Free Republic

AUSTIN, Texas – A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that Texas' strict voter ID law violates the Voting Rights Act and ordered changes before the November election. ADVERTISEMENT The ruling from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals instructs a lower court to make changes that fix the "discriminatory effect" of the 2011 law, but to do so in a way that disrupts this year's election season as little as possible. President Barack Obama's administration took the unusual step of deploying the weight of the U.S. Justice Department into the case when it challenged the law, which requires Texas residents...

Texas’s voter ID law violates federal laws prohibiting electoral discrimination, an appeals court ruled Wednesday. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the 2011 state law, widely viewed as the one of the nation’s strictest such requirements, ruling that it violates section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. "The record shows that drafters and proponents of SB 14 were aware of the likely disproportionate effect of the law on minorities, and that they nonetheless passed the bill without adopting a number of proposed ameliorative measures that might have lessened this impact," Judge Catharina Haynes wrote in the ruling.

A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a 2009 federal decision that called for reducing the amount of water pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in order to protect salmon and other species. The 2009 environmental review by the National Marine Fisheries Service found that continuing to pump water from the delta at such a high rate would threaten several endangered salmon species and killer whales. Some of the state’s biggest water agencies, including Southern California’s Metropolitan Water District, had challenged the 2009 federal decision. …

Jonathan Tamari POSTED: WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2014, 10:57 AM WASHINGTON -- President Obama will nominate Cheryl Anne Krause, a partner at the Philadelphia office of law firm Dechert LLP, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the third circuit, the White House said. Krause will be nominated today to a seat on the federal appeals court that serves Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and the Virgin Islands. "Cheryl Ann Krause has displayed exceptional dedication to the legal profession through her work and I am honored to nominate her," Obama said in a news release.

CINCINNATI - Ohio's rules for primary elections make it too hard for minor parties to get on the ballot, a federal appeals court ruled. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel said the primary requirements allow the Republican and Democratic parties to monopolize general elections. Ohio "is among the most restrictive, if not the most restrictive, state in granting minor parties access to the ballot," the ruling said. Parties automatically qualify for the primary ballot if their candidate for governor or president received at least 5 percent of the vote in the previous Ohio election. Any other party must...