In response to the Supreme Court’s recent decision that states are innocent of institutional racism until proven guilty, Attorney General Eric Holder is arguing that Texas’ “history of pervasive voting-related discrimination against racial minorities” should make its voting laws subject to the Department of Justice’s oversight indefinitely.
While speaking before the National Urban League in Philadelphia on Thursday, Holder said his agency would ask a federal judge to require Texas to submit all its voting laws to the DOJ for review before they can be legally enacted because the state has a supposed history of discrimination and racism.
“And today I am announcing that the Justice Department will ask a federal court in Texas to subject the State of Texas to a pre-clearance regime similar to the one required by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act,” Holder said at the organization’s annual conference.
The Attorney General cited “evidence of intentional racial discrimination” found following the case Texas v. Holder, in addition to a ”history of pervasive voting-related discrimination against racial minorities.” He continued, saying the state would need to acquire “pre-approval” from either the Department of Justice or a federal court before implementing any future changes in voting laws.
In the case Shelby County v. Holder, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Section 4b of the Voting Rights Act, which defined a formula to single out states to undergo a pre-clearance for voting laws based on previous discriminatory practices — much like that alleged in the case Texas v. Holder — was unconstitutional. Without this provision, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act — which Holder referenced in his remarks — becomes near impossible to implement until Congress outlines a new formula, which it has yet to do.
