Justice Department plans to sue Texas over voter ID

AUSTIN, Texas — The Justice Department said Thursday it will sue Texas over the state’s voter ID law and will seek to intervene in a lawsuit over the state’s redistricting laws, prompting outrage from Texas Republicans.

Atty. Gen. Eric Holder said the action marks another step in the effort to protect voting rights of all eligible Americans. He said the government will not allow a recent Supreme Court decision to be interpreted as open season for states to pursue measures that suppress voting rights.

“This represents the department’s latest action to protect voting rights, but it will not be our last,” the attorney general said.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn said his state should be allowed to write its own election laws.

“As Texans we reject the notion that the federal government knows what’s best for us,” he said in a statement.

On June 25, the Supreme Court threw out the most powerful part of the Voting Rights Act, which marked a major turning point in black Americans’ struggle for equal rights and political power when it was enacted in 1965. The Justice Department’s legal action in Texas is based on another provision in the law.

In the voter ID lawsuit, the U.S. government will contend that Texas adopted a voter identification law with the purpose of denying or restricting the right to vote on account of race, color or membership in a language minority group.

The law requires voters to produce a state-issued ID before casting a ballot, while before voters could use their registration cards.