Texas News Gov't to sue Texas over voter ID law

[maddezmom]

Source: Houston Chronicle


0
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department says it will sue Texas over the state's voter ID law and will seek to intervene in a lawsuit over the state's redistricting laws.

Attorney General Eric Holder says the action marks another step in the effort to protect voting rights of all eligible Americans. He said the government will not allow the Supreme Court's recent decision to be interpreted as open season for states to pursue measures that suppress voting rights.

On June 25, the Supreme Court threw out the most powerful part of the Voting Rights Act, whose enactment in 1965 marked a major turning point in black Americans' struggle for equal rights and political power.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/texas/article/Gov-t-to-sue-Texas-over-voter-ID-law-4752989.php?cmpid=hpbn

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Will update when more info is available.

Justice Department to challenge Texas voter ID law
By Pete Williams, NBC News
Justice Department officials say they'll launch a few legal fight to block the Texas voter ID law.

Texas lost the first round when the federal government refused to give the state permission to enforce the law, under the preclearance part of the Voting Rights Act. But now that the Supreme Court has taken that power from the government away, the Obama administration is launching a new effort.

"We will not allow the Supreme Court's recent decision to be interpreted as open season for states to pursue measures that suppress voting rights," said Attorney General Eric Holder in a written statement.

The government will claim that the voter ID law violates a different section of the Voting Rights Act that was left intact by the Supreme Court's decision.

http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/22/20138599-justice-department-to-challenge-texas-voter-id-law?lite

[Javaman]

1. Yayyy!!!

In your face cement head perry!

[onehandle]

2. But SCOTUS told them that it was pre-1965 again?

What is Texas going to do with all of that rope they bought?

[Gothmog]

3. Here is the DOJ Press Release

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2013/August/13-ag-952.html

Justice Department to File New Lawsuit Against State of Texas Over Voter I.D. Law
The Department of Justice announced today that it will file a new lawsuit against the State of Texas, the Texas Secretary of State, and the Director of the Texas Department of Public Safety over the State’s strict voter photo identification law (SB 14). The United States’ complaint seeks a declaration that SB 14 violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, as well as the voting guarantees of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.

Separately, the Department is filing a motion to intervene as a party and a complaint in intervention against the State of Texas and the Texas Secretary of State in the ongoing case of Perez v. Perry (W.D. Tex.), which concerns the state’s redistricting laws. The United States had already filed a statement of interest in this case last month. Today’s action represents a new step by the Department in this case that will allow the United States to formally present evidence about the purpose and effect of the Texas redistricting plans.

“Today’s action marks another step forward in the Justice Department’s continuing effort to protect the voting rights of all eligible Americans,” said Attorney General Eric Holder. “We will not allow the Supreme Court’s recent decision to be interpreted as open season for states to pursue measures that suppress voting rights. The Department will take action against jurisdictions that attempt to hinder access to the ballot box, no matter where it occurs. We will keep fighting aggressively to prevent voter disenfranchisement. We are determined to use all available authorities, including remaining sections of the Voting Rights Act, to guard against discrimination and, where appropriate, to ask federal courts to require preclearance of new voting changes. This represents the Department’s latest action to protect voting rights, but it will not be our last.”

In the voter ID lawsuit, the United States’ complaint contends that SB 14 was adopted with the purpose, and will have the result, of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority group. The complaint asks the court to prohibit Texas from enforcing the requirements of its law, and also requests that the court order bail-in relief under Section 3 of the Voting Rights Act. If granted, this would subject Texas to a new preclearance requirement.

In the Department’s other filing announced today, the United States seeks a declaration that Texas’s 2011 redistricting plans for the U.S. Congress and the Texas State House of Representatives were adopted with the purpose of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority group in violation of Section 2, as well as the voting guarantees of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The complaint also requests that the court order bail-in pursuant to Section 3(c) of the Voting Rights Act, to remedy persistent, intentional discrimination in voting within the State of Texas.

“The Department of Justice will use all the tools it has available to ensure that each citizen can cast a ballot free from impermissible discrimination,” said Jocelyn Samuels, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “The right to the franchise is one of the most fundamental promises of American democracy.”

If the federal courts in either the redistricting or voter identification cases find that the State of Texas should be covered by Section 3(c), then the State would be required to submit voting changes to the U.S. Attorney General or to the federal court for review prior to implementation to ensure that the changes do not have a discriminatory effect or a discriminatory purpose. The Department has previously participated as amicus in the Perez case, and last month advised the federal court in Texas that the Department believed the imposition of a new preclearance requirement on Texas under Section 3(c) of the Voting Rights Act was appropriate. Today’s filing asks the Court to allow the Department to participate as a party in further proceedings on the question of whether Texas should be made subject to Section 3(c).

A federal court in the District of Columbia has previously held that Texas had failed to meet its burden of proving that its 2011 redistricting plans and its 2011 voter identification law were not discriminatory under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. These decisions were vacated after the Supreme Court’s June decision in Shelby County v. Holder. The Supreme Court’s decision left unaffected the non-discrimination requirements of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, as well as the bail-in provisions of Section 3 of the Voting Rights Act, and today’s filings seek to enforce those important protections.

The filings in the Texas redistricting and Texas voter identification matters will be available on the Civil Rights Division’s website later today. More information about the Voting Rights Act and other federal voting laws is available on the Department of Justice website at www.justice.gov/crt/about/vot/. Complaints about discriminatory voting practices may be reported to the Voting Section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division at 1-800-253-3931.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Beautiful! Thank you, Gothmog. n/t

[hue]

8. Hey DOJ!!! Don't forget WISCONSIN!! Happening here also!!

[freshwest]

9. Thanks so much for posting the relevant section and the amendments. Now to stop the movement to

repeal the 14th by Ryan and like minded folks.

That would eliminate the part he sells in the video posted here on DU to a crowd as they complain about anchor babies, the Birthright Citizenship clause of the 14th. But it would also remove the clauses on Due Process and Equal Protection under the Law.

Most cannot imagine losing those rights, but the GOP is chipping away at them daily in states. Ryan's plan, with Koch money, no doubt about that with ALEC, was to turn enough states 'red' to have enough state conventions to repeal it.

Which is exactly how the amendments are enacted and repealed, AFAIK. So they could do it and are creating a culture that wants everything after the 10th, which was cited by states rights advocates before the Civil War and now, to not follow any federal law.

Imagine an America that was reduced back to that state of affairs, which was chaotic. Those who get very exercized about the 4th, may not realize that it did not end slavery, nor allow universal sufferage, women to control their reproductive lives or gays to marry.

The RWNJs have certain amendments they focus upon, the 2nd, 4th and 10th, but those did not protect Dred Scott, since the Supreme Court saw him as property, and that the property rights of the owner superceded his rights as a human being.

Private property rights are a wonderful thing, and grant freedom to those who own it. But not to those who are abused by that system, and many have been. They do not grant human rights which should not be dependent on social standing.

This has always been part of the ideological rift in America, between those people who believe that human rights supercede the rights of the owners of land or capital. For opposing that system in the world, human rights and environmental activists are slain daily by those who have, and still do now, steal property from the weaker or less armed and then become more powerful off that. Then they seek to deny them the right to fight for social equity.

The USA Constitution is meant to protect us from those forces. But it took a Civil War to vanquish the 10thers of that day. Then the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments gave blacks basic rights, but they still had to have the civil rights and voting rights acts passed.

We better avail ourselves of all our rights before they are taken away from nationally. People have been losing their rights in one state after another state daily in red states.

The 50th anniversary of the Freedom and Jobs March on Washington will be this Saturday. I hope it will renew our national commitment to equality for all.

And as to what Holder the DOJ are doing, they know that 'Use it or lose it' applies here. This is the best news that I've heard all week.

Thanks again for posting the details.

[kysrsoze]

4. Next up needs to be that P.O.S. N.C. Voting law

N/T

[SunSeeker]

5. K & R

[sheshe2]

7. K&R!

[TexasTowelie]

10. Yea DOJ!

The right to vote is the most important right to keep our democracy alive.

[Tx4obama]

11. UPDATE

Justice Department Sues Texas Over Voter ID, Citing The Remainder Of The Voting Rights Act

The U.S. Department of Justice sued Thursday to stop Texas’ restrictive voter ID law, which was quickly revived in June after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted a key section of the Voting Rights Act that allowed the federal government to decide if voting changes in states like Texas are discriminatory. Texas announced just two hours after the Court’s ruling that it would enact the controversial law even though the DOJ and several judges agreed the law targeted low-income African Americans and Latinos who do not possess the required ID.

Though the Supreme Court invalidated the VRA’s formula for designating which districts have a history of discrimination and are required to “pre-clear” their election law changes with the federal government, the DOJ is taking advantage of the sections that still stand. The new lawsuit charges that Texas’ voter ID law violates Section 2, which bans any election law meant to discriminate based on race, as well as the Fourteenth Amendment’s voting guarantees.

The lawsuit, if successful, would block Texas from enforcing the voter ID law. If the court agrees that the law was meant to hurt minorities, the proof of intentional discrimination could be enough to re-instate the preclearance requirement for Texas, as Section 3 of the VRA allows states to be “bailed in” if a court has found that the state is using their election law to discriminate against minorities. However, the DOJ will not only have to prove the law disproportionately targets minorities, but will also have to prove that lawmakers specifically intended to do so.

Texas’ voter ID law is among the strictest in the nation. One analysis found that at least 10 percent of registered voters in 27 Texas counties might be banned from voting by the ID requirement.

-snip-

Full article here: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/08/22/2511511/justice-department-sues-texas-over-voter-id/

[alp227]

12. Well, this is at least something a Romney Justice Department would never care to do.

And honestly, sometimes I wish we'd be better off if these regressive states like Texas, Alabama, etc. that have been trashing voter rights just secede into their own right wing theocratic fascistic haven.