Last week, the world received some guidance on how the Texas Voter ID case might play out. Currently, the Texas Voter ID case is set for trial on July 9 in the federal district court in Washington, D.C. Among other things, the state of Texas has challenged the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act (the "Act") which has required Texas to seek preclearance before it can implement the Voter ID law it passed in 2011.
The Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia last week struck down another challenge to the constitutionality of the Act, this one brought by Shelby County, Alabama.
The County claimed that Congress exceeded its enumerated powers when it reauthorized Section 5 of the Act in 2006 - the section that requires that covered jurisdictions obtain preclearance before they can effectuate certain laws pertaining to voting.
In its challenge to the Act's constitutionality, Alabama made two key arguments: 1) the remedy of preclearance imposed by Section 5 of the Act is not congruent and proportional to the harm (i.e.: the current burdens are not justified by the current needs), and 2) the disparate geographic coverage (i.e.: only a few states and counties are required to get preclearance before implementing new voter laws) is not sufficiently related to the problem it targets. The D.C. court was not persuaded.
In 2010, Judy Jennings and Rebecca Bell-Metereau both ran for seats on the Texas State Board of Education. They lost. In 2011, a well-known Republican political operative sued them for a political ad they ran in the 2010 race. This year, they're running for the SBOE yet again - Jennings for District 10 and Bell-Metereau for District 5. Both are career educators with extensive experience in the field, and would be tremendous assets to our state board of education.
Why, after defeats and prohibitively expensive, ongoing litigation that could drain anyone's war chest, would anyone subject herself to this again? And why would there be lawsuits filed over a race for the State Board of Education?
Last week, the federal district court in Washington, D.C. accused the state of Texas of dragging its feet in preparing for the July 9 trial in the Voter ID case.
In its order scolding the state and attempting to hasten the progress of the case, the court ordered Texas that by the end of the day on May 9, the lead counsel of record for Texas certify "without equivocation, under oath, and in good faith" the following:
1. Texas can "comply fully with every deadline, term and condition set forth in this Order;"
2. "Texas has completed production of all relevant databases to the United States, and will produce to Defendant-Intervenors by May 9, 2012" all underlying data and supplemental information necessary for comparison and analysis;
3. "Texas will produce all non-privileged documents to Defendants [United States]... without imposing a further qualification for documents that are not 'of public record.'"
4. "Texas will not require the service of a subpoena to produce any witnesses (or documents in the possession of a witness) from current state legislators or their staff, the Texas Legislative Council, the Department of Public Safety, the staff of the Secretary of State, the staff of the Lieutenant Governor, or the staff of the Governor."
5. "Texas will not assert any new privileges as to any documents or witnesses other than those already represented to this Court."
6. "Texas will not violate any further discovery deadlines or Orders from this Court and will comply fully and in good faith with such discovery."
On Monday, we broke the story that pronouncements on the back of voter registration cards issued by the Texas Secretary of State and concerning identification requirements to vote at the polls can be interpreted to mean that the federal government has approved the Texas Voter ID law, and that voters will need to present photo identification in order to vote at the polls in regional and primary elections this month. As we further reported, the federal government has not approved the Voter ID law passed by the Texas legislature last year. Alarm about this confusion has grown.
As we mentioned yesterday, the Photo ID case between the state of Texas and the Department of Justice marches steadily toward trial in July. After we posted yesterday, the federal district court in D.C. that is hearing the case issued a new order, this time scolding the state of Texas for its conduct in this lawsuit.
In some respects, the order is a fairly routine scheduling order, setting out the important dates between now and trial, currently set for July 9th. It lists things such as the last date to file discovery motions (May 21st), the date that expert disclosures are due (June 1st), and the date for motions in limine to be filed (June 20th). All of these are fairly ordinary processes leading up to a trial.
Except, of course, for the specific instructions that apply to Texas and Texas only.
As we go into this last week of early voting for city council elections in Austin, and we get ready for primary elections in just a few short weeks, let's take a quick look at the mechanics of voting. Over the past few months, we've looked at voter identification laws, the ensuing lawsuits, and some history of poll taxes. A list of BOR pieces covering the Texas Voter ID law from top to bottom is at the bottom of this article.
Have you looked at your voter registration card lately? Check out the back of the card. What does it say? If you don't have it handy, read below to see what it says:
The U.S. Supreme Court took up the Arizona immigration law last week. Oral arguments were last week, with a ruling expected in June, making this, along with health care, an ongoing story, the outcome of which is the subject of mass speculation.
After oral arguments last week, the court is considering the constitutionality of Arizona's infamous immigration law, SB 1070, which gave state law enforcement officers the authority to inquire into the immigration status of anyone they stopped and to detain anyone they suspected of being an undocumented immigrant. Whether the court would have considered the case if the only law at issue were Arizona's can only be speculated; however, after Arizona passed its law, other states passed similar laws - Alabama, Indiana, South Carolina, and Utah.
It's 4:20 p.m. on April 20. We decided not to let this opportunity go up in smoke, nip this story in the bud, and use this joint to hash out the state of the laws in Texas that criminalize various aspects of possessing, obtaining, or otherwise transferring marijuana. (Yes. We did).
According to the folks over at The Weed Blog, marijuana can get you into a ton of trouble. (We ran out of obvious, bad puns. Well, we kinda spaced on 'em).
According to their summary, offenses generally cover possession and/or distribution, start as low as a Class B misdemeanor and go up to outright felonies, with penalties ranging from 180 days in jail with $2,000 fine, all the way up to prison terms of 99 years, and fines of $100,000. The Weed Blog does link to the public listing of the law, which may be found here. It's the Texas Health and Safety Code.
The Weed Blog also details the efforts of local Congressman Lamar Smith to block legalization of marijuana. As you can see from the headline, they pull no punches in their opinion of Smith.Not everyone, however, opposes marijuana like Smith. In fact, there is a fair grass roots (no pun intended, swear) movement to legalize the drug and cultivate (ok, that one, we meant) a higher public consciousness about it, its effects, its costs, and the like. At the national level, there is a group called The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). Texas, as it turns out, also has such a chapter.
Florida's Stand Your Ground Law has garnered international attention since the recent shooting death of Trayvon Martin. As it happens, Texas has its own Stand Your Ground law and has for some time. Codified at §9.31, et seq. of the Texas Penal Code, the law as we know it was first passed in 1973, with the most recent amendments to it being enacted by the legislature in 2007.
The notion of standing one's ground as a tenet or maxim of the law is not particularly new. What's relatively new and particularly Texan is just how much ground one can stand.
We would be remiss in our reporting duties if we did not at least briefly mention the travesty of justice that occurred in Washington this week. We are referring, of course, to the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that strip searches are good, and that the Fourth Amendment is bad.
What does this boil down to? If you are arrested for any reason, for any offense, you can be strip-searched.
•Violate a leash law? You can be strip searched.
•Driving without a license? You can be strip searched.
•Didn't pay child support? You can be strip searched.
•Rode a bicycle without an audible bell? Yup, you can be strip searched. (You might have misplaced the audible bell, after all).
Adam Liptak of The New York Times has written a more than adequate summary of the opinion, and the text of the full opinion is available from the Supreme Court's website.
Liptak's piece highlights the contrast between the two sides of this case. Of Justice Breyer, he wrote:
"Justice Stephen G. Breyer, writing for the four dissenters, said the strip-searches the majority allowed were "a serious affront to human dignity and to individual privacy" and should be used only when there was good reason to do so.
Justice Breyer said that the Fourth Amendment should be understood to bar strip-searches of people arrested for minor offenses not involving drugs or violence, unless officials had a reasonable suspicion that they were carrying contraband."
Liptak also noted one of Justice Kennedy's rationales for giving enforcement authorities such wide latitude:
"Justice Kennedy responded that "people detained for minor offenses can turn out to be the most devious and dangerous criminals." He noted that Timothy McVeigh, later put to death for his role in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, was first arrested for driving without a license plate. "One of the terrorists involved in the Sept. 11 attacks was stopped and ticketed for speeding just two days before hijacking Flight 93," Justice Kennedy added."
It is important to note that what made this case particularly egregious was the specific factual basis of this case. The plaintiff had been arrested during a routine traffic stop for non-payment of an outstanding fine. However, he had, in fact, paid the fine several years earlier. Even worse, he was held in prison for seven days, and in that time, was strip searched twice.
We'll see if public reaction to this week's opinion rises to the level of combined outrage and creativity found in some reactions to the landmark takings opinion in Kelo v. City of New London, 545 US. 469 (2005).
