Equal Protection of the Laws

By Dr. Henry Flores, NewsTaco

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a lawyer, judge or legal scholar nor do I ever wish to become one.  Nevertheless, I feel that the Attorney General of Texas (I usually refer to him as the Little General to distinguish him from Eric Holder the Attorney General of the United States) said some things in his Sunday column about the Voter ID Law that are just plain wrong.

He started out his column (it was one of those “debate” columns with State Representative Martinez-Fisher that is supposed to enlighten the reader about a specific topic, instead this one “muddied the waters”) with a blatant and classic misdirection statement.

Little General Abbott’s misdirection was classical just like in a football game when you make the defense think you are running a play one way and you actually head in the opposite direction.  The Little General stated that the Constitution of the United States guaranteed “equal treatment under the law.”  He also went on to say that this fundamental principle requires “good laws” that “should apply equally everywhere, and that no law should be applied unequally for partisan gain.”

¡Bueno!  I have just a couple of issues with this statement and have many more about the rest of his column but this declaration needs addressing because it’s a perfect example about how right-wing extremist politicians obfuscate reality.

The Constitution does not guarantee “equal treatment under the law” it does say “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”   This quote is from Section 1 of the 14^th Amendment and makes it very clear that the Little General misquoted the phrase.  He might say that this doesn’t really make a difference but in the world of legalese and legal thinking it does.  Like I said at the beginning, I’m not a lawyer nor a judge but it seems to me that there is a great distinction between “treating everyone equal” and “protecting people from the laws.”

Treating people equal when they’ve been treated unequally for centuries is not treating the inequalities but freezing them in place.  The equal protection clause is supposed to “protect all persons,” not just citizens, from the inequalities some laws create, such as, the Texas Voter ID Law!  Evidence in the federal trial looking into allegations of the discriminatory effects of the voter identification law showed clearly that the law would weigh more heavily on minority, older, younger and poor voters.  Evidence was produced that clearly showed that it costs these categories of voters far more, in time, money and other resources to obtain the type of identification card mandated by the new law than other groups.  The costs incurred by these groups would be prohibitive and most likely lead to fewer citizens registering and voting.  In fact, the Texas Voter ID Law as it currently stands would actually work to lower voter turnout among minorities, the poor, young and old.

There was another major perceptual shift the Little General made in the same column.  He said that the reasons Latinos had been included in the Voting Rights Act of 1975, we were not included in the original 1965 version, was that (the reason is always that, never the reason is because. That is redundant) election ballots were only printed in English and our turnout rates were low.  ¡Por favor, mi generalcito!  The real reason we were included in the 1975 version was the history of racial discrimination in the election process against Latinos in Texas.  Yes, ballots were only printed in English and yes, our voter turnout rates were, and still are, low but the real reason was that of the history of racial discrimination in the state.

Com’n general you saw the evidence in the Texas redistricting case.  You saw the emails going back and forth between and among the redistricters stating how they had to fix “it” so the votes of Latinos would weigh less than those of Anglos because the only reliable Republican voter was an Anglo!  You saw where redistricters created a “nudge factor” to make congressional and house districts be majority Hispanic but perform for Republicans because of the historically lower Latino turnout rates in those districts!  And, you know that one of the principal reasons for the Voter ID Law is to minimize the Latino vote.  You know that the only way Republicans can hold on to electoral power in Texas is to build legal structures that keep Latinos and other protected groups from exercising the franchise.

You know Little General.  You know.  You know that racial discrimination is behind almost every electoral reform you support so why don’t you just admit it and stop trying to create images in the press of your constitutional correctness.