Texas: Voter ID, immigration widen Legislature racial split | Lubbock Online

Forget the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. After the historic setback for Texas and 25 other states that had challenged the constitutionality of the federal law critics call Obamacare, on Monday the legal team of state Attorney Greg Abbott is back in Washington for another big fight. This time in a lower federal court to defend the merits of a pending Texas law that, if upheld, would require voters across the state show government-issued photo identification before casting a ballot. Here we go again. Although thanks to the weeklong trial the public might have a better idea how serious voter fraud is in Texas — opponents of the voter ID law say it isn’t — the deep racial divide which highlighted last year’s session of the Texas Legislature might be in full display again when supporters and opponents of the legislation take the stand. This is not an exaggeration. It is hard to think of another way to describe the racial tensions this measure triggered when the Republican-dominated body passed it over the strong objections of the Democratic minority.