{"id":186730,"date":"2013-11-04T20:54:00","date_gmt":"2013-11-05T01:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2013\/11\/04\/yes-the-texas-voter-suppression-law-is-working\/"},"modified":"2013-11-04T20:54:00","modified_gmt":"2013-11-05T01:54:00","slug":"yes-the-texas-voter-suppression-law-is-working","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2013\/11\/04\/yes-the-texas-voter-suppression-law-is-working\/","title":{"rendered":"Yes, the Texas Voter Suppression Law is Working"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It just <a href=\"http:\/\/www.star-telegram.com\/2013\/11\/02\/5300503\/voter-id-law-snags-former-house.html\">prevented former Speaker of the House James Wright from voting<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">Former House Speaker Jim Wright was denied a voter ID card Saturday at a Texas Department of Public Safety office.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">\u201cNobody was ugly to us, but they insisted that they wouldn\u2019t give me an ID,\u201d Wright said.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">The legendary Texas political figure says that he has worked things out with DPS and that he will get a state-issued personal identification card in time for him to vote Tuesday in the state and local elections.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">But after the difficulty he had this weekend getting a proper ID card, Wright, 90, expressed concern that such problems could deter others from voting and stifle turnout. After spending much of his life fighting to make it easier to vote, the Democratic Party icon said he is troubled by what he\u2019s seeing happen under the state\u2019s new voter ID law.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">\u201cI earnestly hope these unduly stringent requirements on voters won\u2019t dramatically reduce the number of people who vote,\u201d Wright told the Star-Telegram. \u201cI think they will reduce the number to some extent.\u201d<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">Wright and his assistant, Norma Ritchson, went to the DPS office on Woodway Drive to get a State of Texas Election Identification Certificate. Wright said he realized earlier in the week that the photo identifications he had \u2014 a Texas driver\u2019s license that expired in 2010 and a TCU faculty ID \u2014 do not satisfy requirements of the voter ID law, enacted in 2011 by the Legislature. DPS officials concurred.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/9osxNPI.png\" style=\"cursor: pointer; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px;\" \/>But Wright and Ritchson will return to the office Monday with a certified copy of Wright\u2019s birth certificate, which the DPS employees assured them would be good enough for the Texas personal identification card, designed specifically for people who do not drive.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">\u201cIt can be used for anything, not just voting,\u201d Ritchson said.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">While Wright will be able to vote, Ritchson worried that others of his age may find the obstacles and inconvenience she and Wright encountered so off-putting that they just don\u2019t vote. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Preventing old people, young people, black people, and brown people from voting is the goal of the Texas &#8216;Phants.<\/p>\n<p>Mission f%$#ing Accomplished.<\/p>\n<p>Can we please give them back to Mexico?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It just prevented former Speaker of the House James Wright from voting: Former House Speaker Jim Wright was denied a voter ID card Saturday at a Texas Department of Public Safety office. \u201cNobody was ugly to us, but they insisted that they wouldn\u2019t give me an ID,\u201d Wright said. The legendary Texas political figure says &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[967,970,1000,969],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-186730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bigotry","category-corruption","category-elections","category-evil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186730"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}