Voter ID Laws and Texas Senate Bill 14
Contributed by Bethany Cook, freshman
When the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals decided that Texas SB14 of 2011 was a violation of the Voting Rights Act, the court sided with easily disenfranchised voters. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was put in place to put a stop to racial gerrymandering and the restrictions on minority voters as an effort to lessen the effect of their vote.
The 5th Circuit Court’s intervention of the Senate Bill serves as a perfect example of federalism, which is defined by Benson, Clinkscale, and Giardino as “the constitutional sharing of power between national and state governments” (34). Although the Texas government implemented the bill, the federal government always has the final say.
The quote that best supports my argument would be that of Edward Foley: “[a] potential solution to this problem is to break the connection with the photo requirement and the obligation to produce identification at the polls” (par. 8). Foley’s argument is in support of universal suffrage, or the idea that every legal adult should have the right to vote. The author is proposing a system where voters can have their pictures taken and stored in a database managed by the government, thus eliminating the need to provide ID at the polls and reducing the disenfranchisement of voters, such as minorities, the elderly, young adults, and the poor.
The quote by that states “race, class, and partisanship continue to be inextricably intertwined to the Civil Rights Era,” does not address these issues in the framework of voter ID laws. The author is speaking too broadly on the topic (Davidson 95).
The author who writes that “[t]here is no evidence that voter ID decreases the turnout of voters or has a disparate impact on minority voters, the poor, or the elderly” is in support of the Texas government’s decision to pass the Senate Bill in 2011, therefore disqualifying itself from supporting the 5th Circuit Court’s argument (Spakovsky).
Overall, the opposing views on this topic by both federal and state governments proves that it may be many more years before we reach a final solution to voter ID laws.
Also published on Medium.
