Texas is not doing well with federal judges in the District of Columbia. Days ago a three judge panel threw out Texas’ redistricting maps, now a different panel has thrown out the Voter I.D. law. (Opinion embedded below)
This analysis from Rick Hanson at Election Law Blog:
This is a careful, unanimous opinion from a three-judge court which rejects most of the social science evidence submitted by both sides on whether Texas’s voter id law imposes greater burdens on minority voters. Instead, the court bases its analysis on three basically uncontested facts: (1) Minority voters are at least proportionately as likely as white voters in Texas to lack the documents needed for Texas’s new id law (which the Court calls perhaps the most “stringent” in the nation; (2) the new i.d. law will put high burdens on poor people who lack id (many of whom would have to travel up to 200 or 250 miles at their own expense to get the i.d. as well as pay at least $22 for the documents needed to get the i.d.; and (3) minority voters in Texas are more likely to be poor. Using this simple structure, the court concludes that Texas, which bears the burden of proof in a section 5 case, cannot prove its law won’t make the position of protected minorities worse off. And the court suggests this was a problem of its own making: Texas could have made the i.d. law less onerous (as in Georgia, which the court suggests DOJ was probably right to preclear) and Texas could have done more to produce evidence supporting its side at trial, but it engaged in bad trial tactics.
Texas v Holder – Voter I.D. Decision 8-30-2012
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Comments
Wonder what Holder is holding over their heads????
Nothing. Just take a look at the history of the judges on this case, especially Tatel and Wilkins. Tatel was a lead civil rights attorney and Wilkins brought a civil rights case against a police department, on his own behalf.
There was no way that those two judges were going to approve Voter I.D. for any state, much less Texas.
We need to throw out these judges, they are striking down a law that was based off of another law that was upheld by the Supreme Court. Now which court is the highest law in the land? These judges in their District Courts are acting in accordance with the Obama campaign and Eric Holder (hurry up and bring charges) and ensuring that Texas does not have Voter ID in time for the elections, since the Supreme Court doesn’t come back until October.
This country is Lawless. They are making crap up to get what they want. How are we better than a Banana Republic?
The reality here is that the Texas case was weaker than it should have been.
Some of the State experts were soft, and experts in a case like this are where you live or die.
Texas will either appeal this to the Supremes, or we will go back to the law factory and redraft.
In any event, there WILL be a Texas election integrity law. Such a law is broadly supported by our people.
Pity. Let’s hear it for a national, continental convention. Ha! There’s about as much chance of that as my being the next man on the moon. If any state won’t “lay down” on this, it’s Texas.
wonder if this other issue had any bearing or influence
http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2012/08/14/holder-racial-preferences-needed-for-national-security/?singlepage=true
The poor and racial minorities have the wherewithal to receive welfare benefits, but it is an excessive burden for them to obtain a photo id? Someone is lying or strictly and unforgivingly incompetent.
40 million Americans are on Food Stamps, and you do not get food stamps unless you supply several forms of ID, including birth certificates, photo IDs, etc.
This is all a lie and scam that poor folks can’t afford ID. You can’t cash a check, collect a benefit, work a job, drive a car, do pretty much anything without valid picture ID. Yet somehow poor black folks lose all their IDs when they get to the voting booths. Granted, their EBT card is in their wallet, the one they needed to provide 3 sets of ID, bank records and income tax forms for.
AG Abbot has said he will appeal.
Both this ruling, and the redistricting ruling.
I’m pretty familiar with Texas, and I’m having trouble thinking of a place in Texas where “puuurrrr” people would have to travel 200-250 miles to access a voter ID, although some West Texas counties are BIG. Sure not a problem for many, since those counties are also very sparsely populated. And I have to believe the puuuurrr manage to get to their county seats for necessary business, anyhow.
I just looked at a Texas map. Even if you lived in some whistle stop like Marfa or Alpine, there is no way you would have to go 200-250 miles to get a voter I.D. card because none of those towns are that far from a county seat that all have voter registration offices.
And you can bet, anyone who is collection welfare benefits are quite capable of going to those offices so the “poor” can manage to go to the county seat to apply for welfare, but can’t make it to the county seat to get a voter I.D.?
Sorry, that dog won’t hunt. These must have been Yankee judges who think that the “wide open spaces” are so plentiful that people can’t get to where they want to go.
Holder should be in jail. Instead he’s beating us in court. I don’t get it. Or perhaps I do, which is scarier.
The root of all this evil is Sec. 5 of the VRA.
This case…and some others ripening…should come before the Supremes soon, and MIGHT spell the end of that monstrosity.
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/08/30/breaking-court-blocks-texas-voter-id/
This provides a pretty good general background of the case, including the drive by the Holder Injustice Dept. to specifically get the court to label the Texas law as “racist”.
Everything you do in the USA needs I.D. How is it that we have large groups of people who have none? Impossible. Try getting a check cashed at one of these check cashing places without I.D. This is not about voter I.D. This is about Democrats wanting to preserve the right of the dead and the illegal to vote.
That is exactly right. The Democrats squeal like stuck pigs when it comes to voter id because they want to have illegal aliens, dead people, and felons voting for them. It’s much easier to rig an election in their favor with no accountability.
There’s going to come a point when Texans are going to honestly ask themselves, “Are we going to govern ourselves according to dictates of our own consent, or according to some arbitrary rules imposed by some unknown and disregarding bureaucrat or judge in Washington D.C. who thinks they know better than us how to run our own state?”
It will be Reagan’s “Time for Choosing”, Texas-style.
And when The People of Texas answer that question… Watch out, Washington! Remember The Alamo!
I really think this election…and its results…will tell us a lot about whether the U.S. can continue as it is.
I am not sanguine, since the Collective is driven to MAKE people do as compelled, and we are driven to LET people make choices.
How about when new voters register, they get their ID validated and get a picture ID care with signature, etc. then.
Or how about we require all voters to submit fingerprints, and they get issued voter registration cards with a machine readable bar code and finger print, and the card gets scanned and matched to their print at the time they vote.
Forpetessake to visit a patient in some hospitals these days you have to stop at the front desk, have your picture taken and submit identification.
You have to submit government-issued photo I.D. to get past the guard gates in residential communities.
You have to submit this I.D. to buy beer or tobacco.
You have to submit this I.D. to register at a new school or college.
To open a bank account.
To cash a check, or use a check.
To get a job.
Etc.
If someone doesn’t have I.D. it’s got to be almost a sure bet that it’s not because they’re “poor” but because they’re illegal.
The irony is that most people register when they get a state driver’s license or state-issued ID card. But… they cannot be compelled to show it when they vote?
You have to have a pictured ID to get a welfare check and food stamps and all the other freebies dims give their constitutents to buy their votes.
That’s odd. In order to gain entry to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, where David Tatel presides, one needs a photo ID:
When visiting the courthouse, you will be required to undergo a security screening that includes the following: Show a photo ID issued by a government agency, such as a driver’s license or a bar identification card
. . You may be asked to remove your belt, watch, jewelry, and shoes
http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/home.nsf/Content/VL+-+Courthouse+-+Security+Information
Thing is, the SCOTUS has already ruled on a law from Indiana which is virtually identical to Texas law. Therefore the Justice dept. really has no leg, legally, to stand on. if it is constitutional in indiana, it cannot possibly be unconstitutional in Texas, they will either have to overturn the earlier ruling or tell Holder to shove Section 5 up his arse. Problem is, this won’t be ruled on until next session which will be too late to do anything about the election in November.
Let’s turn the tables on these bastard judges.
We should dare them sue the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico for its Voter ID laws – which are much stricter than the ones here in TX.
In PR, a driver’s license doesn’t count. You have to get a voter ID card, with photo and holograph, which looks similar to a driver’s license. Doesn’t cost much. You can only use it to vote. It has an expiration date and a place where the times you have voted are kept. That way, no one fools anybody.
Oh, BTW. It is required for all citizens of voting age. All 2 million voters.
All 2 million “disenfranchised minorities.”
As long as I’ve lived in Florida I’ve always had to show a photo ID to vote. What’s all the brouhaha about? You need an ID for just about everything. How is it that “so many” do not have them? This is just a power struggle and a waste of time and money (things the government knows best how to do).
Well, sh!t fire and save the matches!
These folks really do hate Texas. Well, we hate you back. If there was any justice on this planet (as opposed to Holder’s ‘Just Us Dept.’), the entire DNC would be indicted under RICO statutes.
Time to secede. For real. And take Oklahoma and Louisiana with us.
Myabe Texas needs to request that DOJ send some of its highly trained CRS staffers to Texas to organize things the way DOJ wants it done! Well, maybe not to the benefit of improving things in Texas except in the minds of the DOJ bunch.
Or, perhaps DOJ has done it’s prep work already!
I like the description of the Puerto Rican ID card.
Do this in every state with one minor change: make it free. Free as in you don’t pay a fee for the card. Our taxes (yours and mine) pay for it.
If you do that you wipe out one key Democratic argument: that the poor “can’t afford” to get a voter ID card.
Make it free, make it clear, and do it like PR. Then enforce it.
That cleans up one vital part of our electoral process. Then it’s on to the registrars and the state secretaries of state.