TEXAS REDISTRICTING & ELECTION LAW

The State of Texas hit back hard today at a request by the Justice Department and intervenors in the Texas voter ID case to delay the scheduled July start of trial, accusing DOJ and intervenors of intentionally trying to delay the case so that the law would not be in place for the November 2012 elections.

The brief said:

It is no secret that the United States and the intervenors want to delay implementation of SB 14 until after the November 2012 elections.  They initially requested a later trial date, knowing full week that such a late trial would foreclose any possibility of Texas implementing SB 14 in time for this year’s general election.  Having lost the initial battle in this Court over the trial date, their fallback strategy is transparent: bombard the State with massive discovery requests (many of which are only marginally related to the issues in this case), claim that discovery is moving too slowly, and then insist that the trial date be moved.

…

There is no doubt that this case can proceed to trial on the current schedule.  The issues in this case implicate a limited universe of facts. This is not a redistricting case; it is a case that turns on the purpose and effect of a discrete voting change - a change virtually identical to one already upheld by the United States Supreme Court.  The Court will not need extensive testimony to determine why particular legislative decisions were made or who made them.  The parties already have the benefit of a complete, publicly available record spanning two sessions of the Texas Legislature, and that record provides extensive  information about the purpose of SB 14.

The state’s response brief can be found here.