Waco Paper Has Right Idea On Voter ID
It is nice to see that there is at least one daily newspaper in Texas that has the right idea on Voter ID:
With proposed voter identification bills, they say their overriding concern is ballot security, and they say it’s a serious problem. They talk of illegal aliens voting and voter fraud undermining democracy.
In the last Legislature session, those pushing a voter ID bill were asked for evidence of a crisis. They couldn’t produce it.
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Republicans promoting this say the state could provide photo IDs for voters without drivers’ licenses. Of course it could. But some people — namely the oldest and poorest Texans — would be unreachable, out of the loop and facing obstacles as they exercise their right to vote.
Texas has no compelling reason to pass a voter ID law. The legislation promoted is part of a national effort by the Republican Party. It knows that most of the voters who would be picked off through voter suppression measures like this would be sympathetic to Democrats.
Last year, minority Democrats blocked such a measure in the Texas Senate, where a rule requires two-thirds support to bring a bill to the floor.
At one point, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst attempted a vote on the bill when one Democratic senator was home with the flu and one was outside the chamber, leaving too few Democrats to block it. After a procedural stall, the two senators got back in time to avert the maneuver.
This had the taint of the Legislative imbroglio in 2003 when Republicans tried to sneak a congressional redistricting bill through the session. The Democrats stopped it by denying both houses a quorum. The rest of the session, and three subsequent special sessions, then became consumed by a purely partisan pursuit.
Texas lawmakers have much more important things to do, like financing highways, dealing with prison overcrowding and addressing problems in Texas’ school accountability system.
Kudos to the Waco Tribune-Herald on this editorial. Finally, a Texas daily newspaper sees the light.
Written by Vince Leibowitz
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