On this day in 1964 the United States passed the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution making it illegal to impose poll taxes at the voting booth. A year later Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would push President Lyndon B. Johnson to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Two years ago the United States Supreme Court said that the south had paid their debt for the sin of segregation, poll taxes, Jim Crow and the like, and that key enforcement provisions of the Voting Rights Act were and are unconstitutional.
As such, the south began desperately passing voter ID laws that discriminate against poor minorities with “surgical precision.” One such southern state was Texas, who was sued last year because of how intentionally discriminatory its voter ID law was. The trial court, last year, said that the volume of the record spoke for itself on the legislative intent to disenfranchise minorities and the poor in the Lone Star State. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that the effect was discriminatory, but referred the case back to the trial court to flesh out how “intentional” the discrimination was.
But, Donald Trump, who’s pushing “alternative facts” about how many folks were at his inauguration (the lowest turnout in a LONG LONG TIME, by the way) asked for a continuance from appearing in court tomorrow to argue the discriminatory intent of the Texas legislature in the passing of its voter ID law. Probably because now that Loretta Lynch is out, and Jeff Sessions is in, they may want to swap the facts around and wrongfully prosecute people for exercising their right to vote (like Jeff Sessions did as a Federal Prosecutor). Who knows. But, they want a continuance because of a “change in leadership.”
Jeff Sessions is not confirmed. Further, Trump still has to nominate some 690 positions for the Senate to consider for confirmation. But, let’s focus on those inauguration turnout numbers.
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