WASHINGTON (AP) —
Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday he opposes a new photo ID
requirement in Texas elections because it would be harmful to minority
voters.
In remarks to the NAACP in Houston, the attorney general
said the Justice Department "will not allow political pretexts to
disenfranchise American citizens of their most precious right."
Under
the law passed in Texas, Holder said that "many of those without IDs
would have to travel great distances to get them — and some would
struggle to pay for the documents they might need to obtain them."
Holder
made the comments amid a trial in federal court in Washington over the
2011 law passed by Texas' GOP-dominated Legislature that requires voters
to show photo identification when they get to the polls.
"I don't
know what will happen as this case moves forward, but I can assure you
that the Justice Department's efforts to uphold and enforce voting
rights will remain aggressive," the attorney general said.
He said
the arc of American history has always moved toward expanding the
electorate and that "we will simply not allow this era to be the
beginning of the reversal of that historic progress."
The attorney
general spoke at the 103rd convention of the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People, which is launching a battle against
new state voter ID laws. NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous has
likened the fight against conservative-backed voter ID laws passed in
several states to "Selma and Montgomery times," referring to historic
Alabama civil rights confrontations of the mid-1960s.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.