Fifth Circuit Lets Voter ID Stand

Get out your drivers' license. Texas' voter ID bill may restrict the constitutional rights of Texas voters, but the election is too soon to make any changes. That's the latest ruling from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Last week, US District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos issued an injunction on the introduction of the state's 2011 voter ID law, comparing it to Jim Crow and a poll tax. Attorney General Greg Abbott immediately appealed that ruling. In this latest ruling in his favor, Circuit Judge Edith Brown Clement wrote that suspending the voter ID rules "substantially disturbs the election process of the State of Texas just nine days before early voting begins."

However, this does not mean the issue goes away. The Fifth Circuit's argument is about the timing, not the substance of the law. While conceding that "individual voter plaintiffs may be harmed by the issuance of this stay," Clement and Circuit Judge Catharina Haynes found that the state "will be irreparably harmed" if Ramos' injunction remains. At this point, "will" outweighs "may," and so the Nov. 4 election, and any run-offs, will require Texans to provide one of seven forms of approved photo ID at the ballot box. However, the ruling is extremely cautious about any statement about a full ruling on the law's merits outside of the cauldron of an election.

Circuit Judge Gregg Costa was even more perturbed than his colleagues by the corner into which the court has been backed. He wrote in his concurring opinion, "We should be extremely reluctant to have an election take place under a law that a district court has found, and that our court may find, is discriminatory. As always, however, we must follow the dictates of the Supreme Court."

In this instance, the precedent he and the majority cite is that SCOTUS has thrown out injunctions in two other cases purely because they were too close to the election. Additionally, last week, SCOTUS threw out Wisconsin's voter equally turnout-suppressing voter ID bill. However, their reasoning was the same as in the other cases: The law hadn't been implemented before preparations for the voting began, and couldn't be changed so close to the election.