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Supreme Court allows Texas to use controversial voter ID law Supreme Court allows Texas to use controversial voter-ID law
(about 5 hours later)
The Supreme Court in a pre-dawn order Saturday said Texas could proceed with its strict voter ID law in next month’s election, despite a lower court’s ruling that it was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court’s order that Texas can proceed with its strict voter-ID law in next month’s election ended what is likely to be just the first round in a legal battle over election-law changes made by Republican-led legislatures around the country.
The court gave no reasoning for its decision, but Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. In an order released just after 5 a.m. Saturday, the court said Texas could use a photo-ID law that has been described as the toughest in the nation. A district judge had declared after hearing testimony about the law that it was unconstitutional, and would keep hundreds of thousands of voters from casting ballots and disproportionately harm African Americans and Hispanics.
“The greatest threat to public confidence in elections in this case is the prospect of enforcing a purposefully discriminatory law, one that likely imposes an unconstitutional poll tax and risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters,” Ginsburg wrote. The Supreme Court’s unsigned order did not address the merits of the law, nor did it supply reasoning for the decision to allow it to be enforced.
An appeals court had said it was too close to the election to stop what has been described as the nation’s strictest photo ID law. The court has been called upon to make emergency decisions about laws in four states, including Texas, in recent weeks, and in each case has decided against intervening in a state’s plan for conducting elections so close to the start of voting.
But Ginsburg said the court had shirked its duty, since a district court after a full trial had said the law was written with discriminatory intent and could keep an estimated 600,000 registered voters from casting ballots. In the Texas case, it was impossible to discern how each justice voted, although Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg issued a stern dissent, which was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
Officials in Texas said they were pleased by the court’s decision. Ginsburg leaned heavily on the findings of U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos, and said both the appeals court and her colleagues should have deferred to the trial judge rather than allow a potentially unconstitutional law to be used simply because the election is at hand. Early voting in Texas begins Monday.
“The State will continue to defend the voter ID law and remains confident that the district court’s misguided ruling will be overturned on the merits,” Lauren Bean, deputy communications director at the Texas attorney general’s office, said in a statement. “The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that voter ID laws are a legal and sensible way to protect the integrity of elections.” “The greatest threat to public confidence in elections . . . is the prospect of enforcing a purposefully discriminatory law, one that likely imposes an unconstitutional poll tax and risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters,” Ginsburg wrote.
U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. called the court order “a major step backward,” letting stand a law that a federal court “had determined was designed to discriminate.” She said a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit had shirked its duty, since Ramos had agreed with the challengers that the law could keep an estimated 600,000 registered voters from casting ballots. Texas disputes the finding.
U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who had challenged the law, called the order a “major step backward.”
“It is true we are close to an election, but the outcome here that would be least confusing to voters is the one that allowed the most people to vote lawfully,” Holder said in a statement.“It is true we are close to an election, but the outcome here that would be least confusing to voters is the one that allowed the most people to vote lawfully,” Holder said in a statement.
It was the fourth time in recent weeks that the Supreme Court has been called on to decide whether changes in election laws approved by Republican-controlled state legislatures could be used in next month’s crucial midterm elections. Officials in Texas said they were pleased by the court’s decision.
The states said the changes were made to combat voter fraud, protect the public’s confidence in the electoral process and establish uniformity. Civil rights groups and Democrats who challenged the law said they were meant to suppress minority voting. “The state will continue to defend the voter ID law and remains confident that the district court’s misguided ruling will be overturned on the merits,” said a statement from Lauren Bean, deputy communications director for Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who is also the Republican candidate for governor. “The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that voter ID laws are a legal and sensible way to protect the integrity of elections.”
In each case, the court neither confronted the merits of the laws, nor did the majority explain its reasoning. The justices let changes go forward in Ohio and North Carolina, but they stopped a new voter ID law in Wisconsin. The Texas law, called SB 14, requires the state’s estimated 13.6 million registered voters to show one of seven kinds of photo identification to cast a ballot.
The common denominator in each seemed to be that it was too late in the election year to require the states to change the way they had planned to handle the elections. The state says the law will guard against voter fraud and protect public confidence in elections. But civil rights groups and the Justice Department said the state’s decisions about what kinds of identification will suffice — permits to carry concealed handguns qualify, for instance, while college IDs do not — are meant to suppress certain types of voters.
A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans used that reasoning to say the Texas law could be used in next month’s election despite the findings of a district judge that it unfairly and intentionally targeted African American and Hispanic voters. Ramos agreed with the challengers that black and Hispanic voters are more likely to lack the specific kinds of identification that Texas requires and would have more trouble than white voters in securing them.
The panel did not review the findings of Judge Nelva Gonzalez Ramos, instead saying it was following the Supreme Court’s previous rulings that courts should not intervene too closely to an election once the rules have been set. Early voting in Texas is scheduled to begin Monday. Ginsburg noted that those without proper ID may obtain an “election identification certificate” from the Texas Department of Public Safety, but more than 400,000 eligible voters face round-trip travel times of three hours or more to the nearest office.
“It will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the state to adequately train its 25,000 polling workers at 8,000 polling places” before the election, the panel wrote. For those and other reasons, the Texas law originally was blocked under Section 5 of the federal Voting Rights Act, which required states and localities with a history of discrimination to have election-law changes precleared by federal authorities.
The judges added that while some voters may be harmed by the 2011 law, it would be a greater problem to make changes that might disrupt a statewide election. But after the Supreme Court in 2013 effectively struck down that requirement, Texas began using the law in nonfederal elections and told the court that it has been implemented in state elections without the dire consequences the challengers predicted.
The Texas law, called SB 14, is considered to be one of the toughest voter ID laws in the nation. It requires the state’s estimated 13.6 million registered voters to show one of seven kinds of photo identification to cast a ballot. Texas said the Supreme Court in 2008 validated the use of photo IDs in a case involving an Indiana law. And in his filing with the court, Abbott denied that the state’s solidly Republican leadership had ulterior motives.
Ramos agreed with civil rights groups and the Justice Department , which challenged the law, that black and Hispanic voters are more likely to lack the specific kinds of identification that Texas requires and would have more trouble than white voters in securing them. She accepted the estimate that more than 600,000 registered voters lack proper ID, a figure that Texas disputes. “The legislature enacted SB 14 because voter identification laws are popular (as evidenced by their enactment in numerous states) and because they have been specifically approved by this court as a means to deter and detect fraud and improve public confidence in the election process,” Abbott wrote.
In asking the Supreme Court to block the law in the coming election, Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. told the court that the law has never been used in a federal election, and it would be easy for the state to simply allow voters to cast their ballots without showing the disputed identification.
“Texas cannot now contend that it is injured, let alone irreparably so, by having to remind poll workers about past voting procedures with which they are already intimately familiar,” he wrote.
“This is especially so given the state’s failure to obtain judicial preclearance for SB 14 in 2012 for precisely the same reasons: SB 14 has a harsh and discriminatory effect on African-American and Hispanic voters.”
Texas countered that it has used the law for non-federal elections and there has been no evidence that it has resulted in the disenfranchisement of minority voters. It also said Ramos’s finding that the legislature enacted the voter-ID law with discriminatory intent was unwarranted.
It noted that the Supreme Court validated an Indiana voter-ID law in 2008.
“The (Texas) legislature enacted SB 14 because voter identification laws are popular (as evidenced by their enactment in numerous states) and because they have been specifically approved by this court as a means to deter and detect fraud and improve public confidence in the election process,” wrote Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who is also the Republican candidate for governor in the coming election.
“A legislature is not racist for enacting a voting requirement that the Supreme Court has found to serve legitimate state interests — even if that requirement is alleged to have a disparate impact on racial minorities.”“A legislature is not racist for enacting a voting requirement that the Supreme Court has found to serve legitimate state interests — even if that requirement is alleged to have a disparate impact on racial minorities.”
In the other election cases, the justices said by a 5-to-4 vote that Ohio may reduce the number of days early voting is offered, agreed by a 7-to-2 voted that North Carolina could end same-day voter registration and blocked Wisconsin’s new voter-ID law, 6-to-3. In the past few weeks, the court has ruled on a number of emergency challenges to election laws rewritten by state legislatures and scheduled to be implemented in next month’s voting.
In each case, there was a different majority, and in each it reversed the decision of an appeals court. The court allowed Ohio to reduce the number of days early voting is offered and agreed that North Carolina could end same-day voter registration. But it blocked a new voter-ID law in Wisconsin, where early voting had already begun.
The majorities in each case did not give a reasoning for the decision. None of the decisions addressed the merits of the laws, although each will continue to be challenged, and it is likely that some will return to the Supreme Court.
U.S. Circuit Judge Edith Clement noted what the cases had in common in her ruling in the Texas case.
“The common thread is clearly that the decision of the Court of Appeals would change the rules of the election too soon before the election date,” she wrote.