Why We Fight in Texas
Proposed Texas Voter ID Law Would Suppress Student Voters
A concealed handgun license would get you a ballot, but not a Texas university ID under a proposed voter ID bill.
Originally published on Alternet by Christina Sanders, Texas League State Director
Proposed SB 14, known widely as the Texas Voter ID bill, poses a threat to young voters and direct threat to young voters in colleges and universities around the state. In this economy and with the high unemployment rates for young people of color, we are sure that incorporating cost into the election process will create a burden for young voters.
The 2011 Texas Legislature passed a Voter ID law that would not allow students to use their student IDs to vote. An amendment was presented and rejected by legislators that would have added student IDs issued from state universities as valid forms of identification accepted to vote.
Read more…
Texas Voter ID is Worse than we Thought: 2.3 Million Voters on the Chopping Block
It has been about a year since SB-14, the Voter ID law from Texas, was being discussed as “emergency” legislation. The bill limits the way in which Texans would be able to have access to the ballot. Designated as an “emergency” piece of legislation by Texas Gov. Rick Perry, it is now urgent that we educate each other to stand against this unjust law.
SB-14 is filled with pure ridiculousness. This bill won’t allow the use of student IDs but welcomes concealed handgun licenses as acceptable forms of photo identification. Even young Texans with a student ID issued from state institutions would not be able to use them. All IDs must be issued at the DMV, and cannot be more than 60 days expired. This means that the law would not recognize government IDs received from employment, nor an expired state-issued ID even if the voter looks identical to a 61-day-old state issued ID.
Don’t Back Down, Keep Up the Fight! Attorney General Eric Holder Visits Texas
By Christina Sanders (Texas State Director). Originally published on 99Problems.org.
This year has been a very emotional year for young people, people of color and the poor in Texas. Even though I was not alive during the era of Jim Crow laws that sought to segregate and suppress the electoral impact of African Americans, somehow I feel like I am in the midst of a Jim Crow fight today. The 82nd Session of the Texas Legislature proved brutal to the confidence that many voting rights groups and advocates have in our state lawmakers. During that session, state house and senate representatives voted to approve a Voter ID bill that offered so many restrictions that one might assume Mr. Jimmy Crow wrote it himself.
This photo ID law was deemed “emergency” legislation by Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Someone please call 911 because that emergency Voter ID bill could flip the script on Texas voters by no longer allowing voters to use a voter registration card to cast a ballot – leaving more than a half million registered voters shot and voiceless. Read more…
Voter ID Law Attacks Democracy
By Judith Browne Dianis (co-director of Advancement Project) and Jayme Montgomery (Wisconsin director of the League of Young Voters). Originally published in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
A year from now, the people of Wisconsin will be going to the polls to exercise one of the most cherished rights of our democracy: the right to vote. It is the fundamental pillar of our democracy that in the voting booth we are all equal – black or white, young or old, rich or poor. When we cast our ballot, we all raise an equal voice to determine the shape of our government.
Wisconsin legislators would deny that right. Strict new voter identification laws were proposed in 34 states, including our own. Wisconsin’s new voter identification restrictions, which passed the Legislature this year, are now the strictest in the country.
[VIDEOS] The League At the Take Back the American Dream Conference
FreeSpeechTV was on the scene at the Take Back the American Dream Conference this week. Latoya Peterson, from Racialicious, sat down with Biko to talk about how the League is using creative tactics to organize young people around the issues that matter to us:
On Voter ID laws and youth disenfranchisement:
TBAD 2011- Panel on Voter Supression from Velvet Revolution on Vimeo.
