The GOP war on voting in the D.C. Circuit Court
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
On Monday, a panel of federal Judges on the D.C. Circuit Court began trial of the case of the U.S. Department of Justice challenge to the Texas voter photo ID requirement. POLITICO reports Texas voter ID trial opens:
The case, which could make its way to the Supreme Court, is the first major federal court showdown in this election cycle over a series of laws Republican-controlled state legislatures have approved that require voters to show photo identification at the polls.
In March, the Justice Department Civil Rights Division refused to clear the Texas law, known as Senate Bill 14, saying Texas officials had failed to prove that it wouldn’t adversely affect minorities.
As the trial got under way in a packed courtroom, DOJ trial attorney Elizabeth Westfall went even further, arguing that the federal government will show racial motivation in Texas’s passage of the law.
“The facts will convincingly demonstrate the discriminatory purpose and effect of Senate Bill 14,” Westfall told the three-judge panel in her brief opening argument in a trial expected to last through Friday.
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The law, signed by Republican Gov. Rick Perry in May 2011, requires nearly all voters to show photo ID when voting in person. Most forms of state-issued photo ID, including driver’s licenses and firearms permits, are accepted. However, student IDs from Texas state universities are not.
Last year, South Carolina passed a similar law, which the Justice Department also rejected. South Carolina has also filed suit, but that case has yet to come to trial.
Under federal law, lawsuits seeking so-called “pre-clearance” of changes to voting procedures in all of seven mostly Southern states and parts of nine others, are heard by three-judge panels composed of two district court judges and an appeals court judge. D.C. Circuit Judge David Tatel and District Court Judges Rosemary Collyer and Robert Wilkins were selected to hear the Texas voter ID case.