High Court Action on Texas ID Law Shows Mixed Record on Voting Rights - LA Times

8/10/2019 High Court Action on Texas ID Law Shows Mixed Record on Voting Rights - LA Times

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AnalysisHigh court action on Texas ID lawshows mixed record on voting rights

By DAVID G. SAVAGE

OCTOBER 18, 2014, 9:18 AM | REPORTING FROM WASHINGTON

There is no right more basic in our democracy than the right to participate in

electing our political leaders, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote in April.

Roberts spoke then for the courts conservative majority in striking down part of a federal electionlaw so as to allow a wealthy Republican businessman from Alabama to give more money to

candidates across the country.

The contribution limit restricted the donors free speech, Roberts concluded, and the Constitution

requires the court to err on the side of safeguarding that cherished 1st Amendment protection.

But the right to vote, which is the way most Americans participate in a democracy, has gotten far

less protection from the Supreme Court under Roberts.

A Texas election official checks a voter's photo identification in February at an early voting site in Austin. (Eric Gay /

Associated Press)
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There is no starker example than the high court order early Saturday allowing Texas to enforce a

new photo identification law that a federal judge had blocked earlier this month after deciding the

law would prevent as many as 5% of the states registered voters, or 600,000 people in all, from

casting a ballot.

By a 6-3 vote the justices turned aside appeals from lawyers for civil rights groups and the Obama

administration, who warned that the new law would hinder voting by blacks and Latinos. Thecourt did not rule on the constitutionality of the law, but cleared the way for the restrictions to take

effect for the November election while legal challenges work their way through the courts.

This is an affront to our democracy, Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund,

said in response to the order. "Today's decision means hundreds of thousands of eligible voters in

Texas will be unable to participate in November's election because Texas has erected an obstacle

course designed to discourage voting."

A spokeswoman for the Texas attorney general praised the decision. "We are pleased that the U.S.Supreme Court has agreed that Texas' voter ID law should remain in effect for the upcoming

election, said Lauren Bean, deputy communications director for Atty. Gen. Greg Abbott. The

state will continue to defend the voter ID law and remains confident that the district court's

misguided ruling will be overturned on the merits. The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that

voter ID laws are a legal and sensible way to protect the integrity of elections."

In the past decade, the high court has issued a series of rulings striking down limits on campaign

contributions as 1st Amendment violations, but it has yet to issue a clear ruling upholding theconstitutional right to vote.

Until recently, federal law had included strong protections against possible racial bias in elections.

Two years ago, federal judges in Washington, D.C., relying on the Voting Rights Act of 1965,

barred Texas from enforcing the new photo ID law approved by its Republican-controlled

legislature.

Since 1965, the civil rights law had prevented Southern states with a history of racial

discrimination from changing their voting rules in a way that would make it harder for blacks or

Latinos to cast a ballot. Under the law, any changes had to be preapproved by the Justice

Department or federal judges in Washington before taking effect.

But last year, the Supreme Court in an opinion written by Roberts, struck down that part of the

Voting Rights Act.

Things have changed in the South, the chief justice said, and this pre-clearance rule is no


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longer needed and stands as an affront to states equal sovereignty.

The Texas law, like most others of its kind, has little effect on the majority of voters, since those

who drive already hold driver's licenses that can serve as identification at polls. Voters in Texas

may also show their permit to carry a concealed handgun or a U.S. passport.

But most voters who do not drive must go to a state motor vehicles office to obtain an acceptable

photo ID and bring along a copy of their birth certificate.

And in a vast state like Texas, that may require a round trip of more than three hours, said Judge

Nelva Ramos in an Oct. 9 ruling. While this is not an absolute barrier to voting, it could and likely

will stand in way of tens of thousands of fully qualified voters, she said.

The Texas case was seen as a key test of whether the Voting Rights Act still stood as a barrier to

racially discriminatory laws. The conservative justices who struck down the pre-clearance rule

had said civil rights lawyers would still be able to bring lawsuits to challenge state measures that

might abridge the right to vote based on race.

Earlier this year, a coalition of civil rights groups, joined by the Obama administration, did exactly

that. They brought a suit in federal court in Texas, leading to a trial and the ruling by Judge

Ramos. She described the states long history of voting discrimination and concluded that the

states Republican leaders were worried that the growing minority population could threaten their

hold on power.

Her decision prevented the new law from taking effect in the upcoming election.

But Abbott, the Texas attorney general and Republican candidate for governor, quickly appealed.

He denied that racial bias played any part in the enactment of the photo ID law, and said the figure

of 600,000 affected voters was inflated. Those who are over age 65 or disabled may cast a ballot by

mail, he said.

In response, the 5th Circuit Court in New Orleans lifted the judges order on Oct. 14 and said the

photo ID rule may take effect.

That set the stage for the Supreme Court to decide whether Texas could enforce the law in this

years general election.

Lawyers for civil rights groups and the Obama administration argued in court papers that it would

be virtually unheard of to allow a state to enforce an election law that had been struck down as

racially discriminatory.

The appeals went to Justice Antonin Scalia, who oversees the 5th Circuit. Shortly after 5 a.m. on


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Copyright 2014, Los Angeles Times

UPDATE

Saturday, the court issued an order saying the civil rights appeals were denied. There was no

explanation given.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg filed a six-page dissent, which was joined by Justices Sonia

Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

She pointed out that the Texas law has never been enforced in a federal general election.

Moreover, putting the law on hold would merely restore rules that have been in effect for the past

decade. Texas voters were required to show some form of identification to confirm their identity,

but they could do so through a variety of means, such as utility bills.

The greatest threat to public confidence in elections in this case is the prospect of enforcing a

purposefully discriminatory law, one that likely imposes an unconstitutional poll tax and risks

denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters, she wrote.

The outcome was hard to reconcile with an order handed down Oct. 9 that prevented Wisconsin

from enforcing its voter ID law this year. The only apparent difference is that Texas claimed its law

had already been enforced in several primary elections, though fewer than 10% of voters

participated in those elections. Suspending the law now would change the rules at the last minute,

Texas officials argued.

Justices Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. , who had said they would have cleared

the Wisconsin law to take effect, were joined this time by Roberts, Justices Anthony M. Kennedy

and Stephen G. Breyer.

On Twitter: @DavidGSavage

9:18 a.m.: This story was updated with background information and analysis of the

Supreme Court's action.

4:15 a.m.:The story was updated to include comments from dissenting justices.

This story was originally posted at 3:56 a.m. PDT.
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High Court Action on Texas ID Law Shows Mixed Record on Voting Rights - LA Times