WASHINGTON _ Texas will file an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court to keep its controversial voter identification law in place, Attorney General Ken Paxton's office said Tuesday.
A federal appeals court ruled July 20 that the stringent law discriminates against black and Hispanic voters.
The state will soon file an appeal to "protect the integrity of voting in the state," said Paxton spokesman Marc Rylander. He declined to specify whether Paxton would file an emergency appeal or go through the standard process, which could make it less likely the stringent ID rules will be in place for November's elections.
In July, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the Texas voter ID law violates the federal Voting Rights Act. Rather than strike down the law in its entirety, the judges ordered a lower court to find a temporary solution for disenfranchised voters as quickly as possible.
"The primary concern of this court and the district court should be to ensure that SB 14's discriminatory effect is ameliorated ... in time for the November 2016 election," Judge Catharina Haynes wrote.
Last week, a federal judge approved a plan to allow those without government-issued IDs to vote in Texas. Under the new plan, individuals without IDs can vote as long as they sign a declaration of citizenship and present some proof of residence in the state. Rylander called the agreement an "interim remedy" that will suffice while the case continues its convoluted path through the court system.
Paxton, along with Gov. Greg Abbott and other Texas Republicans, have been staunch supporters of the voter ID law, which they argue is a necessary protection against voter fraud.
Opponents of the law say it's a solution in search of a problem and point to studies that show voter fraud is, statistically, a non-issue. Instead, they argue, the law serves to disenfranchise minority voters, who are less likely to possess the forms of ID that the law requires.
In May, U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Texas, said the law was "the clearest manifestation of modern day suppression tactics."
Shortly after the 5th Circuit struck down the Texas law, judges on the 4th Circuit appeals court struck down a similar law in North Carolina, which required that voters present one of a handful of forms of identification.
In their ruling, the three judges, who were appointed by Democrats, unanimously concluded that North Carolina's law had been passed with "racially discriminatory intent," noting that the specific forms of ID the state allowed were ones that African-Americans "disproportionately lacked."
On Monday, North Carolina filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court, asking that key elements of its own invalidated voter ID laws be reinstated immediately while the case is being appealed.
North Carolina's lawyers asserted that the decision "renders every voter-ID law in the country vulnerable to invalidation as intentionally discriminatory." If allowed to stand, they argued, the ruling would cause "irreparable injury" to North Carolina and its citizens to adjust voting practices immediately before a presidential election.
The U.S. Supreme Court has not yet responded to North Carolina's emergency application. The application was written in part by Paul Clement, who served as solicitor general under President George W. Bush.
