Eric Holder Takes Up Arms

Eric Holder Take Up Arms

-Christopher Carroll

Attorney General Eric Holder is bent on addressing inequality in America. In a year that has proven difficult for the DOJ, Eric Holder is seemingly looking to make up for lost time.

Holder announced that the DOJ will file a lawsuit against the State of Texas over SB14, a “the strict voter identification law,” arguing that it violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act as well as the 14th and 15th Amendments of the United States Constitution.

Texas’ SB14, signed by Governor Rick Perry on May 27, requires voters to present valid photo identification at all polling places. Following the Supreme Court’s early summer decision to strike down Section Four of the Voting Rights Act, this type of legislation has proven to be extremely contentious. While proponents argue that bills like SB14 prevent voter fraud, adversaries charge that it unfairly discriminates against minorities, the elderly and the young.

Though Republican legislators in Texas, Governor Rick Perry included, complain that Holder’s decision is just the latest example of the “administration’s blatant disregard for the 10th Amendment,” many others allege that these laws are politically motivated. Many contend that the law, and others like it, are “adopted with the purpose, and will have the result, of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority group.”

Holder’s latest attack on inequality comes in the form of voter enfranchisement as states legislatures look to preserve political control and power. The new lawsuit follows Holder’s attack on mandatory minimums, long seen as overly harsh tools that disproportionately discriminate against minority offenders in the U.S. The United States of America is a country with incredible wealth and prosperity but with correspondingly cavernous gaps in inequality. These gaps will continue to widen as long as minorities, the needy, the young and the old are taken advantage of.

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Eric Holder seems to be trying to leave his mark on the office of Attorney General. Rather than being remembered as the A.G who signed off on phone tapping, Mr. Holder seems to be actively addressing racial inequality that has for too long gone ignored.

The attention is a welcome relief. Inequality of all types is rampant in America. Social, economic, racial, educational and vocational inequality is a cancer on our communities and economies. By suing Texas, Holder is reemphasizing the need to address voter disenfranchisement in American politics, an issue that is both a cause and symptom of unequal treatment. American governments and politicians should be emphasizing voter participation, not discouraging it, and we seem to, at this moment at least, have an Attorney General who wants to hold American leaders up to true American standards.