Houston Press: Fifth Circuit Hears Texas Voter ID Arguments

The law was subsequently blocked as racially discriminatory under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act in 2012, right until the U.S. Supreme Court declared Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional in 2013, allowing the law to go back into effect.

After the law was allowed to go into effect suits were filed to try and block the Texas law under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution and the cases were lumped together under Veasey v. Perry. Last October a federal district judge found that the law violates Section 2 by denying African Americans and Latinos an equal chance to cast their ballots. U. S. District Court Judge Nelva Gonzalez Ramos, a President Barack Obama appointee, also found the law violates the Constitutional right to vote and acts as a poll tax. Ramos put an injunction on the law that required Texans to go back to their pre-SB 14 voter requirements.