Texas Senate Bill 14 = Voter Suppression

By Dr. Henry Flores

One would think that in a democracy one would want as many possible individuals to participate in the election process.  One would think also that in a democracy one would want as many persons as possible to have a say in how public policy is made.

Chapter Two (I don’t know how many chapters I will be allowed on this topic but anyway) in the continuing epic of the birth and hopeful death of Senate Bill 14 the Texas State Voter Identification (SB 14) law ratified in the 82d legislative session focuses on the anti-democratic nature of both the law and process that gave birth to this now infamous law.

Our esteemed legislative leadership, specifically in the Texas State Senate, found their philosophical starting point on SB 14 in the voter/ballot security and/or integrity movement (this program has had several names over the years) deep in the bowels of the Republican Party early in the 1970s.  One of the early executioners of the program was a lawyer by the name of William Rehnquist, yes the one and only who helped set up the program in Arizona and other states.

My first encounter with a ballot security program was in San Antonio, Texas during the early to mid-1970s when the Republicans sent individuals dressed as Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) agents to election polls in heavily Latino neighborhoods to intimidate voters.  In Dallas, signs were placed in Latino and African American neighborhoods pointing out that casting an illegal ballot was a felony offense and punishable by jail time and a fine.

Senate Bill 14 and its ilk are the latest incarnation of the Republican Party’s ballot security and integrity program and represents historical efforts, at least, to discourage, Latinos and African Americans from voting.  In Texas, Senate Bill 14 requires proof of citizenship in order to register to vote but the three principle forms of voter identification required by the bill currently do not require proof of citizenship to obtain, driver’s license, military identification card or a hidden gun carrying permit.

According to a recent study by the Houston Chronicle and the Brennen Center for Justice at New York University School of Law approximately 500,00 voters, already registered, will be disenfranchised in states currently having or trying to pass voter identification laws simply because they lack driver’s licenses.  The states cited include staunchly Republican states including Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin.  Hmm, this list almost makes one suspicious that voter identification laws are part of the GOP’s Solid South strategy!

Still, the GOP is living on borrowed time, they know it, their movers and shakers know it and the extremely wealthy moguls who back the GOP know that their perception on issues, specifically what they define as over regulatory government are out of tune with the majority of Americans.  Environmental protection laws that regulate industrial waste, pro-abortion laws, pro-spending on public education, pro-public health laws, pro-public transportation, and tax and spend policies are positions that just upset Republicans to no end.  They would like to see a libertarian society where no or minimum government reigns and the forces of the free market determine all social, economic and cultural outcomes; a society that can only exist in some dystopian or utopian fiction.  Well my friends, social and economic reality is not how the GOP sees it.  What they see is the world of the wealthy, where one can keep what they make of their hard labor (Bain Capital?), do what they wish and go where they want, when and how they want.  In order to obtain and maintain this world Republicans need to keep control of the government and the only way they can do this is by winning and holding elective offices.

Since the “real” world (Republicans like to talk about the real world but they don’t live in it) is not what the Republicans want and can never be, they are deathly afraid of what the world will look like if Latinos and African Americans and poor/working people take over the reins of power.  As it stands now the GOP hates, just hates to see a Black person in the White House can you imagine how they would feel if the daughter of a working class Latino ever won the presidency?  They gave Justice Sotomayor a hard enough time getting on the Supreme Court and they have done nothing to allow President Obama to get his agenda through fruition.  Can you imagine how upset they would be if a woman from East LA, or the South or West side of San Antonio ever became president?

No my friends.  Republicans don’t want Latinos or African Americans or independent, strong women or anyone they don’t define as normal in charge of the levers of power.  And, the best way to keep these different people out of office is to suppress their votes.  This is simply what Senate Bill 14 is all about.