Texas voter ID law

Appeals court: Texas voter ID law violates Voting Rights Act

Opponents say the law disproportionately hurts minorities. 

By Josh Gerstein

A divided federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that the Texas voter identification law violates the Voting Rights Act because it has a discriminatory effect on minorities’ ability to vote.

The decision appears likely to result in the law being more loosely enforced for the upcoming November election, a result certain to please Democrats and civil rights groups, while irritating the measure’s Republican supporters. One possibility is that some forms of ID not allowed under current law might again be acceptable.

The 15-judge full bench of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals split, 9-6, as it endorsed U.S. District Court Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos’ holding that the voter ID law passed in 2011 and known as Senate Bill 14 had an illegal discriminatory effect.

“We cannot ignore that in passing SB 14, the Legislature carefully selected the types of IDs that would be required to vote,” Judge Catharina Haynes wrote for the court’s majority. “In doing so, the Legislature selected IDs that minorities disproportionately do not possess and excluded IDs that minorities possess in greater numbers, without providing sufficient justification for those choices.”

Dissenting judges warned that the court’s majority was opening the door to holding that all kinds of election practices violate the Voting Rights Act because they are likely to affect minority voters and those minorities have suffered some form of discrimination.

“Virtually any voter regulation that disproportionately affects minority voters can be challenged successfully under the majority’s rationale: polling locations; days allowed and reasons for early voting; mail-in ballots; time limits for voter registration; language on absentee ballots; the number of vote-counting machines a county must have; registering voters at a DMV (required by the federal Motor Voter law); holding elections on Tuesday,” Judge Edith Jones wrote, joined by four colleagues.

“Requiring a voter to verify her identity with a photo ID at the polling place is a reasonable requirement widely supported by Texans of all races and members of the public belonging to both political parties,” Jones said. “The majority has transformed Section 2 [of the Voting Rights Act] from a provision protecting the equal right of minority voters to exercise the franchise to a right of more convenient exercise.

While the 5th Circuit faulted the Texas law for its discriminatory effect, the appeals court reversed Ramos’ finding that that state legislators acted with a racially discriminatory purpose when they passed the measure.

Still, the 15 appeals court judges could not muster a majority for a key portion of their opinion faulting Ramos’ ruling on that point. Only seven judges joined that part of the 5th Circuit opinion.

The court did not split cleanly along partisan lines. A mix of Democratic and Republican appointees joined the nine-judge ruling upholding finding of discriminatory effect. All six justices who dissented on that point were GOP appointees considered among the court’s most conservative.

Democrats, African-American and Latino groups have been highly critical of the legislation, saying it appeared intended to depress minority voting. Republicans have said the measure is necessary to ensure only qualified voters are voting.

“Today, is a great day for all Texas voters! The most restrictive and discriminatory Republican voter ID law in [the] country has been struck down,” Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa said in a statement issued soon after the 5th Circuit ruling. “This is a huge win for voting rights in Texas and across our nation.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, expressed disappointment in the ruling but sought to highlight that the appeals court did not call for the entire statute to be thrown out.

“It is imperative that the State government safeguards our elections and ensures the integrity of our democratic process,” Paxton said in a statement. “Preventing voter fraud is essential to accurately reflecting the will of Texas voters during elections, and it is unfortunate that this common-sense law, providing protections against fraud, was not upheld in its entirety.”

A few weeks before the 2014 election, Ramos blocked enforcement of the law on a slew of grounds. At that time, a three-judge 5th Circuit panel stayed Ramos’ injunction. At that time the Supreme Court declined to step in and restore Ramos’ block on the statute. Three liberal justices dissented, saying her order should have been left in place.

Earlier this year, opponents of the Texas law again asked the Supreme Court to step in so that the issue could be resolved well before the November election. In an order in April, the justices turned down the request but said they’’d consider it again if the 5th Circuit did not rule by Wednesday.

On one of Ramos’ central conclusions — that the voter ID law amounted to a poll tax because it forced voters to purchase documents in order to qualify to vote — the appeals court judges were not at all divided. All 15 judges agreed that holding was an error.