AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A procedural gaffe has forced the abrupt end of a Texas House hearing on a Republican-backed voting restrictions bill and at least temporarily deprived more than 100 people of the chance to testify about it. The sweeping bill, which is part of Republicans’ nationwide campaign to restrict access to the ballot, would impose new limits on mail-in voting and grant more power to partisan poll watchers in the country’s second-largest state. Republican state Rep. Briscoe Cain, who chairs the House Elections Committee and who authored the bill, called a premature end to the hearing Thursday. He explained that parliamentary rules prevented him from continuing it after he called for a recess without setting a time to return.
