Present Day Racism in Texas

Texas Voter ID Law

For a state which has a history of discrimination, segregation, racism and outright bigotry, one would think the state government would be more open to hoeing a more positive path for the future at large. Unfortunately that does not seem to be the case when it comes to the Texas Voter ID law. Lawyers who challenged the legislation described it as follows, "A law requiring Texas voters to show government-issued identification before casting a ballot is the latest example of the state's long history of discrimination against minorities and puts unjustified burdens on the right to vote for more than half a million Texans" (Fernandez, 2014). This paper will attempt to demonstrate how this law needs to be treated as the form of discrimination which is absolutely is and how it is a form of legislation so bigoted and underhandedly racist, it is evocative of the "Grandfather Law" of America's shameful slave era.

The conservative defense of all those who are in favor of this type of legislation make the argument that it is all in the name of preventing fraud. However, there isn't a great deal of evidence that there's much fraud to begin with in the first place. There is no hard data that reflects that the issue of fraud is such a growing problem in Texas that this bigoted law is necessary in order to introduce some order and stability to the issue at large. "In recent years, study after study has failed to show anything resembling rampant vote fraud, and of the little fraud that does happen, most seems to happen by way of absentee ballots, which ID laws such as the one being challenged in Texas can't stop" (Lithwick, 2014). There's an aggravated sense that these law achieve nothing notable and risk doing a tremendous amount of harm and alienating an already alienated population, conservatives continue to defend them along the lines that they do thwart at least a certain amount of fraud and are thus doing something worthwhile (Lithwick, 2014). Other scholars have argued that this new legislation could really aggravate the problem that it is meant to solve. Consider an election between candidate A and candidate B. Candidate A gets 10 votes, all legitimate. Candidate B. gets 6 legitimate votes and 3 fraudulent ones. The worthy candidate still wins. Now consider that exact election with the Texas-style voter ID law working in place: Candidate A and B. get 5 lawful votes each -- less than earlier because the law has suppressed some votes. Bill gets one fraudulent vote, less than before as the law is in place. So now Bill wins the election 6 to 5, and he won as a result of fraudulent voting (Lithwick, 2014).

This legislation is evocative of the Grandfather clause, which was enacted after the 15th amendment gave African-Americans the right to vote. Various southern states looked for ways to enact clauses and legislation that could deny blacks from getting to the polls: things like literacy tests, constitutional quizzes and poll taxes were all discussed, but they would also prevent poor whites from voting as well. "Because of the 15th Amendment, you can't pass laws saying blacks can't vote, which is what they wanted to do," says Eric Foner, a Columbia University historian. "But the 15th Amendment allowed restrictions that were nonracial. This was pretty prima facie a way to allow whites to vote, and not blacks" (Greenblatt, 2013). Southern states knew that these laws were unconstitutional so they had to be enacted quickly so that whites could register to vote, before federal courts abolishes these laws.