Page 74 - Impact: Collected Essays on the Threat of Economic Inequality

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The evidence of socioeconomic inequality presented to the court in Veasey touched many aspects of everyday life: education, income, health, housing, transportation, and employment . Of course, it is no surprise that, as evidence at trial demonstrated, Texas’s long and ongoing history of official discrimination has left in its wake vast differences in the socioeconomic condition of minority Texans on the one hand and Anglos on the other . What was not obvious, however, and what came out at trial, is how those socioeconomic differences adversely affect the ability of Blacks, Latinos, the poor, and the elderly to obtain photo IDs so they can vote .
Evidence linking poverty to the inability to obtain an S .B . 14-compliant photo ID is important— and was important at trial—to understanding the pernicious nature of Texas’s photo ID law . Such proof undermines the common (but incorrect) assumption that, in this day and age, everyone possesses a photo ID; after all, most people believe a photo ID is needed to board an airplane, buy Sudafed, or even rent a movie (in fact, none of those things require a photo ID) .
As noted above, Judge Ramos found that the evidence before her showed conclusively that the Texas photo ID law harmed the poor, who were disproportionately minorities, and that those who enacted the law “fail[ed] to appreciate that those living in poverty may be unable to pay costs associated with obtaining SB 14 ID . The poor should not be denied the right to vote because they have ‘chosen’ to spend their money to feed their family, instead of spending it to obtain SB 14 ID .”6 The remainder of this article details the evidence of inequality presented to the court in Veasey and how that evidence (and other evidence in the record) led the court to strike down Texas’s photo ID law as unconstitutionally discriminatory and violative of the Voting Rights Act .
I. Demographics
Let’s begin with putting the evidence of socioeconomic disparity in the context of Texas’s demographics . It goes without saying that Texas is a large state . What many may not know, however, is that Texas is also a majority-minority state . Indeed, the 2010 census revealed that Texas has a total population of 25,145,561, of whom 45 .3 percent are non-Hispanic White (often referred to as “Anglo” in Texas), 37 .6 percent are Hispanic, and 11 .8 percent are Black . And Texas’s minority population is increasing rapidly: between 2000 and 2010, Hispanics and Blacks accounted for nearly 90 percent of Texas’s total population growth .7
According to the 2010-2012 American Community Survey released by the U .S . Census Bureau, Hispanics and Blacks in Texas rank lower on virtually all key socioeconomic indicators than non- Hispanic Whites:8
6 Id. at *127.
7 Plaintiff’s and Plaintiff-Intervenors’ Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law ¶ 1, Veasey, 2014 U.S. Dist.
LEXIS 144080, No. 13-CV-193 ECF No. 610.
8 Id. ¶ 5 (citing the United States’ Request for Judicial Notice, ECF No. 252).
Impact: Collected Essays on the Threat of Economic Inequality