[Also: no puppet, no puppet]I guess it was predictable enough that the new Attorney General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, a notorious racist who famously explained that what he didn't like about his old comrades at the KKK is that they smoke too much pot, would change the tone of the Justice Department when it comes to equality. The Justice Department has been for it and is now against it. It's official, despite the never-ending palaver from the orange racist piglet in the White House-- who started his business career by overseeing an illegal program to deny housing to renters from minority groups in Brooklyn-- that he is the "least racist person you've ever met."For the last 6 years the Justice Department has supported a suit that the Texas voter ID law was adopted with the intent to discriminate against African American and Hispanics, Yesterday, without notice, the Justice Department did a 180 degree about-face, abandoning the plaintiffs, led by Congressman Marc Veasey, opposing SB 14. Until yesterday the Justice Department had argued-- aggressively-- that Republican leaders of the state legislature intentionally passed a bill to discriminate against minority groups in Texans. Key word, "intentionally." This is from a brief filed 2 months ago by the Justice Department: "This discriminatory impact was not merely an unintended consequence of SB 14... It was, in part, SB 14’s purpose. Compelling evidence establishes that Texas enacted SB 14 at least in part because of its detrimental effects on African-American and Hispanic voters." Sessions and his underlings haven't explained why they changed course.
The Department of Justice under President Donald Trump will support Texas officials’ claim that the state's voter identification law did not specifically target minority voters, retreating from the federal government's previous stance that state lawmakers intentionally discriminated when crafting the law.The law’s opponents were notified of the switch one day before the question of discriminatory intent is set to be argued in federal court, according to officials at the Campaign Legal Center....Last summer, judges on the [very right-wing] 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that the law was discriminatory but said they could not come to a conclusion on whether the Legislature had intentionally discriminated when writing the law. They sent the question of discriminatory intent back to U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos in Corpus Christi.Ramos is set to hear arguments on the question of discriminatory intent Tuesday morning.
The plaintiffs will continue fighting the law even without the support of the Justice Department. Republican-held congressional districts where this kind of discrimination could have a significant effect in the 2018 midterms include these districts with large Hispanic and African-American populations (over 40%), combined for the sake of this list:
• TX-23, Will Hurd (73.0%)• TX-27, Blake Farenthold (55.6%)• TX-14, Randy Weber (43.7%)• TX-07, John Culberson (43.7%)• TX-02, Ted Poe (41.9%)• TX-06, Joe Barton (41.6%)• TX-19, Jodey Arrington (40.5)• TX-05, Jeb Hensarling (40.0%)
Of course, these are precisely the members of Congress the law was passed to protect. Few people doubt that competent recruitment-- not exactly a DCCC strongpoint-- plus robust voter registration drives in TX-23, TX-27 and TX-07 would mean flipping those three districts in 2018. Keep in mind that although Farenthold is a dummy and a loud-mouthed Trump supporter who does absolutely nothing for his Corpus Christi district, which is now only 41% white, the DCCC since he took the district from conservative Democrat Solomon Ortiz in 2010 (48% to 47%). The DCCC refused to support Rose Meza Harrison in 2012, refused to support Wesley Reed in 2014 and refused to support Roy Barrera last November, when Barrera managed to spend just $18,698 against Farenthold's $1,108,700. This is the Farenthold the DCCC is so scared of (in his ducky pjs):
