Next week the U.S. Supreme Court takes up a case which has ramifications for Texas. Since the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA), the federal government has expanded authority to act as a watchdog over elections throughout the country. The VRA prohibits state and local governments from restricting voting rights and access to minority voters by mandating preclearance procedures which require some state and local governments (including Texas and eight states) to submit all changes affecting voting and elections for approval to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division or to the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. That’s what happens every 10 years after the states conduct redistricting (the drawing of the geographic boundary lines to determine the representative structure for elections).
The question in Shelby County v. Holder (2013) is whether the preclearance process has outlived its purpose. In 2008, then President Bush’s Justice Department filed a lawsuit against the city when it re-drew voting lines eliminating the only majority black city council seat. Alabama argues that blacks were integrated into the population, and that continued supervision by the federal courts causes confusion and delay for elections–the South is a different place from 1965.
Texas agrees.
Or at least Republican leaders do.
Attorney General Greg Abbott has filed an appeal in a federal court case which struck down Texas’ 2011 redistricting plan. Two different federal courts have found that Texas impermissibly interfered with minority voting rights with the plan, and Abbott’s appeal is likely to be on hold while the Supreme Court resolves the Shelby county case.
What do the rest of Texans think? Not everyone agrees with Abbott. It might surprise you to learn that a recent public opinion poll found a slim majority of Texans (about 51%) including 1/3rd Republicans think there is some place for federal supervision over voting rights.
And speaking of opinions, wonder what Governor Rick Perry is thinking as he watches other Republican governors giving up the fight with President Obama over Medicaid funding under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Under the law, Medicaid funding (the joint federal-state program providing health insurance to low-income persons) has been hard for governors to resist because it means more money for state budgets. Eleven Republican are standing firm that they will not accept federal monies because they do not want to be under a national regulatory scheme (structure which allows the federal government to demand conditions from the states), while 12 Republican governors have not weighed in yet.
Trouble for Governor Perry is that this week Republican Governor Rick Scott, who had been resisting federal money, gave in and agreed that Florida will take Medicaid monies. That draws attention to the fact that if the Governor changed his mind and let Texas participate by putting up the $15 billion (our share of the program costs), the state would receive $100 billion in federal funds in the next 10 years. Those funds could be used to expand health care coverage for 2 million people–approximately 25% of Texans have no insurance.
It promises to be a tough battle for the Governor.
Lone Star News Review 