A Modest Proposal

Justice Department to sue Texas over voter ID law | Fox News: WASHINGTON –

The Justice Department said Thursday that it will sue Texas over its voter ID law and, separately, look for ways to intervene in a lawsuit over the state’s redistricting policies -- in the latest volley in the ongoing dispute between the feds and the Lone Star State.


[Attorney General Eric Holder] ... said the step marks the department’s “continuing effort to protect the voting rights of all eligible Americans.” He added, “We will not allow the Supreme Court’s recent decision to be interpreted as open season for states to pursue measures that suppress voting rights.”

Holder’s announcement follows a June 25 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that effectively removed a vital portion of the Voting Rights Act that required 16 jurisdictions to seek pre-clearance from the DOJ before making any changes to election laws and redistricting laws.

Following the ruling, Holder called the court’s decision and its reasoning behind it “flawed,” and vowed to find other ways within the law to challenge the ruling. He planned to do this by targeting other provisions in the act that would allow plaintiffs to present cases where they were unfairly targeted by the law.

“The Department will take action against jurisdictions that attempt to hinder access to the ballot box, no matter where it occurs,” he said. “We will keep fighting aggressively to prevent voter disenfranchisement.”

I have to admit, I'm not sure what Holder's problem is.   (Okay, we've all been saying that for years now, but I was talking about this specific issue.)

It's this whole "voter disenfranchisement" that confuses me.  I understand poll taxes and literacy tests to have historically been the 'litmus test' of disenfranchisement.

The stationing of two uniformed "New Black Panthers" outside the Philadelphia Ward 4 voting site in 2008 was not, however, "disenfranchisement".  Passive intimidation?  One wonders why else one of them felt obliged to brandish a club, but perhaps that's just his "pacifier".  Holder's Justice Department declined to prosecute the two, having determined that they had broken no laws.

Why, then, is Mr. Holder planning to sue Texas for doing something that other states are allowed to do?  That is, require voters to prove their identity before being given the ballot prepared for that registered voter.   Oh, what a tangled web we weave!

However, if Mr. Holder's fiefdom is permitted to sue Texas for requiring voters to prove their identity, and wins, then perhaps the rest of us can use that precedent to protect our own civil rights.

For example, I am currently required to present government issued photo ID before I am permitted to purchase a firearm.  And the Second Amendment is as clear on my right to Keep and Bear arms as other amendments are clear in protecting voting rights.

I believe that this is an illegal and unconstitutional impediment on my civil rights.  Specifically, it's a deliberate attempt to undermine German-Irish rights in America!   Look to other rights protected by Constitutional Amendments:

• The Fifteenth Amendment extended the right to vote to former male slaves in 1870
• women gained the vote with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920
• American Indians gained the vote under a law passed by Congress in 1924
• The Twenty-Fourth Amendment eliminated the Poll Tax in 1964
•  The Twenty-Sixth Amendment lowered the legal voting age to eighteen in 1972

The national habit of using constitutional amendments for antidisenfranchisement purposes has been well established.  (And yes, I did just coin that word!)

Therefore, if the Justice Department sues Texas and wins, then he has established a precedent for the prevention of any other laws which require the use of a photo ID to prove my eligibility to exercise my constitutional rights. Such as, the right to keep and bear arms.

Obviously, the requirement for me to present a photo ID to rent a motel room or a car, or to cash a check or enter a tavern -- those are not constitutionally protected rights; they're privileges or mere monetary transactions.

So Mr. Holder, I put it to you that the Slippery Slope argument is alive and well in America.  Especially since the only people who would be 'disenfrangised' by this law are those who are attempting to commit voter fraud.

Put up or shut up.

[ apologies and appreciation to Jonathan Swift ]