Just days before the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) was set to appear in a federal district court in Texas with its co-counsel to continue a nearly six-year fight against the state’s photo ID law (SB14), the strictest photo ID law in the country, the Department of Justice requested a one-month delay in proceedings, citing the transition in administration. President and Director-Counsel Sherrilyn Ifill offered the following comment:
“The delay is especially unfortunate given that the facts in this case have always remained clear and the public record has been available to the transition team since it was assembled two and a half months ago. We respect the desire for the new team at the Department of Justice to get up to speed, but four courts have previously ruled this law discriminatory and the career DOJ attorneys who have worked on this case for years are fully familiar with the issues at hand. We expect the Department of Justice to continue its partnership with us in aggressively litigating this important case on behalf of voters who have been unconstitutionally disenfranchised in Texas.
“Since 2012, we have challenged Texas’s harsh photo ID law on a rich evidentiary record establishing that Texas created the law with the intent to limit the voting rights of Black and Latino Texans. SB14 cannot be allowed to stand in any form and can and should be struck down in its entirety as swiftly as possible.”
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Founded in 1940, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is the nation’s first civil and human rights law organization and has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957—although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights. In media attributions, please refer to us as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund or LDF.
