The battle over voter ID laws continues as Republicans do their best to win elections by cheating people out of their right to vote. But, because these laws are being rightfully challenged in the courts, Republicans are beginning to lose in their efforts to quash democracy over mythological voter fraud. Another major blow was dealt to conservatives as the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled a voter ID law in Texas must be weakened due to its blatant discrimination against poor and minority groups. And the real salt in the wound for the GOP on this ruling: two-thirds of the judges in the decision were appointed by Republican presidents.
That’s right. Fifteen judges ruled 9-6 in favor of weakening the law before this year’s presidential election in November. Of those fifteen judges, ten were appointed by Republican presidents. The breakdown, according to the judges’ biographies, goes like this: six appointed by George W. Bush, four by Ronald Reagan, three by Barack Obama, and two by Bill Clinton. In other words, despite conservatives complaints about “activist” judges who often rule against their discriminatory laws, their own appointees just clobbered their ridiculous voter ID law.
This ruling is a significant loss for Republicans since this was considered one of the harshest voter ID laws in the country. According to CBS News:
Elections experts widely agree that the Texas law, which accepted concealed handgun licenses but not college IDs, was the toughest in the nation…Elections experts have testified that Hispanics were twice as likely and blacks three times more likely than whites to lack an acceptable ID under the law. They also said lower-income Texas residents were more likely to lack underlying documents to obtain a free state voting ID.
In short, it was a Republican assault on poor and minority communities and an effort to deprive them of their voting rights.
And if that language sounds too harsh to the GOP, there’s more this ruling may do:
Aside from fixing the law for now, the court also ordered a later re-evaluation of whether Texas’ Republican-controlled Legislature intentionally discriminated against minorities in pursuing the law. If a court ultimately finds that was the case, Texas could be punished and ordered to seek federal approval before changing future voting laws.
Ouch! When you are already having to answer for a bigoted presidential candidate, this isn’t going to help trick people into thinking your party has a proverbial “big umbrella”.
On top of all that, this wasn’t the first court case conservatives lost on voter ID laws this week. Wisconsin’s strict voter ID law was blocked by a federal judge just one day prior to this ruling. Voters in Wisconsin can now vote by simply signing an affidavit attesting to their identity, which could have a major impact on the close Senate race going on there.
Republicans will, no doubt, continue to push for tougher voter ID laws despite the fact there is overwhelming evidence fraud very, very, very rarely ever happens. But one thing is abundantly clear: they are losing in the courts. And if they can’t win with a conservative-dominated court in the deep South, they will almost never win anywhere. Which means their efforts will just be a massive waste of everyone’s time and taxpayers’ dollars. Fiscally responsible, they are not.