A Fifth Circuit panel has declared Texas’s voter ID law unconstitutional, setting up a potentially huge Supreme Court battle.
The plaintiffs, including individual voters, civil rights groups and the Department of Justice, said it was discriminatory because a far greater share of poor people and minorities do not have these forms of identification and lack easy access to birth certificates or other documents needed to obtain them.
Student identifications, voter registration cards and utility bills are not considered acceptable proof of identity.
In a sweeping ruling in 2014, a federal district court in Texas agreed with the plaintiffs about the effect the law had on minority voters.
But it also said legislators had intentionally adopted a discriminatory law, a conclusion that could have led to a restoration of federal oversight over Texas voting laws.
Although the appeals court upheld the finding of discriminatory effect, the three-judge panel said the lower court must re-examine its conclusion that Texas acted with discriminatory purpose.
Texas could appeal to the full Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans or the United States Supreme Court.
In a statement issued Wednesday afternoon, Gov. Greg Abbott did not say whether the state would appeal.
But the governor did say, “Texas will continue to fight for its voter ID requirement to ensure the integrity of elections in the Lone Star State.”
So the good news is that the courts think the voter ID law is discriminatory, the question is whether or not Texas Republicans did it on purpose. We’ll see where Abbott goes next, but I would hope that the law would face an injunction for the 2016 election as a result and not be in effect.
Besides, Abbott has a few legal problems with his Attorney General, from what I understand…
Gravenstone
Is that even a question? Of course they did it on purpose. And continue to do so as long as there is a Republican anywhere near the levers of power in Texas.
C.V. Danes
Republicans potentially ban thousands of usually Democrat voters from voting to protect against the relatively rare case of occasional voter fraud. Nope, nothing nefarious going on here. Nothing at all.
Snarki, child of Loki
I sure hope they bring up the “Texas authorities refusing to issue birth certificates” issue.
Because birth certificates that you need for voter IDs are just SO easy to get, amirite?
C.V. Danes
@Gravenstone: Exactly. If you assume Republican = nefarious from the start you’ll be correct 99% of the time.
Brachiator
Did Texas ever demonstrate that there was an actual voter registration problem that made these new requirements necessary?
I bet no.
Mike J
The standard argument made by people who are against hate crimes legislation is, “What does it matter why they did it? Shouldn’t we only look at what they did rather than trying to read minds?”
Zandar
@Gravenstone: Oh I absolutely believe they did it on purpose.
I’m not a Supreme Court justice, however.
Germy Shoemangler
@Brachiator:
they believe they have proof of voter fraud: Obama won twice. That’s all the proof they think they need.
That’s what’s at the root of all this.
NonyNony
@C.V. Danes:
I suspect that this comes down to the “Stupid or Evil” question. Did they vote the way they did because they’re stupid, pig-ignorant reactionary nincompoops who have problems understanding cause and effect and are terrified of the hordes of undocumented immigrants who don’t vote suddenly showing up at the polls and voting? Or did they vote the way they did because they’re intelligent, sophisticated, Machiavellian manipulators who understood that they could claim that this was about election security while knowing that it was actually about keeping poor people from voting?
Federal court ruled that they were evil. Appeals court apparently thinks they’re just stupid. (Frankly I’m not sure why the law should care about it – if my kid cuts another kid because he’s an idiot or he cuts him because he’s a psychopath it doesn’t really change the fact that the right thing for me to do is take the scissors away from my kid. The correct answer here is that since the court decided they did something illegal, they should have to have their plans cleared until they show that they’re ready to have the scissors back again.)
Brachiator
@Germy Shoemangler:
Well, yeah. But can they offer this in court as part of their argument?
Chris
@Germy Shoemangler:
Bingo.
ET
What is interesting is that the 5th Circuit is not known for being particularly liberal. They are actually known for being pretty conservative – one of if not the most conservative – and this was a unanimous decision. Interesting.
Smiling Mortician
@Germy Shoemangler:
Not in Texas.
Mobile Grumpy Code Monkey
I’m still wondering when “campaign fraud” and “election fraud” became “voter fraud” (no I’m not, I know exactly when it happened and why). What I really wonder is why no one calls them on that. Elections are queered by rigged machines, stuffed ballot boxes, and improperly scrubbed voter rolls, not by busloads of darkies with fake IDs.
I mean, all those dead people didn’t vote for LBJ by showing up with fake IDs.
Bobby Thomson
OT: the Republican prosecutor in Montgomery County has indicted Pennsylvania AG Kane for going after connected Penn State officials.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
And yet we have supposed liberals who are convinced that minorities don’t vote in large numbers because they just can’t be bothered, so we should concentrate on winning back white Reagan Democrats instead of making sure everyone can vote. Gah.
Guys, the Republicans read “The Coming Democratic Majority,” too. That’s why they passed these laws.
TriassicSands
I can hardly wait for the Supreme Court’s 5-4 One White Person, One Vote landmark decision. This could be the latest “no brainer” decision that goes the way of no brains.
Of course, the decision will be couched in terms of One Republican, One Vote, which, based on what the Fab Five have said before, appears to be OK constitutionally. It’s OK for one party to disenfranchise another party, and if a racial minority is foolish enough to vote overwhelmingly for the party that doesn’t hate them, well, they’re just getting what they deserve.
Get ready for an epic RBG dissent.
@C.V. Danes:
I think that was a 1994 statistic; today it’s a nice, round 100%.
@Brachiator:
The five SCOTUS radicals are absolutely terrified by “hypothetical” threats. The mere possibility that there COULD be one African American voting fraudulently threatens to make an otherwise fixed election a travesty, and nothing is more important to the integrity of fixed elections than ensuring that no African American (or Hispanic) ever votes fraudulently. Since all African Americans and Hispanics might vote fraudulently, it stands to reason that trying to stop all of them from voting is a good idea.
WereBear
Doesn’t take a Supreme Court justice to know they did it on purpose. There are uni-celled creatures lying on their backs in the bottom of ponds who can see that.
This is why I kinda lean “evil,” myself.
Jack the Second
You can’t break a few eggs without breaking a few eggs.
Belafon
@Brachiator: No, and Abbott commissioned the study himself, finding no issues of voter fraud that would have made any differences in elections.
ET
I should have also added that this is court that is interesting to say the lease. One article on the chief (as of 2014) makes it sound like a mad house and filled with major drama.
Belafon
@ET: It wasn’t the full court, just a subset. I read somewhere that this subset was probably the most liberal they were going to get from this court.
Glidwrith
@WereBear: I am so stealing that phrase!
cmorenc
@ET:
The question is, who owns the lease on the court? Somebody paid a lot of money to rent it.
replicnt6
@WereBear:
No, but it takes a Supreme Court Justice to argue with a straight face that they didn’t do it on purpose.
gene108
@Germy Shoemangler:
I believe Indiana’s first in the nation voter ID law went into effect in 2005.
Right-wingers are good at playing a “long game”, with regards whittling away protections from average citizens, in such a gradual manner people end up shocked that what they thought their rights were, based on what they had growing up, no longer applies and you are the mercy of the criminal justice system, big corporations, etc.
Germy Shoemangler
@Smiling Mortician:
Preventive measure. Like a vaccine.
MomSense
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
GAH is right.
gene108
@Bobby Thomson:
That’s not why she has legal problems.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150807_Montco_DA_expected_to_charge_Kathleen_Kane_this_morning.html
She’s really self destructed in office. I guess it’s the Peter Principle at work.
Percysowner
@NonyNony:
In this case it matters. The SC threw out examining Texas’s voting laws and redistricting decisions by stating that Texas was under extra scrutiny because in the past Texas had deliberately discriminated against minorities. The SC went on to say that this was YEARS ago and Texas was being punished for things it no longer did. If the courts determine that Texas, in fact, continues to write laws that are deliberately discriminatory, they get put back under extra scrutiny and the SC can’t say it’s all in the past and you’re being big meanies because Texas has reformed.
I have mixed feelings on extra charges on hate crimes, but in this case it really did count if the intent was discriminatory.
Botsplainer
@Gravenstone:
Extremism in support of conservatism is no vice…
Alex
-Reince Priebus
https://gop.com/rnc-statement-on-50th-anniversary-of-voting-rights-act/
Weird how their statement is focusing on 50 years ago and not today. Probably because racism is over or something.
Also weird how the Republican party is trying to remove weekend voting. Probably a minor oversight that Reince is not aware of. Someone should let him know.
Helmut Monotreme
I disagree. What we are seeing is the refusal of the Republican party to ever admit that a question has been settled if the decision is inconvenient to them. They waste no time in destroying or co-opting laws or regulations with which they disagree whenever they have the chance. Their donors and ALEC keep them very focused on that.
In fact, I’d say their legislative strategy proves they have no game longer than the next election cycle.
NonyNony
@Percysowner:
I know, so I know that it matters. My point is that it shouldn’t – one violation that the courts agree is a violation should be enough to bring extra scrutiny down on your ass. That’s how the law should be written.
But then we aren’t working with the law as written anyway, are we? We’re working with a law that “activist judges” rewrote from the bench because they didn’t like the law as passed by Congress. If Congress had known that a bunch of hacks on the court were going to cut up their law this way, they might have written it to do that.
(Always projection with these clowns – always.)
shell
As long as they keep insisting theyre only protecting the voting process against all this voter fraud….the answer i s yes!
bobbo
No of course they NEVER do it on purpose because racism no longer exists, it was eliminated in 1965 and we never heard from it again. Except, of course, racism against white people, which is totally a thing.
Kropadope
It’s nice to see antonyms working together. See? The Republicans are uniters.
japa21
“Texas will continue to fight for its voter ID requirement to ensure the integrity of elections in the Lone Star State.”
Because nothing says integrity like working to make sure thousands of legally registered voters can’t vote.
Kay
@Mobile Grumpy Code Monkey:
It never would have gotten any traction without “black people are stealing elections” because it doesn’t make any sense. There has to be some bias trigger, some way for people to push right past common sense and go right to conspiracy theories. It never made sense. Voter impersonation fraud is the dumbest election stealing strategy in the world.
Part of it is language. If we had used the term “voter impersonation fraud” from the start people might have questioned it because “impersonation” is a clue to how outlandish it is and I think most people know what the word means. “So lots and lots of people are impersonating other voters?” If you can get people to that point they start to question it.
kindness
I don’t want this to go to the Roberts Court. Don’t trust that mofo where voting rights are concerned.
Belafon
@kindness: That’s partially the goal of Texas and other states that create these voters laws. They’re not going to be able to suppress minorities if the minorities can vote.
Kay
@Mobile Grumpy Code Monkey:
This is the best recent example of what I’m talking about. It’s Wood County Ohio which is a swing district in Ohio:
There is just no way they make that mistake without something getting in the way of rational thought because the vote totals are publicly available. One of the GOP members of the Bd of Elections had to come out and deny it before they would drop it.
Ohio HAS voter ID. It doesn’t matter, because the belief is irrational. They aren’t going to be able to address an irrational, bias-motivated belief with administrative changes. It simply doesn’t matter.
The voter impersonation fraud charges actually went UP after Ohio put in voter ID. People who believed it saw the laws as validation that it was happening. They were RIGHT, otherwise why would these laws be going in?
Punchy
Accurified that for the AA community.
boatboy_srq
@Brachiator:
Translation: the hetero Xtian Caucasian maleness of elections. Given that, there’s definitely an issue because all those Other People are registering. Time to update your dogwhistle-to-English phrasebook, maybe? ,-)
Cervantes
@Germy Shoemangler:
Demographics. They know what’s coming.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@gene108:
Like I said, the Republicans can read demographic trends just like the rest of us. They are deliberately blocking the trends that work against them, and (some) liberals stand around going, Well, I guess you just can’t get poor people to vote.
It’s really freaking maddening that outright voter suppression is going on right in front of us, and some people can’t make 2+2 add up to 4.
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
Is that a direct quote or are you paraphrasing someone?
Germy Shoemangler
Here’s a prehistoric teabagger, captured on film. Unlike the present-day variety, he complains about the “democratic” party, rather than the currently-preferred “democrap” party.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTLk2VhfENg
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Cervantes:
I thought it was pretty obviously a paraphrase since it was not in quote marks, but I’ll italicize it next time so it’s completely obvious.
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
No problem.
So it was a paraphrase … of what, exactly?
Whose words?
Kay
@boatboy_srq:
“Ballot security” is a phrase they use a lot. It’s one of those issues where the two sides use different terms. I can tell in the first paragraph whether one is an “access person” or a “fraud person” just by the terms they use.
Cermet
Can”t spell ass hole without Texas
Kay
O/T but I love to see this:
They need big showy perp walks and prosecutions or this flouting of the regulations will get worse.
Brachiator
@Cervantes:
@Mnemosyne (iPhone)
I don’t know. This kind of voter registration BS is just one of a number of tactics the GOP uses. Their greatest success has been in rigging voting districts to win majorities at the state and congressional level.
Paul in KY
@Brachiator: That has been an excellent tactic. Has divided Democratic lawmakers too.
Unsympathetic
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Not really.
For most people to acknowledge that sociopaths with an agenda [aka Republicans] have been planning these attacks all along…
Would blow their minds. Because happiness! freedom! Apple pie! Land of my children! … would never possibly include such things. It’s difficult for normal people to confront this reality, so they blame the person bringing the message rather than engage the content itself.
Instead, even though the Republican sociopathic agenda actually passes Occam’s Razor [Which is more plausible: All the same laws are passed and same methods of disenfranchisement are proposed at precisely the same time in multiple states… Via randomness, or via planning?] .. because it’s easier to believe nothing is happening, they win.
How to fight this? Democrats need to plan and promote updates to VRA.. not attempt to defend status quo.
Does this suck? Yes. But we’ve tried the ostrich method, and that fails.
Omnes Omnibus
@Brachiator: Gerrymandering to win as many seats as possible results in lots of narrow victories. If one does that and the tide turns, it results in massive swings.
Cervantes
@Brachiator:
I agree — but are you saying these tactics do not anticipate demographic shifts?
RSA
@Mike J:
I’m not a lawyer, but I have the impression that a lot of U.S. laws differentiate similar crimes based on the intent of the person committing the crime. And of course we can only infer intent, i.e., try to read minds. (We’re pretty good at it! Given evidence.) So it’s not as though hate crimes are unique.
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: The main way they gerrymander is to create a district with 80 – 90% minorities & then all surrounding districts are lily white. Think of a circle that has black citizens living in middle third with whites living in ring around. Then divide that circle into 6 pie shaped pieces. That was the old way usually used. Thus each pie shaped piece had 25% minority population. Democratic candidates could get all those 25% minority voters and enough whites to win these seats.
Now what the Repubs do is create a district in middle of circle that is 90% minority and then ring it with districts that are 95% white. Thus you have 1 district with Democratic rep (guess which one) and the remaining 5 are all Republican.
The diabolical thing here is that many minority lawmakers are OK with this as for sure a minority Democratic rep will win the one in the middle. In the pie shaped breakdown the Democratic winners were much more likely to be white.
Brachiator
Another interesting court decision:
russell
How the hell can a voter registration card not be considered an acceptable proof of identify for voting?
Omnes Omnibus
@Paul in KY: That form of gerrymander cannot be done everywhere though. There are an awful lot of sort 53-47% or thereabout districts out there. With increased turnout and changing demographics, they all become at risk for the GOP.
Roger Moore
@Omnes Omnibus:
That depends a bit on the basic demographics. There’s certainly a tradeoff between maximizing total number of seats and maximizing the safety of those seats, but you can get a very favorable tradeoff if the basic demographics start out in your favor. For example, consider a case where you start with a 53-47 advantage over the other party in a state with 10 districts. If you try to completely maximize your chances by creating 10 53-47 districts, you could lose everything with a relatively modest swing. OTOH, if you can put together just one district that favors the other party 74-26, you would be able to create 9 districts that go 56-44 for you, which makes them much safer. If you create two 75-25 districts for the other party, you could create 8 60-40 districts for your party. So you can get a lot of safety by compromising a bit on partisan advantage.
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore: Good points. Thanks.
gene108
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
The demographic wave is not as clear cut as people make it out to be.
On a national level, there are more minorities. But those minorities are not spread out all over the country evenly.
West Virginia, for example, is 90% white and I do not think an increase in the Hispanic or Asian populations is going to much effect West Virginia.
There are plenty of state and local races, where you have to appeal to white voters, because minorities do not live in those states.
I do not think Democrats are going to win back the Reagan Democrat voter. They completely jumped ship in 1994 and haven’t looked back since.
The way forward for Democrats is to keep their voters engaged in mid-terms, but I have no idea how to do this. I think as the Democrats become more populist / liberal, they may get people’s attention.
Right now, despite things getting better – not just economically, but socially as well with regards to crime rates, teen pregnancy, illegal drug use. etc. – people are just discouraged and feel government will not work for them. Give people some hope and I think things will tilt for Democrats more.
Brachiator
@Omnes Omnibus:
@Cervantes
It’s a one-two punch. There have been some articles suggesting that the GOP has made gerrymandering its primary strategy in an attempt to maintain a Republican majority. And it’s working extremely well.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/opinion/sunday/the-great-gerrymander-of-2012.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
There was a more detailed analysis of this in a past issue of the New York Review of Books, but I haven’t been able to find a link to that one.
An article by Elizabeth Drew looks at voter suppression, redistricting and other tactics:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/may/21/big-dangers-next-election/
Roger Moore
@russell:
Because it isn’t a picture ID. You could steal somebody’s voter registration card and use it to vote for them.
Patricia Kayden
“the question is whether or not Texas Republicans did it on purpose.”
No, the question is what made Republicans think they could get away with such an intentionally discriminatory law. Hope this law goes straight to the Supreme Court and is knocked the hell down.
Mark B.
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s why you combine gerrymandering and voter suppression. If the burgeoning demographic groups are cut out of the process, you can maintain the advantage in voters, even as the percentage of total population plummets.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mark B.: Yes, I do understand that. Thank you.
Mark B.
@Roger Moore: Not a likely scenario, IMO. Unless they can prevent the voter they stole the card from from voting, it’s very likely they would get caught and prosecuted. And the fact that that almost never happens seems to indicate that it would be pretty rare.
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: Thank God they can’t do that everywhere!
feebog
@Roger Moore:
Exactly right. I did a study on South Carolina and Ohio Gerrymandering a year ago or so. The districts are just as you described. A lot of Republicans with wins in the 56 to 59 percent range. The minority districts all went 75 percent or better. You are not going to capture many of those Gerrymandered Republican seats with those kind of numbers, even in a “wave” election.
Mark B.
@Omnes Omnibus: But really, it’s not all that common that gerrymandering involves slicing and dicing the constituency of the party you are trying to minimize. The problem with that strategy, as you mention, is that it creates districts that are relatively close and subject to demographic shifts. That’s called cracking. The Texas Legislature did that to Austin in 2011, making it the largest American city without its own congressional district. But, IMO, they didn’t do that to maximize the Republican districts, but just to spite Austin for not being Republican. The Texas Legislature has a long-standing vendetta against Austin.
A more common (and safer) strategy is called packing, where you try to put all of the voters for the opposition party into as few districts as possible, by creating districts with supermajorities of that party, as close to 100% as possible. Once you isolate those natural clusters of opposition (urban areas for Democrats), you can allocate the remaining oppo voters to a lot of districts so that you don’t give any of them enough to be close to having any influence.
The Texas Plan in 2011 used both packing and cracking, to minimize the number of Democratic districts, and maximize the number of safe Republican districts.
Mark B.
@feebog: You said it more concisely than I did. Packing and Cracking yields a plan with polarized districts, but you pack the opposition more tightly so that they get fewer districts, and you win the game of redistricting.
A few states have turned over their redistricting to nonpartisan commissions. I hope that trend continues. It’s never going to be fair as long as state legislatures draw their own districts.
Roger Moore
@Mark B.:
Sorry. In case it wasn’t clear, I was giving the public justification, not the real reason for doing it. Obviously, the real reason is that voter ID wouldn’t be effective in suppressing the minority vote if you couldn’t restrict the kinds of ID allowed to kinds minorities are less likely to have.
Mark B.
@Roger Moore: No worries. You were probably clear enough, I just didn’t get it. I can be dense. In any case we agree that it’s not a good justification for not allowing voters to use registration cards for voting.
NonyNony
@gene108:
I think the “Reagan Democrat” voter who jumped ship and never came back is a myth. Not in the sense that there weren’t individual voters that you could point at (my Dad, for example, was a Democrat until 1980, an independent in 1980, and a solid Republican since about 1982) but they tend to follow the standard parameters for shifting votes due to Southern Strategy or their own changing demographics (my dad went from labor to management in 1979, and the lower eschalons of upper management by 1984. So I don’t use him typically as an example of a “Reagan Democrat” because I strongly suspect that his anti-tax nature was driven more by the fact that he had more money and was in a higher tax bracket than by Reagan’s charms).
If you look at the numbers from Gallup , you can see the trend. Gallup has Humphrey with 38% in ’68, McGovern with 32% in ’72.
Search beyond that link (I don’t want to trip the spam filter here) and you can find similar results for other elections. Carter got 46% of the white vote in 1976, but then drops to 36% in 1980 – a re-adjustment BACK to how Humphrey and McGovern were performing against Nixon. Then you get Mondale with 34% in 1984, Dukakis with 41% in 1988, and Clinton with 39 and 46 (!) percent in ’92 and ’96 respectively. Gore got 43% and Kerry got 44%. And Obama got 45 and 44% in his two elections.
You have to go back to Johnson in ’64 to find a Democrat who got more than 50% of the white vote – Johnson got a whopping 59%. But Kennedy in ’60 got only 49% of the white vote, and after Johnson signed the CRA there was no way the Dems weren’t going to lose the racists from the coalition that FDR put together for the New Deal during the Depression.
IOW – if there were any “Reagan Democrats” they were literally Reagan Democrats. When Reagan left office they had come back by the time Clinton was elected. Anyone else you know who transitioned permanently from being a Democrat to being a Republican and stuck with it after Reagan are just people whose ideology shifted as they aged – but there isn’t a huge migration of white voters from Dem to Republican when Reagan came along – they’d already moved that way by the time Nixon was elected.
Brachiator
@Mark B.:
It’s amazing how easily technology assists with this. From the NY Times article previously quoted:
As you suggest, the only remedy for this are honest, nonpartisan commissions.
boatboy_srq
@Kay: Dogwhistle=Newspeak, no? Honestly. And it goes back decades. One more reason I love Trump’s candidacy: he doesn’t bother with the code words, and watching the rest squirm when he lands the stark terms of racism and bigotry front and center is just doubleplusgood.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Cervantes:
I try not to drag arguments across threads because I think it’s rude to do that when the person may or may not be around to defend themselves, but feel free to read this thread from 2 days ago:
https://balloon-juice.com/2015/08/04/open-thread-he-doesnt-play-by-a-set-of-rules/
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
No, thanks.
I thought you said you were paraphrasing someone. Who was it?
A guy
If they can’t figure out how to get eligible to vote perhaps they shouldnt
Kropadope
@A guy: If money and bureaucracy are an insurmountable obstacle, maybe the state is doing something wrong. It’s very difficult to replace birth certificates in some places, for example. Also, government issued IDs are expensive. Especially if you need to get several other IDs as a requirement to get the ID that makes you actually eligible to vote. If the state is going to require you to have an ID, it should provide one at no cost, otherwise what you have is an unconstitutional poll tax.
Also, look at the IDs these states make acceptable; drivers licenses, military IDs, and gun licenses. Which IDs aren’t good? Student IDs, tax receipts. These laws clearly favor the well-off and people with Republican-approved lifestyles.
A guy
Kropeadope eventually people have to take responsibility for themselves. You only provide an excuse not to. You are the problem not the solution to what is ailing society
Kropadope
@A guy: You fascists need to take responsibility for yourselves, for the uncalled for harm that you inflict on millions of Americans and god knows how many foreigners every day.