Few things in life give the Republican Party more grief than having anyone who is Black, Brown, Yellow, Red, disabled, elderly, poor, LGBT,liberal, a student or female and shod to exercise their Constitutional right to vote for candidates of their own choice. If any of that describes you, Republicans want to take your right to vote away. Fortunately, a US District Judge has ruled that Texas’ Voter ID law is illegal.
A FEDERAL judge ruled Wednesday that Texas’s voter identification law is illegal. Again. U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos had previously repudiated the state legislature’s toughest-in-the-nation ballot ID law, and the appeals court above her largely agreed. Now she has found that the state’s second try at imposing voter ID rules is not good enough, either. She is right.
Ms. Ramos found previously that the forms of ID the state would accept made things disproportionately more difficult for minority voters. Polling workers would accept gun licenses, which white people are more likely to carry. But they would not accept other forms of state-issued ID that minority voters might have in greater proportion. In fact, the list of acceptable ID was exceptionally narrow, especially compared with other states. After negative court rulings, the state expanded the list slightly — but not “meaningfully,” Ms. Ramos found. The discriminatory effect still existed.
In the state’s second try, the still-short list of acceptable ID was supposed to be offset by looser rules on casting a ballot in the absence of required documents, allowing people to vote if they explain why they do not have them. Ms. Ramos pointed out that people’s reasons for lacking ID are irrelevant to the question of whether those people are qualified to vote. The state insists that people without sufficient ID not only certify that they are eligible to vote, but also select a qualifying reason for lacking proper documents. The state attached stiff penalties for perjury on either question. In this way, the state would have discouraged people from voting when they did not know or understand whether they were qualified to claim an exemption…
From <Washington Post>
Kudos to Judge Ramos!
RESIST THE REPUBLICAN REICH!!
VOTE!!
18 Responses to “Power-crazed Republicans Fail Again”
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Hmmm. I am barefoot as I type, but that’s not because I don’t have shoes, it’s because my feet are so flat that barefoot is more comfortable as long as I am not on gravel or hot coals or anything equally painful. In fact, hubby claims I have “more shoes than the law allows,” but there isn’t actually a legal limit that I knoe of – YET.
I surely am glad that it was Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos who reuled on this and not Judge Linda R. Reade from this week’s Erinyes. But, of course, new appointments from the present regime are going to resemble Lind (a W Bush appointee) more than Nelva (an Obama appointee). It’s not JUST the Supreme Court. It’s ALL the Federal courts we need to worry about.
BTW, the “tropical storm” still being on, the Washington Post’s paywall should still be down, so anyone can click through without worrying about cutting themselves off from a future article. For now.
On a trivial (or maybe NOT so trivial) note – anyone else wondering what’s happening to all the voting machines in Texas right now?
WRT the Cartoon, I like this take on it from an unknown (at least to me) someone …
(Not sure why it’s so huge. I deleted it from the Library, then on my PC reduced the size and reloaded – but stayed the same original size.)
well said!
When the news here predicted that the hurricane would land in Corpus Christi first, my husband just looked at each other. Nothing further needed to be said between us.
One perfect riposte! Someone please send this to Pat Robertson!
Oft times, as the saying goes, “Silence speaks volumes.”
always saddens me when I hear of disasters with destruction and mortality/morbidity, but there is some irony or karma in deep texas with its ‘oil industry’ getting hit …..
Maybe Rumpy’s “laziness” will protect the judicial system, some.
In most other countries with the exception of Banana Republics, Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos’ (repeated) ruling would be considered a normal and therefore fair ruling, but the fact that she had to rule on it at all would be seen as strange, to put it mildly.
American democracy must be in a bad shape when we are cheering her ruling as excellent and are hoping she’s allowed to continue in this way in the future, as most left-leaning Americans are well aware that judicial appointments by the Drumpf administration will be disastrous and imperil American justice for a very long time to come.
In view of the resignation letters containing acrostics, I hope there is no significance to the order in which you put the three injunctions in your graphic.
Lordy, Kudos to U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos! Can we clone her??
Thanks, Tom.
In this case, CLONES are good!
We need more judges like Ms Ramos! These laws they enact are mere shams to prevent minorities from voting.
Thanks all. Hugs! Leaving in 10 minutes.
One way to dampen and quench the thirst for power by the GOP is to have a law requiring all citizens to vote. Another is to make voting a federal holiday. Another is to have voting machines to work properly and certified by independent non-partisan group. Another is to have a paper trail and can be looked up, at any time, verified in the records. Another is to do away and eliminate the Electoral College. Another is to do away with gerrymandering, redistricting. Another way is to restore the Voting Rights Act. There may be other factors… Can’t think of anymore for “another way”. Anyone care to add…lol.
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Everyone here has probably signed petitions for a “Robin Hood” tax on stock transfers. Well, that campaign is a project of the National Nurses’ Association. I bring this up because it is relevant to my doubts about making Election Day a holiday. You can’t just tell all the nurses and doctors at all the hospitals to go home and vote. Yet, nurses especially, and probably doctors too, are people we definitely want to be voting.
Everything else in your post, Jim, I am fully behind, and especially the paper trail. All-mail balloting leaves a paper trail, and dramatically increases participation in states which use it. In Colorado, I can go on line and verify that my ballot has been received and will be counted. The only thing I would want us to do differently is to frank the envelopes. It’s not a hardship for me – but the people for whom it is a hardship are the most disenfranchised people we have, and really deserve to be able to vote.
WRT the Electoral College, Two ways of abolishing it have been discussed. One is by a Constitutional Amendment. The second is by lobbying states to pass legislation to require all their electors to vote for the popular winner (and, of course herding states is like herding cats.) But a third possibility, which would not abolish the electoral college but would update it, is to remove the limit of 435 Representatives in the House, and apportion a larger number more nearly parallel to the actual distribution of population per the latest census. This would not require a Constitutional Amendment, not would it require a large number of state legislatures to agree. It would, however, require an Act of Congress. And quite possibly new construction for the chamber of the House. It would bring the electoral vote closer into line with the popular vote, though not perfectly. It’s probably not realistic, but it’s not impossible either.
Automatic voter registration has also been proposed – whenever an eligible voter interacts with any Government agency, registering that person to vote.
Kudos to U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos!
It is sad that U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos has had to make the ruling more than once, but it goes to show the contempt that the Republicans show for their citizens, especially for their “not traditionally Republican citizens” who are citizens nonetheless and entitled to vote.