Republican legislators in Texas have come up with a new voter ID law meant to block many women from voting in the next election. Like other voter ID laws in Texas and other parts of the country, Republicans have decided that if they can no longer win elections fairly, then they will just find a way to block voters who are likely not to vote for them.
The law that goes into effect November 5 requires women to show a valid form of ID with their legal names without exception for women who are divorced or recently married. It also will effectively block transgender individuals, simply because their ID may be different to some degree from what it shows on their voter registrations.
The reason for the new law probably has to do with state legislator Wendy Davis (D) who is running for governor after she gained popularity from staging an 11-hour filibuster to block an abortion bill Republicans were pushing through the state legislator. Her popularity among women of the state has Republicans worried that she might possibly succeed, handing the governor's seat over to Democrats.
This is only the latest in a series of Voter ID laws and other voter laws across the country since 2010, which shows the desperation that the GOP is suffering from as their politics drifts further away from the mainstream of America. This is all thanks to party extremist who have taken the party far to the right and out of touch with average American voters.
It would seem Republican lawmakers have not learned their lesson from 2012 when several Republican controlled states pushed through voter Id laws and other laws that made it more difficult for likely Democratic voters, such as minorities and college students to vote. What the laws seem to do instead was motivate those same voters to pour out at the polls, even when it meant standing in long lines at the polls in poor urban areas. That motivation also was what helped propel President Obama into a second term in the White House and probably help keep or gain Democratic seats in both the U.S. House and Senate.
Now it is women, which make up more than half the population that Republicans in Texas wish to disenfranchise, just in hopes to keep Wendy Davis from winning the governor seat in Texas. I suppose some lessons are hard to learn and I am hoping that again, this will motivate women to the polls more than it will block them. We all have heard that old saying, "Don't mess with Texas". Well, I have a new saying, "Don't mess with the women of Texas", or for that matter, all of America's women. That's because women are not a minority in this great nation of ours, they're a majority and if they get the feeling their voting rights are being blocked, I would not want to be the male legislators standing in their way.
This is a republish from my website: Fidlerten Place