prevent the act of murder or serious bodily injury on school premises,” the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement explains on its website. “A qualifying institution must send the candidate to an 80 hour training course, conducted by a law enforcement academy that has been specifically prepared to provide the school marshal curriculum. Among the topics covered in the School Marshal course are: physical security, improving the security of the campus, use of force, active shooter response, and weapon proficiency. No other course can be substituted or exempt an individual from the specific school marshal training course.”
Isaac represents Comal County and parts of Hays County, which flipped Democratic during the 2018 U.S. Senate race and stayed blue during the 2020 presidential election and 2022 governor’s race.
The Hays County GOP was accused in 2018 of trying to suppress student voting at Texas State University, the state’s fifth-largest institution of higher education. That year, Texas State’s early voting location closed after the first three days of the early voting period, during which students faced hours-long waits to cast a ballot. The commissioners court eventually elected to extend voting at the location after the Texas Civil Rights Project threatened the county with a lawsuit unless it allowed the on-campus polling station to remain open for the duration of the early voting period and expanded the location’s hours to 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
As for HB 2390, Isaac said she does “not see why this would affect turnout.”
“I have the utmost confidence in college students to be able to vote if they want to,” she explained. “Two weeks of early voting can be done anywhere, and students go off campus for a lot of things.”
