A roundup of voter ID editorials

BOR has a nice roundup of editorials from state newspapers about the recent voter ID ruling by the Supreme Court and the sure-to-follow effort by the State Lege to pass a similar law here. For the most part, they get it (though as Vince noted, not all of them do). One in particular to highlight is the Lufkin Daily News, which makes the case against about as succinctly as one can:

There are plenty of real problems to tackle - including a severe shortage of prison guards, an alarmingly high drop-out rate among high school students and inadequate funding for highway maintenance and construction, to name just three.

Yes, yes, and yes. The nature of Texas' biennial Legislative season ensures that there are too many worthy (and unworthy) agenda items fighting for a very limited window of opportunity to become law. Time spent on voter ID legislation is time not spent - time that cannot be spent within the 20 weeks of the session - on real problems that should have a higher priority. That the Republican leadership in Texas will choose to put voter ID over more pressing matters like those named by the Lufkin paper tells you a lot about what they stand for. And I'll say it again, if that strikes you as a bad thing, you can do something about it. It's our choice, just as it's their choice.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on May 09, 2008 to That's our Lege