Appeals Court: Texas Should Implement Voter ID Law for 2014 Election

Texas should require photo voter identification in this year’s general election, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday, overturning an earlier ruling by a federal district judge in Texas.

“This is not a run-of-the-mill case; instead, it is a voting case decided on the eve of the election,” the appeals court judges wrote. “The judgment below substantially disturbs the election process of the State of Texas just nine days before early voting begins. Thus, the value of preserving the status quo here is much higher than in most other contexts.”

The law, passed in 2011, took effect last year. But a U.S. district judge in Corpus Christi ruled last week that the law “creates an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote, has an impermissible discriminatory effect against Hispanics and African-Americans, and was imposed with an unconstitutional discriminatory purpose. The Court further holds that SB 14 constitutes an unconstitutional poll tax.”

That judge, Nelva Gonzales Ramos, ordered the state to conduct the current election as if the voter ID law had not taken effect. That’s the part of the ruling that was overturned by the 5th Circuit Court Tuesday afternoon.

“On Saturday, October 11 — just nine days before early voting begins and just 24 days before Election Day — the district court entered a final order striking down Texas’s voter identification laws,” the court said in its order. “By this order, the district court enjoined the implementation of Texas Senate Bill 14 of the 2011 Regular Session, which requires that voters present certain photographic identification at the polls. The district court also ordered that the State of Texas instead implement the laws that were in force before SB 14’s enactment in May of 2011. Based primarily on the extremely fast-approaching election date, we STAY the district court’s judgment pending appeal.”

That general election is set for Nov. 4; early voting in Texas starts on Monday, Oct. 20.

One of the three judges who ordered the stay — Gregg Costa — did so only because of recent decisions that favor order in elections over the laws in question.

“The district court issued a thorough order finding that the Texas voter ID law is discriminatory,” he wrote. “We should be extremely reluctant to have an election take place under a law that a district court has found, and that our court may find, is discriminatory… I agree with Judge [Edith Brown] Clement that the only constant principle that can be discerned from the Supreme Court’s recent decisions in this area is that its concern about confusion resulting from court changes to election laws close in time to the election should carry the day in the stay analysis.”