Texas Goes All In On Voter Suppression Hold-'Em

Texas Republicans tell Eric Holder and President Barack Obama exactly where they can stick their opposition to the state's voter suppression laws as they go for broke and demand that the Supreme Court rule on the Voting Rights Act being constitutional.

Attorney General Greg Abbott on Wednesday made a direct constitutional challenge to a piece of the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965, which singles out Texas and several other states.

Abbott took aim at a section of the act that requires Texas and several other states, mostly in the South, that have histories of discrimination to "pre-clear" any changes to election laws. Abbott seems to be using the U.S Department of Justice's recent denial of pre-clearance of the Legislature's controversial voter ID law, which would require voters to present a valid form of photo identification before casting ballots, as a way to try to change the larger decades-old requirement.

"For the Department of Justice to now contend that Texas cannot implement its voter ID law denies Texas the ability to do what other states can rightfully exercise under the Constitution," Abbott, a Republican, said in a statement.

Yes, Texas is going there, trying to strike down not just pre-clearance, but the entire act and the voting protections it entails, citing that the Tenth Amendment outweighs the legislation.  The pre-clearance measure, Section 5 of the act, is the target but the real goal is to overturn the entire bill.

Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Scalia and Anthony Kennedy would be all it would take in order to gut the VRA as much as possible.  If as part of their voter ID law case SCOTUS agrees to hear this too, it's entirely possible that the VRA could be gone before November.

If that happens, all bets are off.