In a throwback to the Civil Rights era Texas Republicans are
using the power of government to once again suppress the vote of minority
Americans. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sent armed teams to the homes of
half a dozen
Voter suppression is a tried and true method for retaining power. Paxton’s actions are suspect given that the allegations are related to the 2022 election and it seems strange that after nearly two years his investigators suddenly got to the point where they are ready to seized “evidence” given that we’re ramping up for another election. We also know that while Paxton’s office has investigated hundreds of people for voter fraud and other election related crimes spending millions of dollars yet has only led to a handful of convictions. None of those alleged “crimes” involved enough voters to even change the election outcome of a city council member let alone a member of congress or the governor.
Paxton has proven time and again that he’s willing to use
It’s important to remember that Paxton is so corrupt that he was impeached by the Texas House with plenty of Republicans supporting that vote last session.
Paxton is satisfied with just harassing a handful of voting rights activists, he is also threatening to sue Bexar, Travis, and Harris Counties, where Biden/Harris won by large margins, over their efforts to send voter registration cards to everyone. Apparently Paxton doesn’t want private groups to help people register to vote but he also does not want the government to people register to vote.
These tactics are the same sort that led to the Voting Rights Act and in fact were Section 4b of that legislation still in force today many of the Republican voter suppression tactics would be prohibited and the Department of Justice would have sued to enforce it. Unfortunately a decade ago the Supreme Court held that even states with a history of voter suppression can’t be pre-empted from doing it again.
It’s going to take patriotic Republicans like former Vice President Dick Cheney who has put aside his partisanship and endorsed Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to restore out democracy.
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