A federal judge delivered a decisive one-two punch Wednesday to Texas Republicans, issuing a permanent injunction on two Texas voter ID laws—the original 2011 law, SB14, and SB5, in which the Texas GOP tried to remedy the original law by loosening its restrictions.
U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos of Corpus Christi wrote:
...the only appropriate remedy for SB14's discriminatory purpose or discriminatory result is an injunction against enforcement of that law and SB5, which perpetuates SB14's discriminatory features. With respect to the VRA § 2 discriminatory purpose finding, elimination of SB14 "root and branch" is required, as the law has no legitimacy.
Ouch.
The Austin American-Statesman has some background on the lengthy path to this ruling, which originated when Texas Republicans passed one of the nation's most restrictive voter ID laws in 2011:
Civil rights groups, Democratic politicians and minority voters sued in 2013, arguing that the Republican-backed law violated the U.S. Voting Rights Act by targeting low-income, Latino and African American voters, who were less likely to have approved forms of ID but more likely to vote for Democratic candidates.
Ramos agreed, and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld most of her ruling in 2016, saying the voter ID law discriminated against minorities and poor people, infringing on the voting rights of about 600,000 registered Texas voters who lacked a government-issued photo ID.
The appeals court, however, said Ramos’ work wasn’t done and returned the case to Corpus Christi with instructions to determine whether the law was written to be intentionally discriminatory.
It was, Ramos ruled in April — dismissing Republican assertions that the law was intended to combat fraud, with the judge calling that rationale a “pretext” to suppress the voting rights of minorities and reduce support for Democrats.
Wednesday’s ruling pertained to the remedies for the 2011 law, which was apparently irredeemable even though Jeff Sessions’ Justice Department had declared the fixes “constitutionally legal and valid.”
More background from our own Stephen Wolf on the April ruling and the redistricting Armageddon Texas Republicans now face.