Texas: SCOTUS Voting Rights Decision Clears The Way For Implementing Voter ID Law

 

As you might know, the Supreme Court recently struck down  Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act that dated from 1965, almost half a century ago. The section that they removed dealt with the necessity of sovereign states in the South  needing to seek federal approval before making any changes to their voting laws.

Aside from being unconstitutional, these provision were antiquated a long time ago. But they were still used as a political tool by the Democrats until now, a massive irony considering who actually was the party of Jim Crow.

One thing the new decision did was to allow Texas to implement a law requiring voter IDs that the state legislature passed overwhelmingly in 2011/. The law was identical to one implemented in Indiana, but Texas was prevented from implementing their law by President Obama's justice department. So the courts did their work and that obstacle to equality under th elaw has now been removed.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott had this to say:

“This is a huge win for the Constitution and for equality in this country,” Abbott said. “Before today, different states were treated differently under the Constitution. The Voting Rights Act is the only law that was used to impose disparate or different kind of treatment. Specifically, Texas was called out and treated differently than other states.”

Abbott noted that Indiana approved a voter ID law a few years ago and had that law upheld by the Supreme Court. But when Texas passed a nearly identical law in 2011, the Obama administration used the Voting Rights Act to block it.

“That just showed that they were using the Voting Rights Act law to treat Texas different from Indiana, and that was part of the backdrop behind today’s decision,” Abbott said. The court ruled today that that law was being used “unfairly, illegally, inappropriately, therefore it was unconstitutional,” Abbott said.

Now that this tool for voter fraud has been rendered inoperable, we may see far different results in Texas elections. Unfortunately too late fop rth e2012 elections, but still welcome.