This morning the United States Supreme Court announced their decision in Shelby County v Holder, a critical case in the fight for voting rights. The court did not address Section 5, the preclearance provision, but strikes down Section 4, the coverage formula, thereby placing the responsibility on Congress to create a new formula. The country will be effectively without the preclearance provision until they do. This is a devastating blow for voting rights.
Contact your member of Congress today and tell them to immediately act to craft a preclearance coverage formula that will protect the voting rights of all Americans!
Implications For Texas of a Negative Outcome:
The Brennan Center has recently released a report discussing the possible impact of an adverse decision. Those include:
A. Jurisdictions May Attempt To Revive Blocked Discriminatory Changes
B. Jurisdictions May Try To Push Forward On Discriminatory Voting Changes That Were Deterred By Section 5
C. Jurisdictions May Attempt To Implement Changes That Have Been Enacted But Not Yet Reviewed Under Section 5
D. Jurisdictions May Try To Pass New Restrictive Changes
E. Jurisdictions May Try To Implement Blocked Voting Changes That Remain On The Books
Given Texas’ long and storied history of violations of the Voting Rights Act, expect all of the above, both on the state and local level.
The two biggest issues that would be impacted are redistricting and photo voter id.
Redistricting – This decision makes the current Texas redistricting mess even messier. There is currently litigation pending on two tracks, one at the Supreme Court where the State has appealed a lower court decision denying preclearance under Section 5, and one before a three judge panel in San Antonio that is hearing challenges to the maps based on discrimination claims. The Supreme Court appeal is now moot. The San Antonio court has been waiting on the Texas legislature’s effort to adopt the court-drawn interim maps as permanent, which could further complicate the legal proceedings. Now that the legislature has adopted those maps and the Shelby case has been decided, expect to see the San Antonio court hold a hearing soon to determine what happens next in that case with the challenges that were brought under Section 2 of the VRA, which is still intact. For more information on Texas redistricting, click here.
Voter ID – Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has made clear his position that “If Section 5 is struck down, the Voter ID law takes effect.” This decision means that Texas could immediately begin implementing the voter id law. However, it will take some time for elections officials to get ready, so it’s uncertain when the first election would be requiring photo voter id. We know from the evidence presented in the litigation that thousands of Texans lack the forms of identification that would be required by the photo voter id law (SB 14) and would potentially be disenfranchised. For more information on the Texas photo voter id case, click here.
Michael Li also has an excellent take on Texas implications on the Texas Redistricting blog.
We’ll have more details later. Visit the Shelby County v Holder Resource page for more information.
Sincerely,
Sondra Haltom
President
Empower The Vote Texas
512-298-2014