A panel of three federal judges evaluating Texas voter ID law posed skeptical questions about the state’s argument that the law should be cleared under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act because it wasn’t discriminatory during the state’s closing arguments on Friday.
Under questioning from one judge, John Hughes, the lawyer representing Texas, said that while he was “certainly” not promoting a literacy test, he could imagine a hypothetical scenario where you could have a literacy test or a poll tax under Section 5, setting aside other laws and the constitutional amendment banning poll taxes.
Matthew Colangelo, a deputy assistant attorney general in DOJ’s civil rights division, argued that Texas’ voter ID law would force voters without ID to “functionally reregister.” He pointed out that one type of identification accepted under the new law, gun permits, were “much more likely to be held by white voters.” Colangelo said the law would impose a “new barrior that would disenfrancise voters the day it was enacted.”
DOJ has wrapped up closing arguments and the court is now hearing from civil rights groups who intervened in the case. More to come.
