The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take the state’s appeal (pdf) of a lower court ruling invalidating portions of the Voter ID law enacted in 2011. Chief Justice John Roberts indicated the state could pursue an appeal “after entry of final judgment.” A federal court in Corpus Christi will determine whether the law was passed with discriminatory intent. That trial was set to begin tomorrow (Tuesday) but has been postponed until February 28 to permit the U.S. Dept. of Justice to “brief the new leadership” on the case. The federal government was set to argue that the Voter ID law was passed with a discriminatory intent.
A divided Fifth Circuit meeting en banc ruled that the Voter ID law had a discriminatory effect in July, upholding a lower-court decision, but it reversed a lower-court decision that found the law was passed with discriminatory intent and its photo identification requirement constituted a poll tax. The state and plaintiffs agreed to an interim remedy which was used for a special election in Bexar Co. and then the November general election.
