Holder: Texas ID law would harm minorities

The Associated Press

HOUSTON -- Attorney General Eric Holder said yesterday he opposes a new photo ID requirement in Texas elections because it would be harmful to minority voters.

In remarks to the NAACP in Houston, the attorney general said the Justice Department "will not allow political pretexts to disenfranchise American citizens of their most precious right."

Under the law enacted in Texas, Holder said that "many of those without IDs would have to travel great distances to get them -- and some would struggle to pay for the documents they might need to obtain them."

"We call those poll taxes," Holder added, drawing applause as he moved away from the original text of his speech with a reference to a fee used in some Southern states to disenfranchise black people after the abolition of slavery.

The 24th Amendment to the Constitution made that type of tax illegal.

Holder spoke a day after a trial started in federal court in Washington over the 2011 law passed by Texas' GOP-dominated Legislature that requires voters to show photo identification when they get to the polls.

Under Texas' law, Holder noted, a concealed handgun license would serve as acceptable ID to vote, but a student ID would not. He went on to say that while only 8 percent of white people do not have government-issued photo IDs, about 25 percent of black people lack such identification.

"I don't know what will happen as this case moves forward, but I can assure you that the Justice Department's efforts to uphold and enforce voting rights will remain aggressive," the attorney general said.

Holder said the arc of American history has always moved toward expanding the electorate and that "we will simply not allow this era to be the beginning of the reversal of that historic progress."

"I will not allow that to happen," he added.

The attorney general spoke at the 103rd convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which is launching a battle against new state voter ID laws.