Gohmert: Obama targeting Texas because it voted against him

Earlier today, Attorney General Eric Holder said he wants Texas to pre-clear its voting law changes with the federal government, similar to the process set up under of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). Holder said he would ask a federal court in Texas to subject the state to this pre-clearance requirement.

{mosads}Holder’s move was prompted by a Supreme Court ruling that said the VRA’s listing of states and districts that must pre-clear voting law changes is antiquated. That ruling led to calls by members of both parties to update the law to capture only those regions of the country that still exhibit discrimination or racial disparity.

“If you look at the words of the Supreme Court in that decision, the Supreme Court points out that the factual data does not bear out the attacks by this administration continuing on the states who had done wrong — if you will, sinned — back 50 years ago,” Gohmert said.

The Texas lawmaker said that trying to use the courts to impose the VRA’s restrictions on Texas shows that the Obama administration is choosing to ignore other states that have wider racial disparity than Texas.

“We’re going to ignore areas like Massachusetts, where there’s now more racial disparity than in at least six of the states” originally covered by the VRA, he said.

The reference to Massachusetts is a response to comments from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who said in February that Massachusetts has the highest disparity between black and white voter registration in the country.

In June, Gohmert joked that the federal government should be focused on ending racial discrimination in Massachusetts.

Gohmert said that he would prefer changes to the VRA that require federal oversight anywhere racial discrimination is found, regardless of the original group of states and districts that were covered by the 1965 law.