Divided federal appeals court says Texas ID law is discriminatory and violates Voting Rights Act

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Daily Kos Staff

Thursday July 21, 2016 · 8:25 AM PDT

2016/07/21 · 08:25

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A plurality of a deeply divided 5th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court ruling Wednesday that the Texas ID law is racially discriminatory and violates the Voting Rights Act. Seven of the court’s 15 judges signed the ruling, with two others mostly in agreement, but there were six dissents. Rick Hasen, proprietor of the highly respected Election Law Blog wrote about the complicated ruling in Slate:

[This is] good news for those who believe such laws are discriminatory and do nothing to prevent voter fraud. But there is potentially much better news buried within the eight separate opinions of the 203-page ruling, which comes from one of the most conservative courts in the nation. There you’ll find a road map for returning Texas’ voting rules to the supervision of the federal government. That’s something that states like Texas—which has passed laws that handicap a portion of its voting-age population—have proved they still need.’ [...]

The ruling is one of two—the other being the 7th Circuit Court decision on Wisconsin’s strict voter ID law—that may ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court. Besides Texas and Wisconsin, seven other states have strict voter ID laws that could be affected by a decision from the Supreme Court.

The 2011-passed Texas voter ID law, the nation’s strictest, mandates that only a short list of IDs can be used by voters to identify themselves at the polls. These include a driver’s license, military ID, passport, gun permit, citizenship certificate with photo, but not a tribal or college student ID.

The trial court had ruled that the law discriminated against minorities because they are more likely to be poor than other citizens and face more obstacles in obtaining proper ID.

The appeal court’s ruling did not toss out the whole law but remanded it to the trial court level to work out a remedy for the discriminatory part of the law. The Circuit Court judges were unwilling to rule that the law had been intentionally passed with discriminatory intent. But trial court could do so. And if such a decision were upheld on appeal, Hasen writes, then Texas would again find itself having to pre-clear any changes in voting laws just as it did before the Supreme Court gutted Section 4 and mooted Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

Jim Malewitz at The Texas Tribune reported:

Voting rights advocates were quick to praise the appeals court's overall decision Wednesday.

“We have repeatedly proven — using hard facts — that the Texas voter ID law discriminates against minority voters,” Gerry Hebert, executive director of the Campaign Legal Center and an attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a statement. “The 5th Circuit’s full panel of judges now agrees, joining every other federal court that has reviewed this law. We are extremely pleased with this outcome.”

Definitely good news. But even after five years of challenges, the ultimate outcome remains undecided.

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