“A REPUBLICAN FORM OF GOVERNMENT”
by Sharon Rondeau
(Jul. 3, 2013) — In a little-reported decision, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled a federal district court’s ruling last year that a voter identification law passed by the Texas legislature in 2011 could not be implemented.
The law requires that state-issued photo identification be shown by all residents in order to vote.
On Tuesday, June 25, the court ruled that parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were no longer applicable to current conditions in the areas previously targeted by Congress as having been discriminatory against certain groups of persons attempting to cast a vote. Two days later, the court overturned the lower court’s ruling on the Texas law.
The U.S. Justice Department had objected to the law on the grounds that Texas, having been one of the states cited in the Civil Rights Act, had not obtained permission to change its voting laws as laid out in the 1965 federal statute.
A federal appeals court had heard the case last July and sided with the U.S. Justice Department, which had said that the law discriminated against “eligible Hispanic voters.” Thomas Perez, Obama’s nominee for Labor Secretary but has not yet been confirmed, is head of the Civil Rights Division at Justice and claimed that Hispanics in Texas “disproportionately lack either a driver’s license or a personal identification card.”
Texas was one of the states in which areas had been identified as having been discriminatory during the Civil Rights era of the 1960s and before.
After the ruling on June 26, the state of Texas began to prepare for its law to be activated, which includes the issuance of Election Identification Certificates (EICs) at no cost to eligible voters who do not possess a driver’s license.
Military and passport photo identifications are considered acceptable to establish the right to vote.
In its ruling last Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court also allowed Texas redistricting plans to go forward.
South Carolina had also passed a voter identification law which the Justice Department had challenged in 2011. Some claimed that the Justice Department under Eric Holder had placed “politics and ideology” over “clear legal precedent.” South Carolina appealed Justice’s claims and won its case in October, although too late to apply to the November 2012 election. However, the law was applied to the special election created by the appointment of Rep. Tim Scott to fill the vacancy left by former Senator Jim DeMint, who now heads The Heritage Foundation.
The Connecticut Secretary of State decried the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Voting Rights Act, claiming that her state is “moving in the opposite direction” in an attempt to allow more people to vote.
Voter identification laws passed in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were also blocked from taking effect in 2012.
The Founders of the U.S. Constitution wrote in Article IV, Section 4 that the states were to be guaranteed a “republican form of government,” meaning that each was its own republic and could make its own laws as determined by a majority of the people.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry was pleased at the Supreme Court’s ruling, stating that it was “a clear victory for federalism and the states.”