Discrimination in Texas

The State of Texas has a sad legacy of discrimination against minorities that unfortunately is still alive when it comes to its political structure.

Two federal court decisions, independent from each other, condemned last week the redistricting in Texas and the voter ID law. In both cases, the Republican-led Texas Legislature acted against the interests of Latinos and African Americans, who usually vote Democratic.

First, Texas obtained four additional seats in the House of Representatives thanks to the population increase. The state added 4.3 million people, 65% of whom are Latinos. However, Latinos did not make any gains in the redistricting process. The law tolerates partisanship when drawing the new map, but not excluding minorities, as happened here.

Interestingly, Texas asked a federal court instead of the Justice Department to authorize its map, thinking the latter would be politically antagonistic. However, the justices found the map illegal.

Second, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that Texas is unable to explain why its law requiring IDs to vote is not discriminatory.

The biggest problem in this case is not the ID itself, but the Legislature’s efforts to make it harder to obtain a state ID. Also, the arbitrary selection of which documents are valid for voting and which are not. It being Texas, gun carry permits are accepted, while student IDs and Medicare ID cards are not accepted.

These decisions are the best argument of why Texas, like other Southern states, must continue to obtain preclearance from the Justice Department to change voting maps and electoral procedures.

Gov. Perry and the Republican-majority Legislature enacted a political system to stay in power for a long time, by deliberately excluding Latino and African-American voters.

Both cases show that the Voting Rights Act is as necessary today as it was over 45 years ago.