(I am shocked! shocked! to find out that the Republicans' Voter ID law was discriminatory! (Not really.) - promoted by Katherine Haenschen)
The Department of Justice told the panel in the Texas voter ID case in a brief filed Wednesday that depositions of Texas legislators were needed because even on the limited public record, there was "substantial indicia of discriminatory purpose, including the anticipated effect of S.B. 14, the historical background leading up to passage of the bill, and the nature of legislative debate."
The State of Texas had earlier asked the court to block the depositions of 14 Republican legislators involved with the voter ID bill's process through the legislature.
The DOJ brief cited, among other things, the failure of bill proponents to address substantive concerns or answer questions in floor debate about the bill's impact on minority voters, the refusal to consider amendments that would have lessened the impact on indigent voters, and the refusal to fund studies to track the law's impact or to education programs targeted at low-income and minority voters.
DOJ said that the state's request to block the depositions sought "to shield from discovery the very witnesses it identified in its initial disclosures and responses to interrogatories" and that the "facts are more than sufficient to demonstrate that depositions of Texas state legislators and discovery of the documents lawmakers considered are warranted."
The DOJ brief can be found here. |
