LEGAL/VOTING: “A federal judge on Wednesday [8-23-17] struck down Texas’ 2011 voter-identification law and rejected a less-restrictive version of the measure that state legislators passed this year.
The rulings block a state voter ID law from being enforced, and are the latest blow to Texas Republican lawmakers who have tried for years to implement voter identification requirements. GOP Texas lawmakers vowed to appeal.
U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos reaffirmed her earlier ruling that Texas’ 2011 law ‘was enacted with discriminatory intent—knowingly placing additional burdens on a disproportionate number of Hispanic and African-American voters.’
She also determined that the amended version of the law didn’t meaningfully solve the problems of discrimination against voters and was still too stringent in terms of the types of identification it required.
Wednesday’s ruling grants a permanent injunction against most of the 2011 law, and the revamped version.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, said Wednesday that he would appeal the ruling, calling it ‘outrageous.’ In a statement, he said the Trump administration’s Justice Department was satisfied the new, amended version of the law had ‘no discriminatory purpose or effect.’
The Justice Department filed a brief earlier this month asking Judge Gonzales Ramos to stop efforts to overturn the amended version of the law, signaling the department’s support for the new version of the law under the Trump administration.”
-Dan Frosch, “U.S. Judge Rejects Texas Voter Law as ‘Discriminatory’,” The Wall Street Journal online, Aug. 23, 2017 10:10pm