Still the only voter ID anyone should need
Minority groups have asked a federal judge to scrap Texas’ voter identification law and place the state under the jurist’s supervision for at least a decade, according to court filings this week.
Not only are the groups taking on the state over the law they say discriminates against blacks and Latinos, but they also want U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos of Corpus Christi to kick their former ally, the U.S. Justice Department, out of the case.
“The United States’ shameful and disgraceful dismissal of their intent claim for political purposes should disqualify them from participating further in this proceeding; the ideals of equality inculcated in the United States Constitution are not subject to such shabby treatment as demonstrated by this administration,” Rolando Rios, a lawyer representing the Texas Association of Hispanic County Judges and Commissioners, wrote in a court brief.
[…]
There’s no indication of when Gonzales Ramos, who has twice ruled that the original voter ID law was intentionally meant to suppress minority voters and intentionally discriminated, might rule on the plaintiffs’ requests in the voter ID case.
See here for the previous time that Judge Ramos was asked to void the law. It’s not clear to me if this is the same group as that, but in any event this ask comes with the ten-year re-imposition of preclearance. The motion to dismiss the now-antagonistic Justice Department is new, too. I can’t find a copy of this brief, but Rick Hasen has the state’s brief asking the judge to drop out and declare all is now well, and the Trump DOJ brief echoing that position and claiming the state is super trustworthy now. Yeah, sure. The Observer has more.