The Texas Senate on Wednesday, 14 January 2009, voted 18-13, along party lines, to exempt voter identification legislation from the longstanding "Two-Thirds" Rule. This rule requires that 21 senators must support a measure before it can be brought to the Senate floor. Only one Republican, State Sen. John Carona (R-Dallas), broke ranks to join 12 Democrats in the near party-line vote to oppose the change to the two-thirds rule. The other 18 Republicans voted to exempt any bill brought forward in the Texas Senate that would require voters to show a government-issued photo ID at the polls before being allowed to vote.

Republican members of the Senate voted to exempt voter photo ID legislation from the two-thirds rule, similar to the way Congressional Redistricting was exempted by Republicans in 2003, over strong opposition from Democrats. Democrats could have blocked any new voter ID bill under the usual two-thirds rule "” and did so on the voter ID bill two years ago. Debate over voter photo ID in 2007 paralyzed the State Senate for weeks before the bill was rejected.

While there is no actual evidence of voter fraud, many studies, such as conducted by the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, find that U.S. citizens of Latino, Asian American and African American heritage are less likely to vote as a result of increasingly restrictive voter ID requirements.

According to the Eagleton study Latinos are 10 percent less likely to vote, Asian-Americans are 8.5 percent less likely to vote and African Americans are 5.7 percent less likely to vote.

Each of the groups listed in the Eagleton study tend to vote for Democratic candidates and are a growing percentage of Texas voters. The success of Democratic voter registration drives among these Texas groups in 2008 threatens to tip the balance of power away from the Republicans. As the tide of Democratic voters continues to grow across Texas, voter ID legislation would be an effective way for Republicans to hold back that tide.

Consequently, the use of baseless "voter fraud" allegations to promote voter ID legislation has become such an urgent priority for Republicans in the 2009 Texas legislative session that Republicans in the Texas Senate felt compelled to change long standing Senate rules to advance the legislation.

Above are a few grafs of a posting at my local Texas blog. Read the full posting here.

I have been trying to get any information from my representative and can not get any response. What do you know about the issue of the Voter Idententification status in Texas? I have been following you for about 8 years and I have been diriecting others to your web site. Please keep up the good work and any information you got for me will help...