Texas Governor Rick Perry (R) derided Attorney General Eric Holder’s call Thursday to reinstate a court-imposed pre-clearance for Texas voting laws as an “end-run around the Supreme Court” and an act that “undermines the will of the people of Texas.”
In June, the Supreme Court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, making it so states with a history of racial discrimination no longer had to get changes to their voting laws approved by the Department of Justice.
Holder said Thursday in a speech to the National Urban League Annual Conference that he wanted to get a federal court to opt Texas back into pre-clearance, which he says is allowed under the law when evidence of voting discrimination is found.
“Once again, the Obama Administration is demonstrating utter contempt for our country’s system of checks and balances, not to mention the U.S. Constitution,” Perry said in a written statement. “This end-run around the Supreme Court undermines the will of the people of Texas, and casts unfair aspersions on our state’s common-sense efforts to preserve the integrity of our elections process.”
Holder said there was evidence of intentional voter discrimination found in the redistricting case that reached the Supreme Court last year, Texas vs. Holder.
