Today in Corpus Christi, the trial of United States v. Texas began, a Justice Department challenge to Texas' racist Voter ID Law, Senate Bill 14. This bill discriminates against poor voters who may not be able to afford one of the eligible photo IDs that are now required to vote in Texas (or the documentation required to obtain one) and is clearly targeted at suppressing the votes of the non-white and non-rich.
Student IDs, with photos, even issued by state universities do not, by the way, qualify.
Texas has not been able to identify even one case of in-person voter fraud but at least 780, 000 Texans are believed to be without an ID that will allow them to vote under the law.
Texas tries to suppress minority voting every chance it gets and has done so every chance it has gotten since the 15th Amendment. The gutting of the Voting Rights Act and our subsequent release from federal oversight opened the floodgates for this sort of voter suppression. I hope the trial results in a return to federal oversight because our voting regulations still totally need to be supervised, I am sorry to say.
1 comment:
Boo. Hope the feds win the suit, and hope it happens before November. It's a long row to hoe.
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