AUSTIN — Calling a lower court's ruling that blocked Texas' revamped voter identification law an "abuse of discretion," the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision Friday and allowed the law to go into effect.

The appeals court had previously found the original voter ID law discriminatory and sent the case back to the U.S. district court. But in a 2-1 decision Friday, it cleared the way for the law's implementation with the changes lawmakers made during last year's legislative session.

"The Texas legislature passed a law designed to cure all the flaws cited in evidence when the case was first tried. The legislature succeeded in its goal," read the ruling written by Judge Edith H. Jones.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton applauded the decision, a major victory for the state after its seven years of defending the controversial law.

"The court rightly recognized that when the Legislature passed Senate Bill 5 last session, it complied with every change the 5th Circuit ordered to the original voter ID law," Paxton said in a news release. "Safeguarding the integrity of our elections is essential to preserving our democracy. The revised voter ID law removes any burden on voters who cannot obtain a photo ID."

Opponents of the law vowed to keep fighting and said all options, including an appeal to the Supreme Court, are on the table.

"Our view today is the same as it has been since the first day of this litigation — Texas' voter ID law is discriminatory," said state Rep. Rafael Anchia, the Dallas Democrat who chairs the Mexican American Legislative Caucus in the Texas House. "We are undeterred by today's decision, and we will continue to fight against laws that aim to suppress the vote."

Lupe Valdez, the former Dallas County sheriff who is in a Democratic runoff for Texas governor, denounced the ruling in a tweet.

"Disappointing stepback to see Texas' discriminatory voter ID law upheld," she said. "We should be making it easier for eligible Texans to vote, not harder. Let's defend and expand voting rights — not attack them."

Disappointing stepback to see Texas' discriminatory voter ID law upheld. We should be making it easier for eligible Texans to vote, not harder.



Let's defend and expand voting rights - not attack them. #txlege https://t.co/vFyisf0sOH — Lupe Valdez (@LupeValdez) April 27, 2018

Last May, the Legislature changed the voter ID law, originally known as Senate Bill 14, to address federal court findings that it was discriminatory. Among the changes were longer grace periods for the use of expired photo IDs in voting, from two years to four; an increase in the number of documents that could be used as identification; and addition of more mobile locations for obtaining election certificates.

The changes did not satisfy U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos, who blocked the law in August and said the changes did not address the discrimination against African-Americans and Latinos at its heart. She said the law would have to be fixed "root and branch."

In crafting their revamp, state legislators said, they relied on the advice of the traditionally conservative 5th Circuit rather than Gonzales Ramos. After Gonzalez Ramos blocked the 2017 version of the law, they again took their case to the appeals court.

The legal strategy paid off. In the court's ruling, Jones wrote that the state had followed the guidelines the appeals court had laid out for remedying the discriminatory effects of the law and said the revamped law mirrored an interim remedy hashed out by the district court to guarantee fair elections in the 2016 presidential year.

"There is no evidentiary or legal basis for rejecting SB 5," wrote Jones, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan.

Jones added, however, that "nothing we conclude today disposes of any potential challenges to SB 5 in the future."

"Plaintiffs may file a new lawsuit, and bear the burden of proof, if the promise of the law to remedy disparate impact on indigent minority voters is not fulfilled," she wrote.

Judge James E. Graves Jr., an appointee of President Barack Obama, dissented from the majority opinion.

"S.B. 14 is an unconstitutional disenfranchisement of duly qualified electors. S.B. 5 is merely its adorned alter ego," Graves wrote in his dissent. "The Texas Legislature enacted S.B. 14 with an intent to suppress minority voting. Because the thread of discriminatory intent runs through both S.B. 14 and S.B. 5, the district court's judgment and remedial order should be affirmed."