possible voter suppression reported in texas

Are we in for another election riddled with questions about fraud, suppression, and intimidation? Can we just play fair for once, and see who wins?

The powers that be in Texas may be up to the same old tricks this cycle, according to reports out of Clear Lake. MOMocrats has the full story about possible voter suppression tactics in an area recently plagued by hurricanes. Here's an excerpt:

"A driver's license?" I asked, "They specified a driver's license?"

She confirmed it was a driver's license, not any other type of photo ID.

Earlier this year, back in March, there was a referendum on the table to require a photo ID to vote. However, the problem with that is technically it's a poll tax, since the IDs cost (money and time). You can't charge people to vote. However, even that referendum didn't require a driver's license, just an official photo identification card.

These poll workers stated that they required a driver's license, according to my friend. When she asked, they said she didn't have to show hers to them to vote.

Next, I talked to another friend who voted that same day at that same place. She reported the exact same experience.

"Did they tell you they had to have your driver's license?" I asked.

"Yeah, they did," she said.

"Did they scan the back of it?"

"Yeah, they did," she said again.

"Did they tell you that you had a choice, and that they didn't need the license?"

"No, I just figured the rules had changed," she said.

Apparently, all across the state, poll workers are asking voters to have a valid driver's license ready before voting. There are even reports from right here in North Texas of voters having their licenses scanned.

Keep in mind that you do not have to participate in this practice. There is no voter ID law in this state, and if you present a valid voter registration card, you do not have to show another form of identification unless you are a first-time voter.

DFW Election Officials to Testify at Voter ID Hearing

The DFW area will be very well represented at Friday's hearing by the Texas House Elections Committee on the highly charged issue of voter ID and voter fraud.

The committee was previously chaired by Denton Rep. Mary Denny (R) before she stepped down in 2006. The current committee is chaired by Leo Berman (R-Tyler) and includes Rep. Kirk England of Grand Prairie, who recently changed party affiliation from Republican to Democrat, Rafael Anchia (D-Dallas) as well as Tom Craddick's favorite Democrat, Lon Burnam from Fort Worth.

Capitol Annex has the scheduled witness list, which includes the elections administrators from three counties in the DFW area:

Bruce Sherbet, Dallas County Elections Administrator
Steve Raborn, Tarrant County Elections Administrator
Don Alexander, Denton County Elections Administrator

Check out the rest of the witness list here. Democratic Party chairman Boyd Richie and his Republican counterpart, Tina Benkiser, are also scheduled to testify.

UPDATE: You can livestream the testimony starting at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow, Friday, Jan. 25th.

http://www.house.state.tx.us/media/welcome.php

Op-Ed Takes a Flame Thrower to von Spakovsky

Cynthia Tucker has a column in the Baltimore Sun giving her views on the confirmation of Hans von Spakovsky to the Federal Election Committee (FEC). It would take a rather long post just to list the scandals of the Bush administration to date (and those are only the ones we know about), so don't feel badly if you can't place the name Hans von Spakovsky right away. Here's a refresher by The Nation's Katrina Vanden Heuvel to bring you up to speed.

With all the brouhaha about Cheney's co-presidency, you may have missed this Tucker's op-ed, but it's too good to be overlooked.

Hans von Spakovsky is among the GOP hacks who perverted the U.S. Department of Justice - trashing constitutional principles, rewarding partisanship over competence and converting the entire machinery into an arm of the Republican Party. His specialty was suppressing voting by Americans of color, who are more likely to support Democrats; he played a starring role in a nationwide effort to disenfranchise poor blacks, Latinos and Native Americans.

Now, Mr. von Spakovsky is seeking Senate approval for a six-year term on the Federal Election Commission, which enforces federal campaign finance laws. (President Bush gave Mr. von Spakovsky a recess appointment in January 2006, but he must have Senate confirmation for a full term.) The vote ought to be easy: No, no and no way.

A group of former Justice Department professionals - including a former chief of the Civil Rights Division's Voting Section - have stepped forward to oppose his nomination. According to The Washington Post, more than half the career lawyers in the Voting Section left in protest during his tenure.

Mr. von Spakovsky's blatant disregard for the constitutionally guaranteed right to the franchise should disqualify him from even serving as a volunteer poll worker,much less a commissioner on the FEC. He is a leading light among the Republican activists who have whipped up the bogeyman of fraudulent voting, claiming that illegal ballots can only be stopped by stringent requirements, such as state-sponsored photo IDs, at the ballot box.

Actually, illegal voters are about as common as honest Bush appointees in the Justice Department.

Read the rest here. In addition to denouncing von Spakovsky's bitter and partisan role in the Civil Rights Divison, those former career professionals to whom Tucker referred in her column had some very interesting insights on voter ID legislation. Definitely worth a read.

And after all this, should there still be any doubt, read Gerald Herbert's breakdown of von Spakovsky's confirmation hearing testimony.

See previous post Voter Suppression and Politics at the Justice Department.

Republicans Throw in the Towel on Voter ID Bill

What has been one of the most dramatic stories of the legislative session drew to a close this evening when Lt. Gov. Dewhurst agreed not to bring up HB218, a bill that would require voters to show an ID at the polls, and sent an exhausted and ailing Senator Gallegos home.

The admission of defeat on the bill, which [Dewhurst] had confidently predicted would pass the GOP-dominated Senate, came when he sent home state Sen. Mario Gallegos, D-Houston, an ailing senator who had been in the chamber for the past few days to give the Democrats the votes they needed to block the bill.

Gallegos is recovering from a liver transplant, and doctors fear that his body might reject the organ he received in January......

“He’s looking tired,” Dewhurst told reporters, saying that if Gallegos left the Senate before the Wednesday midnight deadline to pass bills, Dewhurst would not bring up the voter ID bill.

Gallegos said he thanked Dewhurst, the Senate’s presiding officer, for the gesture.

He said that remaining in Austin despite doctors’ orders that he stay close to home “really took a lot out of me, both from the stress and from the illness.

“But it was worth it,” Gallegos said. “Voter ID is a bad bill.”

We thank the Senator and wish him a speedy recovery. As for Dewhurst, better late than never. Keep in mind, he dismissed Gallegos only in the waning hours of the session, when it became clear that Democrats would be able to filibuster any last minute attempt to pass the bill.

Voter Suppression and Politics at the Justice Department

If the scuttle over political appointees at the Justice Department draws yawns instead of outrage, perhaps it would be helpful to present a little object lesson in the form of one Justice Department civil rights lawyer named Hans von Spakovsky. The story serves to highlight the on-going attempt to subvert career civil service positions for political ends, and further emphasizes why defeating the pending Texas voter ID bill is so critical.

Greg Gordon has some great coverage of the story (here, here and here.)

For six years, the Bush administration, aided by Justice Department political appointees, has pursued an aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout in key battleground states in ways that favor Republican political candidates.....

Facing nationwide voter registration drives by Democratic-leaning groups, the administration alleged widespread election fraud and endorsed proposals for tougher state and federal voter identification laws. Presidential political adviser Karl Rove alluded to the strategy in April 2006 when he railed about voter fraud in a speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association.

First, a little background on von Spakovsky. If you want to know why Senator Harry Reid is planning on reconvening the Senate every ten days during the summer, look no farther than President Bush's December 2005 recess appointment of Hans von Spakovsky to the Federal Election Commission. The New York Times opined after his appointment:

[von Spakovsky is] a former Republican county chairman in Georgia and a political appointee at the Justice Department. He is reported to have been involved in the maneuvering to overrule the career specialists at Justice who warned that the Texas gerrymandering orchestrated by Representative Tom DeLay violated minority voting rights. Senators need the opportunity to delve into that, as well as reports of Mr. von Spakovsky’s involvement in such voting rights abuses as the purging of voter rolls in Florida in the 2000 elections.

Yeah, you knew there would be a Texas connection in there somewhere, didn't you? The redistricting plan was later ruled unconstitutional. And the purge of the Florida voting roles disenfranchised enough legitimate voters to give the presidency to Bush. As a key Republican operative, von Spakovsky brought those same goals to his four-year stint at the Justice Department as a civil rights lawyer.

"Mr. von Spakovsky was central to the administration's pursuit of strategies that had the effect of suppressing the minority vote," charged Joseph Rich, a former Justice Department voting rights chief who worked under him.

He and other former career department lawyers say that von Spakovsky steered the agency toward voting rights policies not seen before, pushing to curb minor instances of election fraud by imposing sweeping restrictions that would make it harder, not easier, for Democratic-leaning poor and minority voters to cast ballots.

During his stint at the Justice Department, von Spakovksy

• Sped approval of tougher voter-ID laws in Georgia and Arizona in 2005, joining decisions to override career lawyers who believed that Georgia's law would restrict voting by poor blacks and who felt that more analysis was needed on the Arizona law's impact on Indians and Latinos.

• Tried to influence the federal Election Assistance Commission's research into the dimensions of voter fraud nationally and the impact of restrictive voter-ID laws -- research that could undermine a vote-suppression agenda.

• Allegedly engineered the ouster of the commission's chairman, Paul DiGregorio, whom von Spakovsky considered insufficiently partisan.

Just how effective are voter ID laws in suppressing turnout for Democrats?

Among Republicans it is an "article of religious faith that voter fraud is causing us to lose elections," Masset [former political director of the Republican Party of Texas] said. He doesn't agree with that, but does believe that requiring photo IDs could cause enough of a dropoff in legitimate Democratic voting to add 3 percent to the Republican vote.

Now it might be a little clearer why Lt. Gov. Dewhurst, who obviously has higher ambitions, is so keen to do the administration's bidding that he would resort to last week's procedural tactic to pass the Texas voter ID bill. Say a little prayer for Senator Gallegos and let's hope that the Senate Republicans still have a conscience.

Texas Voter ID Bill in Limbo

After last week's drama (reported here) over the Texas voter ID bill, questions remain as to whether Lt. Gov. Dewhurst will attempt passage this week.

Ailing Sen. Mario Gallegos' absence from the Capitol leaves his fellow Democratic state senators one vote shy of a procedural tool they can use to block legislation.

Republicans did not take advantage of the situation Friday to force a vote on a contentious bill that would require voters to present identification, which Democrats have blocked.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who presides over the Senate, said senators told him they "didn't want to take it up today out of respect for Senator Gallegos." But he was noncommittal about his plans for next week, saying he believes a vast majority of Texans support the idea.

"We'll see," he said. "I would like to see it passed."

Democrats are on high alert for the last week of the session.

Democrats won't disclose how they will respond if Dewhurst brings the voter ID bill up for debate.

Options could include breaking quorum or filibustering, either of which would kill other legislation in the waning days of the session.

"I'm not going to expose our strategy," said Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus. "We're looking at this on a day-by-day situation. Certainly, the Senate realizes that we have really important bills and work that needs to get done."

She warned that bringing up the voter ID bill would distract from the Senate's need to finish work on budget, transportation, border security and air quality bills.

It is not known whether Gallegos is out for the remainder of the session.

Vote in TCAN Poll

The True Courage Action Network is conducting a poll .....

honoring the best efforts of legislators and advocates who have shown courage relating to TCAN's mission to restore strong ethical standards, government transparency, and electoral reform and voter protection during this legislative session.

Among the names nominated in the Texas State Senate is Senator Eliot Shapleigh, nominated for his Texas on the Brink reports.

And the Texas House of Representative nominees include Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, for his fight against voter ID bills and Fort Worth's Lon Burnam. Burnam, who joined Anchia in that fight, was nominated for his attempts to reform the Texas Ethics Commission.

And don't forget to vote for Texas Progressive Bloggers in the Texas Advocate category. If you need convincing, check out some of the blogs on our list to the right. You have until May 20 at noon to register your vote.

texas democrats block voter id bill

In the Texas Senate, the Democrats hold 11 seats. 21 senators must agree to bring a bill up for consideration, so the Democrats can effectively block legislation if they vote as a bloc.

But they also have to have their votes counted.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst tried to pull a fast one today, when the Senate was voting on the Voter ID Bill (HB 128). One Democratic senator wasn't on the floor because he was ill, and another that was there didn't even get his vote counted.

When the vote total, 19-9, was announced, chaos ensued, according to the Houston Chronicle.

[The Democrats] revolted after the original 19-9 vote was revealed, loudly arguing that Sen. John Whitmire was on the floor but his no vote wasn't counted.

"Right is right. Wrong is wrong. You tell the man I have a right to have my vote counted," Whitmire growled at his Republican colleagues. He later slammed his fist on his desk, prompting Dewhurst to threaten to kick him out of the chamber.

"You're going to compose yourself or you're going to leave the floor," the Republican lieutenant governor said.

Dewhurst insisted that he had given Whitmire plenty of time to cast his vote and resisted Democrats' calls for a re-vote. But he eventually agreed to conduct another vote, insisting it wasn't going to change the outcome.

But by that time, the Democrats were able to vote as a block, with ill Sen. Carlos Uresti returning to the chamber and Sen. Whitmire's vote being tallied (plus another Republican making it to the floor), and the legislation was blocked by a vote of 20-11.