DOJ downplays Georgia voter ID law memo on harm to black voters News
DOJ downplays Georgia voter ID law memo on harm to black voters

[JURIST] The US Department of Justice [official website] has downplayed the conclusions of a 51-page memo [DOJ document] indicating that a Georgia voter identification law [PDF text] will harm black voters, saying the information was based on old data and followed a faulty analysis. Earlier this year, the Georgia state legislature passed a plan that requires all voters to have photo IDs, with many black lawmakers and Democrats opposing the measure. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 [DOJ backgrounder] mandates Georgia and other states with a history of discriminatory elections to submit changes in voting plans to the DOJ. After a review, senior Justice officials determined that the Georgia plan could proceed [JURIST report], but it has been blocked by federal courts [JURIST report] on constitutional grounds since then. The memo indicating harm to black voters was submitted by four or five members of a DOJ legal review team [JURIST report] one day before the Justice Department made its decision to allow the Georgia voting plan. A spokesman for the Justice Department said that the memo "was an early draft that did not include data and analysis from other voting section career attorneys who recognized the absence of a retrogressive effect." Friday's Washington Post has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.