Boy the federal courts are having its way with Texas these
past couple of days, with one right cross delivered by a three-judge panel of
the US District Court for the District of Columbia yesterday, where they rejected redistricting maps drawn by the Republican-dominated Texas legislature, and then just a
couple of hours ago, a haymaker landed by a federal appeals court in Washington
that blocked Texas’ recently passed voter ID law.
In the redistricting case, the DC court ruled that the
Republican-drawn district maps discriminated against Hispanic and
African-American voters, something that Democrats have been saying since drafts
of the maps were first unveiled in 2011.
In the Voter ID case, the Washington Court of Appeals ruled
that the recently passed law would seriously curtail the ability of minorities
to vote in elections. Among the arguments that backed up the ruling, the court
wrote that those without documents (like birth certificates) to obtain a photo
ID would have to purchase them, discouraging poor voters, indeed federal
prosecutors argued that this law created an illegal poll tax that was eliminated
by the Voting Rights Act.
Ouch and ouch. Texas Republican legislators were caught with
their hands in the cookie jar of blatant racial discrimination, that is, if you
make it hard for only minorities to vote, that makes you an unmistakable and
blatant racist.
How embarrassing for Texas Republicans.
How embarrassing for them as they sit in the final evening
of their Mittsterfest in Tampa, celebrating the nomination of a man whose own
religious sect until just recently rejected the notion of having an
African-American assume high places in the LDS hierarchy.
Next thing you know they are going to want to take another
look at “separate but equal” in our public school system.
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