XPost: ba.politics, dc.media, soc.penpals   
   XPost: alt.burningman   
   From: invalid@youremail.com   
      
   Before dawn on Saturday morning, the Supreme Court issued a   
   terse, unsigned ruling that, in effect, endorsed Texas’s voter-   
   ID law, the most restrictive such law in the nation.   
      
   On October 9, in a 147-page opinion that followed a two-week   
   trial on the facts, the Federal District Court in Corpus Christi   
   had struck down the law, known as Senate Bill 14, as patently   
   discriminatory, the equivalent of a poll tax. A week later that   
   court’s injunction was overturned by a three-judge panel of the   
   U.S. Appeals Court for the Fifth Circuit.   
      
   It was this stay of the injunction — in effect a decision to let   
   the voter-ID law go into effect — that  the Supreme Court left   
   in place in on Saturday with its 57-word decision. The decision   
   did not articulate the Court’s reasoning, but a blistering   
   dissent made clear that its basis was not Senate Bill 14, but   
   rather the confusion that a change so close to the election   
   might create.   
      
   Excerpts of that dissent, written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg   
   and  joined by justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, are   
   below. For ease of reading citations are omitted, but they can   
   be found in the full text here.   
      
   I would not upset the District Court’s reasoned, record-based   
   judgment, which the Fifth Circuit accorded little, if any,   
   deference … The fact-intensive nature of this case does not   
   justify the Court of Appeals’ stay order; to the contrary, the   
   Fifth Circuit’s refusal to home in on the facts found by the   
   district court is precisely why this Court should vacate the   
   stay….   
      
   [T]here is little risk that the District Court’s injunction will   
   in fact disrupt Texas’ electoral processes. Texas need only   
   reinstate the voter identification procedures it employed for   
   ten years (from 2003 to 2013) and in five federal general   
   elections.   
      
   To date, the new regime, Senate Bill 14, has been applied in   
   only three low participation elections—namely, two statewide   
   primaries and one statewide constitutional referendum, in which   
   voter turnout ranged from 1.48% to 9.98%. The November 2014   
   election would be the very first federal general election   
   conducted under Senate Bill 14’s regime. In all likelihood,   
   then, Texas’ poll workers are at least as familiar with Texas’   
   pre-Senate Bill 14 procedures as they are with the new law’s   
   requirements….   
      
   Senate Bill 14 replaced the previously existing voter   
   identification requirements with the strictest regime in the   
   country. The Bill requires in-person voters to present one of a   
   limited number of government issued photo identification   
   documents. …Those who lack the approved forms of identification   
   may obtain an “election identification certificate” from the   
   Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), but more than 400,000   
   eligible voters face round-trip travel times of three hours or   
   more to the nearest DPS office.   
      
   Moreover, applicants for an election identification certificate   
   ordinarily must present a certified birth certificate. A birth   
   certificate, however, can be obtained only at significant   
   cost—at least $22 for a standard certificate sent by mail. And   
   although reduced-fee birth certificates may be obtained for $2   
   to $3, the State did not publicize that option on DPS’s Web site   
   or on Department of Health and Human Services forms for   
   requesting birth certificates.   
      
   On an extensive factual record developed in the course of a nine-   
   day trial, the District Court found Senate Bill 14   
   irreconcilable with §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 because   
   it was enacted with a racially discriminatory purpose and would   
   yield a prohibited discriminatory result. The District Court   
   emphasized the “virtually unchallenged” evidence that Senate   
   Bill 14 “bear[s] more heavily on” minority voters. In light of   
   the “seismic demographic shift” in Texas between 2000 and 2010,   
   making Texas a “majority-minority state,” the District Court   
   observed that the Texas Legislature and Governor had an evident   
   incentive to “gain partisan advantage by suppressing” the “votes   
   of African-Americans and Latinos.”   
      
   The District Court also found a tenuous connection between the   
   harms Senate Bill 14 aimed to ward off, and the means adopted by   
   the State to that end. Between 2002 and 2011, there were only   
   two in-person voter fraud cases prosecuted to conviction in   
   Texas. Despite awareness of the Bill’s adverse effect on   
   eligible-to-vote minorities, the Texas Legislature rejected a   
   “litany of ameliorative amendments” designed to lessen the   
   Bill’s impact on minority voters—for example, amendments   
   permitting additional forms of identification, eliminating fees,   
   providing indigence exceptions, and increasing voter education   
   and funding—without undermining the Bill’s purported policy   
   justifications. Texas did not begin to demonstrate that the   
   Bill’s discriminatory features were necessary to prevent fraud   
   or to increase public confidence in the electoral process…. On   
   this plain evidence, the District Court concluded that the Bill   
   would not have been enacted absent its racially disparate   
   effects….   
      
   Under Senate Bill 14, a cost attends every form of qualified   
   identification available to the general public. Texas tells the   
   Court that any number of incidental costs are associated with   
   voting. But the cost at issue here is one deliberately imposed   
   by the State.   
      
   Even at $2, the toll is at odds with this Court’s precedent. And   
   for some voters, the imposition is not small. A voter whose   
   birth certificate lists her maiden name or misstates her date of   
   birth may be charged $37 for the amended certificate she needs   
   to obtain a qualifying ID. Texas voters born in other States may   
   be required to pay substantially more than that.   
      
   The potential magnitude of racially discriminatory voter   
   disenfranchisement counseled hesitation before disturbing the   
   District Court’s findings and final judgment. Senate Bill 14 may   
   prevent more than 600,000 registered Texas voters (about 4.5% of   
   all registered voters) from voting in person for lack of   
   compliant identification. A sharply disproportionate percentage   
   of those voters are African-American or Hispanic.   
      
   Unsurprisingly, Senate Bill 14 did not survive federal   
   preclearance under §5 of the Voting Rights Act…. [R]racial   
   discrimination in elections inTexas is no mere historical   
   artifact. To the contrary,Texas has been found in violation of   
   the Voting Rights Act in every redistricting cycle from and   
   after 1970. The District Court noted particularly plaintiffs’   
   evidence—largely unchallenged by Texas— regarding the State’s   
   long history of official discrimination in voting, the statewide   
   existence of racially polarized voting, the incidence of overtly   
   racial political campaigns,the disproportionate lack of minority   
   elected officials, and the failure of elected officials to   
   respond to the concerns of minority voters.   
      
   The greatest threat to public confidence in elections in this   
   case is the prospect of enforcing a purposefully discriminatory   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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