Holder calls Texas voter ID law a 'poll tax'

With U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder at his side, NAACP Board Vice Chairman Leon Russell, center, holds up a voting card Tuesday and calls for a resolution at the NAACP convention in support of the embattled administration official. less With U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder at his side, NAACP Board Vice Chairman Leon Russell, center, holds up a voting card Tuesday and calls for a resolution at the NAACP convention in support of the embattled ... more Photo: Michael Paulsen Photo: Michael Paulsen Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Holder calls Texas voter ID law a 'poll tax' 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

A day after a federal three-judge panel in Washington, D.C., began hearing a lawsuit involving a Justice Department challenge to Texas' voter identification law, Attorney General Eric Holder told the 103rd annual convention of the NAACP on Tuesday that "we will not allow political pretext to disenfranchise American citizens of their most precious right."

In his address to some 600 members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People attending the convention at Houston's George R. Brown Convention Center, Holder noted that Texas in recent months has been at the center of the national debate about voting-rights issues. The DOJ opposed the state's photo identification requirement for voting after concluding it would be harmful to minority voters, he said.

"Under the proposed law, concealed handgun licenses would be acceptable forms of photo ID, but student IDs would not," Holder said. "Many of those without IDs would have to travel great distances to get them, and some would struggle to pay for the documents they might need to obtain them. We call those poll taxes."

'I will not allow that'

Holder, the nation's first African-American attorney general, alluded to recent studies that found 8 percent of white voting-age U.S. citizens lack a government-issued photo ID, compared to 25 percent of black citizens.

"The arc of American history has always moved toward expanding the electorate. It is what made this nation exceptional," he said. "We will simply not allow this era to be the beginning of the reversal of that historic progress. I will not allow that to happen."

Because of its history of voter discrimination, Texas must get Justice pre-clearance before it can change its election laws. After the Texas law was blocked under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, state Attorney General Greg Abbott sued in federal court. Abbott and Gov. Rick Perry contend that the Supreme Court has declared photo ID laws in other states constitutional, and that the DOJ is misusing the Voting Rights Act to infringe on states' rights.

More Information More testimony on Texas voter ID Highlights from Tuesday's trial in Washington, D.C., over Texas' voter ID law: 1 San Antonio state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, a Democrat and chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, told the three-judge federal panel that despite concerns from minority lawmakers, Republicans changed legislative rules and funneled the bill to a newly created committee in order to pass it quickly because it had been designated as a legislative emergency by Gov. Rick Perry. "There was a deliberate effort to pass this," Martinez Fischer said, "and pass this in record time." 1 The Justice Department called witness Victoria Rodriguez, 18, who traveled from Texas by plane with only a high school photo ID. Rodriguez said she has a birth certificate and student ID, but lacks the documents to prove her state residency because she lives with her parents and therefore would not be allowed to vote under the new law. She said she does not have a driver's license because of the cost of insurance. 1 A statistical expert for the state, Dr. Thomas Sager, a University of Texas professor, testified that the Justice Department's estimate that 1.5 million people could be disenfranchised by the new law was off by thousands. But Sager admitted under cross-examination that his own estimates on the impact of the law did not take ethnicity into account. Gary Martin

"This is a case about Texas' proposed implementation of one of the most popular voting reforms of the last 20 years, a common-sense requirement that when you show up to polls to vote, you prove you are who you say you are with a photo ID," Texas attorney Adam Mortara told the court on Monday.

Holder, whose scheduled address to the NAACP was delayed a day because of flight complications, said that the DOJ under his three-year tenure has worked to assure the safety and protection of children and to disrupt what he called "the school-to-prison pipeline." He also took credit for revitalizing the Civil Rights Division.

"Over the past three years the Civil Rights Division has filed more criminal civil rights cases than ever before, including record numbers of police misconduct, hate crimes and human trafficking cases," Holder said. "We have moved aggressively to combat continuing racial segregation in our schools and to eliminate discriminatory practices in our housing and lending markets, where we recently achieved the largest residential fair-lending settlement in American history."

Signs of support

The attorney general, the first Cabinet member ever held in contempt of Congress because of his refusal to hand over documents pertaining to a border guns operation called "Fast and Furious," received a standing ovation after his address.

The convention also adopted an "emergency resolution" committing the association and its members to "strongly support" Holder's efforts, especially in regard to voting rights. The resolution also called him one of the best attorneys general ever.

joe.holley@chron.com