The State of Texas brings this suit under section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 42 U.S.C. and under 28 U.S.C. and seeks declaratory judgment that its recently enacted Voter-ID Law, also known as Senate Bill 14, neither has the purpose nor will have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color, nor will it deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote because he is a member of a language minority group. 

Answers the question as to whether Congress’s decision in 2006 to reauthorize Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), 42 U.S.C. 1973c, under the pre-existing coverage formula of Section 4(b) of the VRA, 42 U.S.C. 1973b(b), exceeded its authority under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and thus violated the Tenth Amendment and Article IV of the United States Constitution.

This analysis finds that the work of the Office of Congressional Ethics has had a dramatic impact on the activity and accountability of the House Ethics Committee. As shown below, the number of disciplinary actions taken by the House Ethics Committee – though certainly not large in overall numbers – increased drastically in the six short years that OCE has been operating as compared to the full previous decade of the Committee’s history. From 1997 through 2005, the House Ethics Committee issued only five recorded disciplinary actions against Members or staff of the House. From 2006 through 2008, the three years highlighted by the Abramoff scandal that resulted in nearly two dozen convictions or guilty pleas by the Department of Justice,2 the House Ethics Committee again issued only five disciplinary actions. But the House Ethics Committee has issued 20 disciplinary actions between 2009 and 2014, largely done with the help of the investigations and transparency of OCE. [See Appendix A, “Congressional Ethics Enforcement: From Decade of Inaction to OCE Period of Accountability.”] 

Upon the vote of a majority of nonrecused active judges, it is ordered that this case be reheard en banc pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 35(a) and Circuit Rule 35-3. Judges McKeown and Murguia did not participate in the deliberations or vote in this case.

Based on voluminous evidence, mostly uncontradicted, the district court made findings of fact supporting judgment for Plaintiffs on all four challenges to S.B. 14: (1) discriminatory purpose, (2) discriminatory results, (3) poll tax, and (4) undue burden on the right to vote. The district court made its findings with care, applied the correct legal standards, faithfully followed procedural rules, issued an appropriate remedy, and should be affirmed.