By Gary Scharrer
AUSTIN — A federal court in Washington will now decide whether Texas can enforce its new Voter ID law after the U.S. Justice Department on Monday rejected the restrictive voting measure that required valid state-issued photo identification cards, contending state leaders failed to prove it would not discriminate against minority voters.
At least 603,892 and as many as 795,955 registered voters in Texas do not have a Texas driver's license, according to documents provided to the Justice Department by the state of Texas.
“According to the state's own data, a Hispanic registered voter is at least 46.5 percent, and potentially 120 percent, more likely than a non-Hispanic registered voter to lack this identification,” Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez said in a letter to Texas Elections Director Keith Ingram. “Even using the data most favorable to the state, Hispanics disproportionately lack either a driver's license or a personal identification card issued by DPS, and that disparity is statistically significant.”
A federal panel that includes Circuit Judge David Tatel, District Judge Robert Wilkins and District Judge Rosemary Collyer, who was part of a three-judge panel that heard the Texas redistricting case, will take up the Voter ID law later this year.
Collyer has scheduled a Wednesday status call in her Washington courtroom to begin preparations for the trial.
Reactions to Monday's DOJ action broke along partisan lines.
Democrats complain the law's primary purpose is to make it harder for students, the elderly and low-income Texans to vote. They view it as voter suppression to help Anglo Republicans keep political power longer in a state where a majority of the public school enrollment is now Hispanic.
Republican leaders insist the law is constitutional and is designed to protect the democratic process. Even before the DOJ action Monday, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott had filed suit, hoping to convince federal judges that the law does not “deny or abridge” Texans the right to vote.
“The state knew it wouldn't prevail with the DOJ, that's why Abbott went directly to the lawsuit,” said Lydia Camarillo, Southwest Voter Registration Education Project vice president.
Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry defended the law.
“Texas has a responsibility to ensure elections are fair, beyond reproach and accurately reflect the will of voters,” he said. “The DOJ has no valid reason for rejecting this important law, which requires nothing more extensive than the type of photo identification necessary to receive a library card or board an airplane. Their denial is yet another example of the Obama Administration's continuing and pervasive federal overreach.”
Those who applauded the Justice Department noted that getting library cards or boarding planes is a privilege — not a right, as is voting.
“Should this legislation ever see the light of day, it would immediately become the strictest voter qualification law since the poll tax,” said Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus. “Worse yet, photo identification requirements for voters drastically affect the electoral participation of the poor, the elderly, and the transient, which means those who need their government's ear most will be the last to be heard.”
Texas must win federal approval of any changes affecting elections because of portions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Section 5 of the law obligates Texas and several other states with a history of discrimination against minorities to demonstrate that election law revisions “have neither the purpose nor the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color or membership in a language minority group.”
There are 31 states that have voter ID laws. Legal challenges are under way in several states, including Texas, South Carolina, Wisconsin and Kansas.
Opponents of voter ID laws say they have reduced voter turnout in states that have already passed them.
San Antonio State Sen. Jeff Wentworth, a co-author of Texas' bill, said any reduction in the number of voters comes from illegal voters who can no longer go to the polls.
Voter ID made those elections “more honest and reliable,” he said.
There are 869,949 registered voters in Bexar County. Of those, the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project estimates that 375,000 are Hispanic voters.
Texas didn't prevail because it couldn't prove any voter fraud, said Choco Meza, chairwoman of the Bexar County Democratic Party.
“If there was reason to think people are voting fraudulently, that would be one thing,” she said. “Elected officials need to stop trying to decide who their voters are, and let voters decide who their elected officials are.”
gscharrer@express-news.net
Tracy Idell Hamilton and Gary Martin contributed to this report.
At least 603,892 and as many as 795,955 registered voters in Texas do not have a Texas driver's license, according to documents provided to the Justice Department by the state of Texas.
“According to the state's own data, a Hispanic registered voter is at least 46.5 percent, and potentially 120 percent, more likely than a non-Hispanic registered voter to lack this identification,” Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez said in a letter to Texas Elections Director Keith Ingram. “Even using the data most favorable to the state, Hispanics disproportionately lack either a driver's license or a personal identification card issued by DPS, and that disparity is statistically significant.”
A federal panel that includes Circuit Judge David Tatel, District Judge Robert Wilkins and District Judge Rosemary Collyer, who was part of a three-judge panel that heard the Texas redistricting case, will take up the Voter ID law later this year.
Collyer has scheduled a Wednesday status call in her Washington courtroom to begin preparations for the trial.
Reactions to Monday's DOJ action broke along partisan lines.
Democrats complain the law's primary purpose is to make it harder for students, the elderly and low-income Texans to vote. They view it as voter suppression to help Anglo Republicans keep political power longer in a state where a majority of the public school enrollment is now Hispanic.
Republican leaders insist the law is constitutional and is designed to protect the democratic process. Even before the DOJ action Monday, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott had filed suit, hoping to convince federal judges that the law does not “deny or abridge” Texans the right to vote.
“The state knew it wouldn't prevail with the DOJ, that's why Abbott went directly to the lawsuit,” said Lydia Camarillo, Southwest Voter Registration Education Project vice president.
Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry defended the law.
“Texas has a responsibility to ensure elections are fair, beyond reproach and accurately reflect the will of voters,” he said. “The DOJ has no valid reason for rejecting this important law, which requires nothing more extensive than the type of photo identification necessary to receive a library card or board an airplane. Their denial is yet another example of the Obama Administration's continuing and pervasive federal overreach.”
Those who applauded the Justice Department noted that getting library cards or boarding planes is a privilege — not a right, as is voting.
“Should this legislation ever see the light of day, it would immediately become the strictest voter qualification law since the poll tax,” said Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus. “Worse yet, photo identification requirements for voters drastically affect the electoral participation of the poor, the elderly, and the transient, which means those who need their government's ear most will be the last to be heard.”
Texas must win federal approval of any changes affecting elections because of portions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Section 5 of the law obligates Texas and several other states with a history of discrimination against minorities to demonstrate that election law revisions “have neither the purpose nor the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color or membership in a language minority group.”
There are 31 states that have voter ID laws. Legal challenges are under way in several states, including Texas, South Carolina, Wisconsin and Kansas.
Opponents of voter ID laws say they have reduced voter turnout in states that have already passed them.
San Antonio State Sen. Jeff Wentworth, a co-author of Texas' bill, said any reduction in the number of voters comes from illegal voters who can no longer go to the polls.
Voter ID made those elections “more honest and reliable,” he said.
There are 869,949 registered voters in Bexar County. Of those, the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project estimates that 375,000 are Hispanic voters.
Texas didn't prevail because it couldn't prove any voter fraud, said Choco Meza, chairwoman of the Bexar County Democratic Party.
“If there was reason to think people are voting fraudulently, that would be one thing,” she said. “Elected officials need to stop trying to decide who their voters are, and let voters decide who their elected officials are.”
gscharrer@express-news.net
Tracy Idell Hamilton and Gary Martin contributed to this report.
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