In early September, a court in Corpus Christi begins a trial that should decide whether the current law requiring Texas voters to show government-issued photo identification before casting a ballot is constitutional. As it has happened with cases over redistricting, the Texas voter ID fight is expected to get national attention because two years ago a three-judge federal court in Washington ruled the 2011 legislation unconstitutional.
Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican gubernatorial candidate, discussed voting rights, redistricting and Texas' voter ID law at a panel in Austin on Sept. 28 and made the argument that the Affordable Care Act would not have passed into law without "voter fraud." Abbott, speaking at the Texas Tribune festival, said Minnesota Senator Al Franken won his seat, which was decided by a 312-vote margin, because of voter fraud and that his subsequent vote on the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, wouldn't have been cast.
Pretty soon, the right to cast a meaningful vote might be just a memory. The issue at hand is ensuring that American citizens can exercise the most fundamental civil right of being an American.
Former U.S. Solicitor General Clement told U.S. Supreme Court justices that lower federal courts cannot redraw state-approved election district maps unless they can point to concrete "identifying specific statutory or constitutional violations."
The most consequential election in our lifetime is still 10 months away, but it's clear from the Obama administration's order halting South Carolina's new photo ID law that the Democrats already have brought a gun to a knife fight. How else to describe this naked assault on the right of a state to create minimal requirements to curb vote fraud?