Texas claims voter ID is necessary




Dave McNeely

Dave McNeely

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton watched in New Orleans May 24 as Scott Keller, the state’s solicitor general, argued that Texas’ Voter ID law isn’t an illegal hindrance to would-be voters.

A federal Texas district judge and a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals have previously ruled that the Texas law does discriminate, violating Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act.

Keller argued before the full 15 members of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals – an en banc hearing Paxton had requested.

The court is considered one of the nation’s most conservative appellate courts: 10 of its 15 members were appointed by Republican presidents.

“The point of this law is to make sure that voter fraud isn’t occurring,” Keller told The Texas Tribune outside the courthouse. “It’s not to suppress voter turnout.”

The two lower courts ruled it has a “discriminatory effect” on minorities, the elderly and lower-income people.

Paxton released a statement from New Orleans, saying the ID law is needed.

“Safeguarding the integrity of our elections process is essential to preserving our democracy, and our common-sense law provides simple protections to ensure our elections accurately reflect the will of the voters of Texas,” Paxton said.

U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, the lead plaintiff in the Texas suit, said the new Congressional Voting Rights Caucus will be working to strike down laws in Texas and other states that require showing a photo ID to vote.

The Texas voter ID law is “the clearest manifestation of modern day suppression tactics,” Veasey said at the launching of the caucus. “They must be done away with immediately so that everyone can have full access to the ballot box.”

Texas requires one of seven types of picture identification be presented to vote: a Texas driver’s license, a free Texas election identification card, a Texas personal identification card, a Texas concealed handgun license, a U.S. military identification card, a U.S. passport, or a U.S. Citizenship certificate.

The Texas photo ID law is the strictest in the nation. Other states with voter ID laws allow more types of identification to be used.

Texans can get a free election ID card, but have to show a birth certificate to do so. A state university ID card won’t work.

The law – Senate Bill 14 – was passed in 2011. Despite the two courts having called it discriminatory, it has remained in force since 2013, while the U.S. Supreme Court considers cases from Texas and other states.

The high court has set a deadline of July 20 for the full Fifth Circuit to make its decision. The final decision could come in time to affect the Nov. 8 general election.

*******

Trans-gender Turmoil. . . . Paxton’s busy week included a press conference back in Austin May 25 announcing a lawsuit challenging the Obama administration’s declaration that public schools must allow transgender students to use bathrooms of the sex with which they identify.

Failure to do so could risk federal spending to the state, administration officials said.

Paxton said 10 other states are joining Texas in the challenge, filed in federal district court in Wichita Falls: Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

With Paxton at the press conference was David Thweatt, superintendent of schools for the Harrold Independent School District, in rural Wilbarger County in North Texas, on whose behalf the suit was filed.

Thweatt said his 100-student district’s school board passed the policy on May 23 that students must use bathrooms or locker rooms of the sex on their birth certificates.

“Our local schools,” Paxton said, “are now in the crosshairs of the Obama administration, which maintains it will punish those schools who do not comply with its orders.

“These schools are facing the potential loss of school funding for simply following common sense policies that protect their students,” Paxton said.

The administration’s declaration is “just the latest example of the current administration’s attempts to accomplish by executive fiat what they couldn’t accomplish through the democratic process in Congress,” Paxton said .

Thweatt said his district receives about $117,000 a year in federal funds.

He was asked how many of the 100 students, ranging from kindergarten through 12th grade, were transgender.

“None that we know of, right now,” Thweatt said.

The next day, the Texas Tribune reported that Paxton’s office had asked Thweatt’s school district to pass the bathroom rules, as grounds for filing a suit.

The Tribune also learned that the Wichita Falls school district’s board was asked by Paxton’s office several days earlier to pass rules defying the administration’s order.

But the board and its superintendent declined, believing they already comply with the federal order.

Contact McNeely at davemcneely111@gmail.com or (512) 458-2963.


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.