The state of Texas has finally caught a break from the courts! A Texas appeals court stayed an injunction that blocked the state from using their new Voter ID law and thus ruled the state can use the law in this November’s election:
POLITICO – A panel of the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals voted, 2-1, to allow Texas to use the revised voter ID measure known as SB 5 for this November’s elections.
“The State has made a strong showing that it is likely to succeed on the merits. SB 5 allows voters without qualifying photo ID to cast regular ballots by executing a declaration that they face a reasonable impediment to obtaining qualifying photo ID. This declaration is made under the penalty of perjury,” Judges Jerry Smith and Jennifer Elrod wrote in a joint order Tuesday. “The State has made a strong showing that this reasonable-impediment procedure remedies plaintiffs’ alleged harm and thus forecloses plaintiffs’ injunctive relief.”
Exactly! Voter ID itself is not really an impediment to voting as liberals claim. But with the exceptions Texas has carved out for those who simply can’t (or won’t) get an ID card, it makes sense that Texas would win on the merits because there is absolutely no impediment.
Not only did two of the three judges stay the injunction, but they also admonished the judge who gave the injunction in the first place:
Smith and Elrod also faulted U.S. District Court Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos for going beyond the scope of a previous 5th Circuit ruling instructing her to assess whether SB 5 had cured problems with SB 14, another voter ID measure Texas passed in 2011. Ramos ruled that original measure was tainted by an effort to discriminate on the basis of race and the measure signed earlier this year did not fix the problem.
“The district court went beyond the scope of the mandate on remand,” Smith and Elrod wrote. “Simply put, whether SB 5 should be enjoined — as opposed to whether it remedies SB 14’s ills — was not an issue before the district court on remand.”
Texas wasn’t the only ones happy with the decision:
The Department of Justice supported the ruling.
“We are pleased that the Fifth Circuit has stayed the injunction and allowed Texas to proceed with its duly enacted voter identification laws. Preserving the integrity of the ballot is vital to our democracy, and the Fifth Circuit’s order allows Texas to continue to fulfill that duty as this case moves forward,” according to a statement from spokeswoman Lauren Ehrsam.
According to Politico:
Civil rights advocates backing the litigation could ask the Supreme Court to step in and keep the revised voter ID law on hold through this fall’s elections.
Hopefully the Supreme Court stays out of this one.