Texas Atty. Gen. Greg Abbott (R), a gubernatorial candidate for 2014, slammed President Barack Obama’s pledge to strengthen the Voting Rights Act in a Washington Times op-ed published Tuesday.
“The Obama administration’s interference in Texas’ redistricting and voter-ID litigation does not protect voting rights. It protects the Democratic Party,” Abbott wrote. “Recall that just a few months ago, high-ranking Obama operatives launched a campaign to ‘turn Texas blue.'”
“The president’s partisan use of the Voting Rights Act actually hurts many minority voters in Texas,” he added, citing a number of Republican state and U.S. reps who won predominantly Hispanic districts in the state in 2010 only to lose to Democrats in 2012 after redistricting.
Obama met with civil rights leaders on Monday to discuss strengthening the Voting Rights Act in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to gut a key provision of the law last month. That decision paved the way for Texas to move forward once again with its controversial voter ID law, which had been struck down in federal court last year as having an unconstitutional impact on poor, minority voters.
