Texas would be covered under proposed amendment to Voting Rights Act

[Gothmog]

4. Michael Li has some good coverage on this proposed amendment

Here is a good summary of the Texas press coverage on this amendment http://txredistricting.org/post/74895220111/texas-election-law-round-up

A proposal to fix the Voting Rights Act may have been introduced in Congress, but the Dallas Morning News reports that Senator John Cornyn has already let people know that he’s having none of it because “it discriminates against Texas.”

Cornyn’s reaction prompted MSNBC commentator Melissa Harris- Perry to send Cornyn an open letter in rebuttal telling him the new coverage formula is “really not about discriminating against Texas. It is about Texas’ history of discriminating against its own voters.”

Meanwhile, the Dallas Morning News editorial board called the proposed updates “a much needed fix.

The Waco Herald-Tribune editorial board agreed, saying that VRA amendments were worthy of support and that “if that puts Texas back on the short list of states needing federal pre-clearance— well, blame our state leaders and the way they bungled what should have been far better laws in terms of voter photo ID and redistricting.”

The San Antonio Express-News editorial board also agreed, writing that Texas was a “poster boy” for why the act was still needed.

However, Attorney General Eric Holder - while liking the bill overall - told MSNBC’s Ari Melber that proposed fixes to the Voting Rights Act should go further and allow voter ID violations found by the Justice Department (and not just by a court) to count toward the new section 4 trigger.