Justice department says administration won’t challenge the strict law, in a shift from Obama-era opposition to such discriminatory laws

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

An attorney for a voting rights group said Monday that Donald Trump’s administration will no longer challenge a strict Texas voter ID law, signaling a dramatic change in the government’s approach to civil rights under its new attorney general, Jeff Sessions.

The justice department told plaintiffs in the case against the law that the government will formally end its opposition to the law, according to Danielle Lang, the deputy director of voting rights for the Campaign Legal Center.

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“It’s a complete 360,” Lang told the Associated Press. “We can’t make heads or tails of any factual reason for the change. There has been no new evidence that’s come to light.”

Lang said the reversal was an “extraordinary disappointment”.

Early Monday afternoon, it was not immediately clear what specific changes the justice department would make in in court documents, for instance whether it would now argue the law was not passed with intent to discriminate by race. Federal courts have ruled that the 2011 law, which requires one of seven forms of photo ID to cast a ballot, discriminates against minorities.

In 2014, a judge ruled that the law disproportionately affected black and Hispanic Americans, and in 2015 and last year appeals court judges largely affirmed her ruling.

Texas asked the supreme court to review that decision, but in January the justices declined to do so – leaving a window to return to the case later. In a statement, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that there would be “no barrier to our review” while the case continues through the courts.

A hearing on whether the law was passed with discriminatory intent is scheduled for Tuesday.

The justice department under Barack Obama had joined the civil rights groups and voters against the lawsuit, arguing that the claims to prevent voter fraud lacked evidence and were used to make it harder for non-white people to vote. Obama’s attorneys general, Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, repeatedly took action against voter ID laws, either through investigations or lawsuits against state governments. Last July, an appeals court struck down a similar voter ID law enacted in North Carolina.

Sessions’ civil rights record shadowed his confirmation hearings earlier this month, which ended with a 52-47 vote in favor, with all but one Democrat voting against the senator. Civil rights groups, including the NAACP, sided with Democrats against Sessions, warning about his attitudes toward race.

In 1986, Sessions was rejected for a seat on a federal court after testimony that, while he worked as a state attorney in Alabama, Sessions called civil rights groups “un-American” and called a black official in his office “boy”. Sessions has denied that claim, and also denied a claim that he used a racial slur about a different black colleague.

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Also in 1986, civil rights activist Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King Jr, wrote a letter criticizing Sessions for his indictment of activists who were trying to help elderly black people vote in Alabama.



“Mr Sessions has used the awesome powers of his office in shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters,” she wrote. “For this reprehensible conduct, he should not be rewarded with a federal judgeship.”

Marc Elias, the attorney who served as counsel for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, said that the justice department’s reversal was a validation of “the fears voiced during [Sessions’] confirmation fight”.

“After taking the lead in challenging Texas’ restrictive voting law these last six years, the justice department, now under President Trump, is actively siding with suppression,” Elias said in a statement. “Make no mistake: this move is just the beginning of the Trump administration’s coordinated assault on the right to vote, and it demands an aggressive response.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.