TSA We Have a Problem - Woman Boards Plane to Testify About Not Having an ID

Yes, you read the correctly.  Victoria Rodriquez was one of two sisters that DOJ was able to identify as being disenfranchised if the Texas law requiring an ID were to stand.  She lives in Texas and the trial was in federal court in Washington, D.C..  Ms. Rodriquez is an 18-year-old college student who says that obtaining an ID is too big of a barrier for her in order to vote.  You see, she doesn't own a car and she can't get to the office to get her ID.  Her parents are too busy to drive her.

So let me get this straight, she was able to get to the airport, board a plane, fly to Baltimore Maryland then take a connecting Amtrak train to get to court but can't make it across town to get her ID.  Also, how did she get on the plane or the train?  Both require picture ID's in order to board.

Under oath she testified that she does have a social security card, a birth certificate, and a voter registration card.  One more form of ID than what is necessary in order to obtain the picture ID.

Here are some other tidbits that came out during the trial:

239 dead people voted on May 12, 2012 of those 213 of them did it in person.  Did anyone pass out from the smell?
50,000 dead people are still on the voter rolls in Texas.
394 people were removed from rolls due to not being citizens.
Tavis County has not removed dead people from their rolls in five years.  A violation of federal law.
Eighteen counties have more people registered to vote then residents.

The DOJ did have some experts testify as the to the harm these laws will do.  It didn't go all that well.

23 people out of 36,500 surveyed said they were unable to case a vote due to ID laws.

The DOJ's expert said the following:

“Voter identification is the controversy that isn't. Almost no one is excluded by this requirement.”
Over 70% of whites, blacks, and Hispanics support the requirement. Black and Hispanic voters did not express measurably less support for voter ID requirements than whites.”
“These findings undercut much of the heated rhetoric that has inflated the debate over voter ID requirements in the United States.”
“That almost no one is prevented from voting because of voter ID requirements casts doubt on arguments from the left that this amounts to a new poll tax or literacy test.”
“The poll tax, literacy test, and other tools of the Jim Crow laws are powerful metaphors derived from a very ugly period in American history, but ID requirements in practice today bear only the palest resemblance to such discriminatory practices.”
“These facts strongly suggest that there may be little or no voting rights issue involved in the dispute over voter ID rules, and no question of fraud either. This is hardly the stuff of the Civil Rights Movement, or the mid-1950s when only 25% of southern blacks were registered, and fewer still were allowed to vote.”

Oh, but it gets better with the next witness:

He believes that Sandra Day O'Connor wanted to pass laws that encouraged white supremacy in Shaw V. Reno as it upheld voter ID laws.  The problem is that opinion was actually written by Justice Stevens.  Ouch.

He goes on:

- Republican African-American and Hispanic legislators are not “legitimate
representatives” of minority communities.

• “But he’s white”—after learning that an Anglo Democrat who represents a majority- Hispanic House District voted for the voter ID law.

• All legislators who voted for SB 14—including 5 Hispanics and 2 African-Americans were motivated by racially discriminatory purposes.”

• There could be states that could enact voter ID laws without a discriminatory purpose, but “Texas is not one of those places.”

• The Texas Attorney General should ignore documented evidence of voter fraud and instead “spend all his time” prosecuting environmental violations.

• “Even if a majority of Hispanics support voter ID, it has a discriminatory purpose.”

• To the extent African-Americans and Hispanics support voter ID laws, it is only because they were manipulated and misled by Republicans.

• “I would generally characterize myself as a liberal.” Shocker!!!

• Voter fraud is “really quite easy to find and prosecute,” a position that is at odds with experienced state and federal law enforcement officials.

You never know what a court is going to do (unless of course it is the 9th circuit) so they could strike down the law.  But either way, one side is bound to be unhappy and this will move its way up the chain and eventually land at the Supreme Court.  A place that has upheld the right to prove eligibility to vote is not discrimination.  The truth is it wouldn't matter what color your skin is.  All must provide an ID.  The burden is the same regardless of sex or race.

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