Two-Step – Veasey v. Abbott

In 2011, Texas passed Senate Bill 14 (S.B. 14), which required that a voter brings one of six methods of voter registrations – a “Texas Driver License, Texas Election Identification Certificate, Texas Personal Identification Card, Texas Concealed Handgun License, United States Military Identification Card, United States Citizenship Certificate, or United States Passport” – in order to be seen as a legitimate voter, and, thus, be given the right to vote¹.

Voting rights advocates sued, noting that, among other things, it violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.  The suit had first went to a District Court, which sided with the voting rights advocates. This court, however, also created the two-step process that has now been used post-Shelby to determine whether a law intentionally discriminates based on race.

Here are the two steps:

  1. Does the law disproportionately affect minorities? The district court answered in the affirmative when it came to SB 14; the law would negatively impact the poor, which, due to socioeconomic discrimination, were mostly comprised of people of color.
  2. Has history proven that the law’s methods create voter suppression against minorities? In other words, the court wants to find out if history shown that this law can be used against nonwhite peoples. The court answered this question in the affirmative as well, using amendments of the Voting Rights Act as its supporting evidence.

Texas had lost its law for now; however, SB 14 will need to wait until Shelby before it could be verified again, and, even afterwards, it would continually be struck down and revived, up until this point. TO learn more about S.B. 14, click here.

References:

¹ – “The Story of Texas SB 14: A Legal Lazarus – State of Elections.” William & Mary Law School. Accessed November 16, 2021. http://electls.blogs.wm.edu/2018/12/03/story-texas-sb-14-legal-lazarus/.

Election Law — Voting Rights Act — Fifth Circuit Strikes Down Voter ID Law Based on Disparate Impact. — Veasey v. Abbott, 796 F.3d 487 (5th Cir. 2015). Harvard law review. 2016;129(4):1128-1135.