DOJ to Push Back on Texas Voter ID Laws

In a welcome show of political courage, Attorney General Eric Holder announced in a speech before the National Urban League that the Department of Justice would try to stop Texas from implementing voter ID laws which, following the recent Supreme Court Ruling gutting section 4 of the Voting Rights act, had again become possible.

“This is the department’s first action to protect voting rights following the Shelby County decision, but it will not be our last,” Mr. Holder said. “Even as Congress considers updates to the Voting Rights Act in light of the court’s ruling, we plan, in the meantime, to fully utilize the law’s remaining sections to subject states to preclearance as necessary. My colleagues and I are determined to use every tool at our disposal to stand against such discrimination wherever it is found.”

As GOP Chairman Rob Gleason said on a Pennsylvania Cable Network earlier this week, the party “cut Obama by 5 percent” in 2012 and “probably Voter ID had helped a bit in that.”