In 2003 I helplessly watched from a distance as the GW Bush controlled Department of Justice allowed the jacked up Delaymandering to happen. It put the GOP on the path to a supermajority in the Lege and trampled all over the rights of minority voters in Texas.
Fast forward to 2012 and another Republifool overreach in passing a restrictive ALEC designed Voter ID law designed to suppress the voting rights of non-white Texas.
Thanks to the 1965 Voting Rights Act, any changes in voting procedures or election laws because of Texas' past discriminatory history have to be 'precleard' by the DOJ. And in the Obama Administration's DOJ, this bill didn't have a chance. The DOJ struck it down, noting that the ID requirement would disproportionately affect our state's Latino voters.
“Even using the data most favorable to the state, Hispanics disproportionately lack either a driver’s license or a personal identification card,” wrote Thomas Perez, head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, in a letter to Keith Ingram, director of elections for the Texas Secretary of State.
Texas has been a majority-minority state population wise since 2000 and every move the GOP has made since then has been calculated to keep power in this state in GOP hands as long as possible. The last thing they want to see is the Lone Star State going back to its progressive roots and becoming a swing state like Florida.
You know this bill is jacked up and discriminatory when a gun license is acceptable ID to vote but a student ID issued by a Texas college isn't.
You know the Republifools are going to appeal it, but for now, all I'll and my fellow Texans will need to show at the polls when I go to cast my ballot is are our voter registration cards.
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