Feds sue to stop Texas voter ID law
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| Attorney General Eric Holder, whose Justice Department announced on Thursday it would sue the state of Texas over voting rights enforcement.
August 22, 2013
AP Government: Unit 1
The Justice Department has said that it has been put in motion to issue a court order declaring that the strict 2011 Texas Law violates the Voting Rights Act. This will halt the Texas voting requirement that identification must be shown at the polls in order to vote. The Supreme court makes this bold decision declaring that Texas Law violates "certain constitutional guarantees", and signifies the U.S. Supreme Court's new effort on enforcing voting rights.
"Today's action marks another step forward in the Justice Department's continuing effort to protect the voting rights of all eligible Americans," Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 makes it illegal to discriminate against a person who is voting. What the Justice Department must do now is prove whether it is "purposeful" discrimination to require voter identification.
Several courts including a federal court in D.C. have accused Texas saying they have failed to come up with evidence that the voter ID law did not discriminate. The NAACP applauded this accusation, and said Texas has had a long history of discriminating against African Americans and Latino voters.
This all goes to show that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is still regulating our government and affecting our people today. Some say we've moved past racial issues and that we do not have any problems anymore with racial discrimination. But, it is evident that these issues are still being debated in our generation. With Texas requiring voter ID, I believe that the simple idea that voters should be legal voters is definitely a correct idea, and that required voter ID's protects from fraudulent voters. BUT there are ways that requiring photo ID's can be used to change the outcome of the polls. Poorer individuals and people with disabilities can have a hard time with acquiring voter ID's, means of transportation is hard to come by and spending the little money they have to go and get an ID can be difficult. I believe this issue applies to race mainly because most of the racial minority lies in the low income category. What I don't know is the real purpose for enacting required voter ID. Whether it was purposefully discriminating against African Americans and Latinos, or trying to leave out some of the poorer class in votes, or to protect from fraudulent voters and protect the citizen's votes, I don't know for sure. That is why this topic is controversial.
This correlates to what we have learned in class through what we've learned in John Locke's Treatise, and demonstrates that our constitution is the "highest law of the land", that our judiciary branch of government has the ability to exercise power over state governments.
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