Texas’s controversial 2011 voter identification law passed has been struck down by a Federal judge today. Judge Nelva Gonzalez Ramos of the U.S. 5th District ruled that the law was filed with the intent to discriminate against Latinos and other minorities.
According to a report in the New York Times after the February 28th hearing earlier this year:
“The voter ID law was found by the appellate court to have a discriminatory effect on black and Hispanic voters, many of whom lacked the required government-issued photo ID. Establishing the Legislature’s motive in passing the bill has proved to be one of the most vexing and politically contentious questions in the case.”
“…the law’s opponents said Republican lawmakers had steamrollered the bill through the Legislature in the name of preventing voter fraud and made numerous departures from legislative norms, including classifying it as emergency legislation and bypassing the usual committee process. Lawmakers, they argued, had selected IDs that were more accessible to white voters and excluded those more accessible to minority voters.
Judge Gonzalez Ramos’ ruling today finds that Texas Republican legislators did, indeed, write the law with the intent to suppress the minority vote.
Voter suppression in Republican-controlled states isn’t new, and it’s no coincidence, either, that restrictive voter identification legislation is now an official plank of the GOP party platform. The Republicans are losing the battle over demographics to Democrats, and rather than change their party platform to attract more minorities and women, they’re changing voting laws in states to exclude as many of them as they can from the democratic process.
Because all voting is run by each individual state – even for federal elections – these kinds of restrictive and discriminatory measures can become law. But today’s ruling delivers a serious blow to the GOP strategy of using state houses to suppress votes because it moves Texas one step closer to being placed back under the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Era legislation that undid poll taxes and other Jim Crow laws that prevented Black voters in the south from registering to vote.
Being placed back under the Voting Rights Act means that Texas legislators would once again need ‘pre-clearance’ by the federal government to make any changes to its voting processes and procedures – a massive blow to the states’ prestige.
Texas had been under ‘pre-clearance’ when the law passed in 2012, so they couldn’t fully implement it at the time. Then, in 2013, a Supreme Court ruling gutted that part of the Voting Rights Act. Suddenly free from pre-clearance, state legislators took the opportunity to enact the controversial measure. Civil Rights groups immediately filed suit later that year.
Obama’s Justice Department went all-in, giving the plaintiffs and the suit its full backing. When President Trump assumed office in January of this year, however, new Attorney General Jeff Sessions pulled the DOJ’s support.
Ezra D. Rosenberg, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, told the New York Times after a February 2017 hearing that, “It’s sad, in a way. You have the most important governmental civil rights agency abandoning a claim that is strong and solid and which it has steadfastly prosecuted for five years.”
The case went forward anyway, and today’s victory is a huge win for Democrats. After decades as a reliable Red State, the G.O.P.’s grip on the Texas showed signs of loosening in the 2016 presidential election. With Texas’s huge population of Latinos, and large numbers of Americans moving there from liberal coastal states, undemocratic laws like these could be all that’s standing in the way of turning the state Blue.
http://occupydemocrats.com/2017/04/10/federal-judge-just-struck-texas-voter-d-law/
According to a report in the New York Times after the February 28th hearing earlier this year:
“The voter ID law was found by the appellate court to have a discriminatory effect on black and Hispanic voters, many of whom lacked the required government-issued photo ID. Establishing the Legislature’s motive in passing the bill has proved to be one of the most vexing and politically contentious questions in the case.”
“…the law’s opponents said Republican lawmakers had steamrollered the bill through the Legislature in the name of preventing voter fraud and made numerous departures from legislative norms, including classifying it as emergency legislation and bypassing the usual committee process. Lawmakers, they argued, had selected IDs that were more accessible to white voters and excluded those more accessible to minority voters.
Judge Gonzalez Ramos’ ruling today finds that Texas Republican legislators did, indeed, write the law with the intent to suppress the minority vote.
Voter suppression in Republican-controlled states isn’t new, and it’s no coincidence, either, that restrictive voter identification legislation is now an official plank of the GOP party platform. The Republicans are losing the battle over demographics to Democrats, and rather than change their party platform to attract more minorities and women, they’re changing voting laws in states to exclude as many of them as they can from the democratic process.
Because all voting is run by each individual state – even for federal elections – these kinds of restrictive and discriminatory measures can become law. But today’s ruling delivers a serious blow to the GOP strategy of using state houses to suppress votes because it moves Texas one step closer to being placed back under the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Era legislation that undid poll taxes and other Jim Crow laws that prevented Black voters in the south from registering to vote.
Being placed back under the Voting Rights Act means that Texas legislators would once again need ‘pre-clearance’ by the federal government to make any changes to its voting processes and procedures – a massive blow to the states’ prestige.
Texas had been under ‘pre-clearance’ when the law passed in 2012, so they couldn’t fully implement it at the time. Then, in 2013, a Supreme Court ruling gutted that part of the Voting Rights Act. Suddenly free from pre-clearance, state legislators took the opportunity to enact the controversial measure. Civil Rights groups immediately filed suit later that year.
Obama’s Justice Department went all-in, giving the plaintiffs and the suit its full backing. When President Trump assumed office in January of this year, however, new Attorney General Jeff Sessions pulled the DOJ’s support.
Ezra D. Rosenberg, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, told the New York Times after a February 2017 hearing that, “It’s sad, in a way. You have the most important governmental civil rights agency abandoning a claim that is strong and solid and which it has steadfastly prosecuted for five years.”
The case went forward anyway, and today’s victory is a huge win for Democrats. After decades as a reliable Red State, the G.O.P.’s grip on the Texas showed signs of loosening in the 2016 presidential election. With Texas’s huge population of Latinos, and large numbers of Americans moving there from liberal coastal states, undemocratic laws like these could be all that’s standing in the way of turning the state Blue.
http://occupydemocrats.com/2017/04/10/federal-judge-just-struck-texas-voter-d-law/