By Brendan Kirby
PoliZette
(August 24, 2017)
The decision by a federal judge to strike down Texas’ revised voter identification law is only a minor setback, according to legal experts and voter integrity advocates.
U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos, appointed to the bench by former President Barack Obama, ruled that the new law did not ameliorate the concerns she cited with the original statute.
But Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative at The Heritage Foundation, predicted the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would reverse the lower court.
“The state’s very likely to win on appeal,” he said. “She’s an Obama-appointed judge, and she’s shown her ideological bias here in this latest ruling, as she has throughout this case.”
In her decision, Ramos wrote that the new law, known as SB 5, does not impact her finding that the legislature intended to discriminate against minority voters when it passed the original law, SB 14.
“Even if such a turning back of the clock were possible, the provisions of SB 5 fall far short of mitigating the discriminatory provisions of SB 14, as detailed more fully below,” she wrote.
“Along with continued provisions that contribute to the discriminatory effects of the photo ID law, SB 5 on its face embodies some of the indicia of discriminatory purpose — particularly with respect to the enhancement of the threat of prosecution for perjury regarding a crime unrelated to the stated purpose of preventing in-person voter impersonation fraud.”
Von Spakovsky faulted the judge for finding that lawmakers intended to make it harder for minorities to vote.
“There’s no evidence of that at all,” he said.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton immediately announced Wednesday that the state would appeal.
