As people filed in and out of the massive driver license office in Southwest Houston on Tuesday morning, two workers at a tent affiliated with a conservative advocacy group asked if the passersby would sign a petition or register to vote.

A follow-up question as two women filled out the forms: Are you conservative or liberal?

“Conservative means you believe in less government and less taxes,” one of the workers - wearing a lime green T-shirt with the group’s name, Engage Texas — asked them. “Liberal means you believe in more government and more taxes.”

State Rep. Chris Turner, who leads the Democratic Caucus in the Texas House, said he witnessed something similar Monday outside Department of Public Safety driver license offices in Fort Worth and in Hurst, a suburb of Dallas, where people who signed a petition to ‘ban late-term abortion’ were asked to register to vote.

“The taxpayers of Texas have a right to expect that their hard-earned dollars are not subsidizing political activity, as is the case here,” Turner wrote Tuesday in a letter to DPS. “And Texans who are trying to renew their driver licenses, already forced to wait hours - sometimes outside in the heat - are enduring enough already without having to deal with political operatives while stuck in line.”

READ THE LETTER: State Rep. Chris Turner’s letter to Steven McCraw

But DPS said in a statement that public spaces outside driver license offices are available for “political speech,” and it appears that Engage Texas is just beginning to ramp up its efforts to register voters ahead of the 2020 elections in which the GOP faces more competitive races than it has in over a decade.

Engage Texas, a super PAC backed by many of the state’s top Republican contributors, has already accumulated nearly $10 million since it was created about a month ago with the goal of registering more Texans to vote. The group’s executive director Chris Young was the former national field director for the Republican National Convention in 2016.

An ad on Indeed.com includes an urgent hiring call for voter registration specialists and workers in Dallas-area cities, such as Irving, Arlington and Denton; Houston-area cities, such as Sugar Land and Waller; and Austin-area cities, such as Round Rock, Cedar Park and Pflugerville — all former Republican strongholds that are expected to become battlegrounds in 2020.

It’s unclear how much of that work Engage Texas plans to do at driver license offices, but the ruling by DPS is unequivocal.

“So long as individuals or groups do not interfere with department operations, driver license office staff are advised that individuals and groups are allowed to peacefully utilize the public spaces outside driver license offices,” DPS said in its statement.

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With a boost from a base-rousing U.S. Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke at the top of the ticket, Democrats in 2018 flipped two Congressional seats, gained 12 in the Texas House and two in the Texas Senate. Next year, they’ll will be looking to build on those advances, while Republicans will be trying to take back what they lost and hold on to at-risk seats.

“(Texas Republicans) know that they’re in trouble in the 2020 elections, and they’re pulling out all the stops to hang onto power,” Turner said in an interview. “This is part of that effort, clearly.”

Engage Texas spokeswoman Lucy Nashed said the group always secures permission before setting up anywhere and shrugged off the suggestion that the group is responding to what’s expected be a more trying election cycle for Republicans.

“This is a reaction to the fact that Texas has one of the lowest voter registration and turnout rates in the nation, and there is an opportunity here to make sure that every eligible Texan can get registered and exercise their right to vote,” Nashed said.

She added that Engage Texas canvassers are all certified volunteer deputy voter registrars and will register any voter regardless of political affiliation.

For subscribers: Lawmakers shame DPS leaders for driver license office wait times

Texas Democratic Party spokesman Abhi Rahman said the difference between Engage Texas’ voter drive and those organized by Democratic and other groups is the use of a petition or other questions to gauge a person’s political interests.

“If you’re going to be there and register voters, that’s fine,” Rahman said. “But if you’re only registering conservative voters and you’re making them do a political test … that’s where the problem is.”

Chris Davis, elections administrator in Williamson County — where Turner said Engage Texas representatives told him the group was also posted — said he wasn’t aware of any part of the law that explicitly prohibits deputy voter registrars from screening for political affiliation before registering a voter.

But Davis said he believes they have an obligation to register anyone who would like to be registered.

“Their primary charge, as I see it, is to register folks, regardless of stripe, race, creed,” Davis said. “And I wouldn’t look kindly on anyone that is trying to determine a potential voter’s leanings or proclivities as it relates to their politics or stances or beliefs before they issue out an application.”

Taylor Goldenstein reported from Austin; Dylan McGuinness reported from Houston.