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

[Tx4obama]

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.

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

[bigdarryl]

1. What about North Carolina Eric ?

It's worst in that state.Im just saying

[Empowerer]

2. Don't worry - they're on it

Just getting their ducks in row. These kinds of cases need a lot of preparation before filing and they need to make sure they're doing it right.

[davidpdx]

3. I'm wondering if the DoJ wins

how far this will be appealed and whether it will give the SC another crack at the rest of the VRA.

[Tx4obama]

4. I don't think it will go all the way up to the U.S. SC. Cause they left Section 3 intact

Fri Jul 12, 2013

-snip-

June saw the gutting of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court collaterally attacked Section 5 of the VRA, which requires preclearance of voting and elections laws by states such as Texas, by striking down Section 4. By declaring Section 4 unconstitutional, the Court made it impossible to apply the Section 5 preclearance requirement.

Initial reaction focused on the presumptive death of the VRA and the almost certain enactment and implementation of discriminatory voting laws, yet much of that initial analysis neglected Section 3 of the VRA.

On Tuesday, Sahil Kapur wrote in TalkingPointsMemo that Texas and other states could still be subjected to preclearance requirements, despite the Court's June ruling.

"Section 3 of the Voting Rights Act lets courts add a state or local government to the preclearance requirement if it is found to have enacted intentionally discriminatory voting measures. The Supreme Court left that part of the Voting Rights Act intact; it invalidated Section 4, which includes the formula that Congress established to determine which state and local governments are to face that extra scrutiny automatically."

-snip-

Full article here: http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/13777/experts-texas-possibly-subject-to-preclearance-under-voting-rights-act-suits-filed