Fight Back
September 16th, 2011

Dear fellow Democrat,

The Texas Democratic Party is fighting a three-pronged GOP attack trampling on your voting rights. As you read this, Texas Republicans are trying to: (1) suppress turnout by implementing an unnecessary voter ID law to prevent legitimate voters from participating; (2) make voting irrelevant by illegally gerrymandering districts to pre-determine outcomes; (3) prevent targeted groups from voting by supporting the right-wing extremist groups who manipulate campaign finance laws to fund their voter intimidation programs.

Help us today with a contribution of $10, $25, $50 or more to fight back and make sure all citizens are able to exercise their right to vote as provided by the Constitution.

This past legislative session, the Republican supermajority passed a discriminatory Voter ID law, the sole purpose of which was to suppress turnout among minorities, the elderly, young people, the poor, and other constituencies who tend to vote Democratic. The Texas Democratic Party fought back by launching a petition drive to express opposition to the legislation. Almost 7,000 people signed our Petition to Preserve Voting Rights either by signing online or by collecting signatures throughout their community. We sent the petition along with a letter to the Department of Justice to object to the new voter-suppression legislation. You can read the letter here. If this law is allowed to go into effect, the Texas Democratic Party will have to embark on an unprecedented voter education and empowerment effort.

But that’s not the only piece of discriminatory legislation the Republicans passed this session. Just in case there might be some Democrats left who could still vote, Republicans passed a series of gerrymandered maps to try and maintain control of our state’s legislative and congressional seats regardless of the will of the voters. The Texas Democratic Party along with several other plaintiffs is fighting these maps in court. The redistricting trial began September 6th in San Antonio. You can sign up for updates about redistricting litigation by clicking here.

And just for extra insurance, Republican activists formed a shadowy “non-partisan” organization closely aligned with the Republican Party called the “King Street Patriots.” In 2010, they implemented their “True the Vote” program in Harris County. There the organization’s poll watchers, predominantly white people at polling locations in minority neighborhoods, harassed and intimidated voters. Numerous complaints were filed, prompting the County Attorney’s office to step in and the Department of Justice to send federal inspectors to monitor the election. The Texas Democratic Party filed suit against the King Street Patriots for operating as an illegal political action committee and violating their nonprofit tax-status. They have publicly stated their intention to take their program nation-wide in 2012.

Your Texas Democratic Party stands armed and ready with the law on our side. But we also need the resources to continue to fight against the constant assault on voting rights.

Your contribution of $10, $25, $50 or whatever you can afford will help us keep fighting to protect the rights that were won for us by men and women who fought for the right to vote in this country and in many cases were beaten, starved, imprisoned, threatened, and sometimes killed by those who didn’t think they were the “right” people to be voting.

Our General Counsel, Chad Dunn, has successfully litigated numerous high profile election law cases including:

  • The effort to keep Tom DeLay from manipulating the 2006 TX-22 election by illegally removing himself from the ballot.
  • Fighting to keep Republicans from removing State Senator Wendy Davis from the 2008 general election ballot.
  • A 2008 case in Dallas which forced county officials to submit their flawed voting machines to the Department of Justice for preclearance under the Voting Right Act.

Amazingly, Chad volunteers his services. Regardless, we incur all kinds of expenses related to litigation and the people we’re fighting have virtually unlimited budgets.

I cannot overstate how important this fight is to the future of our state. Any contribution you can make to support our efforts will be extremely helpful.

After Republicans cut billions from public education and laid off tens of thousands of teachers, it’s not surprising that they would rather siphon the Democratic vote and gerrymander districts than try to run on their records. Thing is, Texas Democrats just aren’t going to let that happen. We thank you for your support and we promise to keep up the fight until we’ve secured the constitutional right of every qualified voter to participate in our democracy.

Sincerely,

Boyd L. Richie
Chairman
on behalf of Your Texas Democratic Party