Federal appeals court reinstates Texas voter ID law

Federal appeals court reinstates Texas voter ID law
(Image credit: CC by: Joe Hall)

One court giveth, the other taketh away. On the same day the Supreme Court blocked a Texas abortion law that had been upheld by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, a three-judge panel of the same appellate court at least temporarily lifted a block on the Lone Star State's strict voter ID law, which a federal district judge had struck down as unconstitutional last week.

The Fifth Circuit panel decided that blocking the law so close to the Oct. 20 start of early voting would only confuse state voters and elections officials. "Based primarily on the extremely fast-approaching election date, we stay the district court’s judgment pending appeal," wrote Judge Edith Brown Clement. The ruling was unanimous, though Judge Gregg Costa wrote, in a concurring opinion, that he was "extremely reluctant to have an election take place under a law that a district court has found, and that our court may find, is discriminatory."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Continue reading for free

We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.

Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.

Peter Weber

Peter Weber is a senior editor at TheWeek.com, and has handled the editorial night shift since the website launched in 2008. A graduate of Northwestern University, Peter has worked at Facts on File and The New York Times Magazine. He speaks Spanish and Italian and plays bass and rhythm cello in an Austin rock band. Follow him on Twitter.