Austin (1080 KRLD) - LULAC -- the League of United Latin American Citizens -- wasted no time in challenging Texas' new voting law.
"Two minutes after the governor signed SB1, LULAC has filed suit, challenging the constitutionality and the legality of this act.," says Domingo Garcia, LULAC national president. "We know what this is all about. It's about making sure that black and brown people don't vote in Texas."
While Governor Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Patrick have repeatedly said that the new law makes it easier to vote and harder to cheat, Garcia says it will have the opposite effect.
"This is about making sure that it is harder for veterans who fought in the Vietnam War and in Korea to vote. If they're seniors, it makes it difficult to get an absentee ballot. It makes it a crime to help somebody fill out an absentee application and mail an application for an absentee ballot."
The new law also empowers partisan poll watchers, which Garcia says harkens back to a dark period in American history.
"The KKK used to show up in their hoods in the 1920s and 30s to stop Black and Latinos from voting," Garcia noted.
The new law also bans drive-through voting and 24-hour voting.
Garcia says Texas has a history of enacting laws to make it harder for minorities to vote.
"Poll tax was about keeping African Americans, Latinos and working-class Texans from voting. The white-only primary was about keeping black and brown people from voting. The literacy test -- to ask Juan and Maria (to) recite the Texas Constitution verbatim -- were ways to limit our ability to vote."
Garcia disputes the notion that voter fraud is widespread in Texas, noting that all statewide elected officials are Republicans.
"Governor Abbott and, Lieutenant Governor Patrick, if you believe there's voter fraud in Texas, you should resign, because you were elected illegally," says Garcia.
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