Pat Sullivan / AP Photo
Embattled Attorney General Eric Holder spoke at the NAACP’s annual convention on Tuesday just after federal judges in Washington began hearing a lawsuit over Texas’s voter-identification law. “We will not allow political pretext to disenfranchise American citizens of their most precious right,” Holder declared before the crowd of 600 in Houston. The U.S. Justice Department, led by Holder, has opposed Texas’s photo-ID requirement for voters, finding it more harmful to minorities than helpful. “Under the proposed law, concealed handgun licenses would be acceptable forms of photo ID, but student IDs would not,” he pointed out. “Many of those without IDs would have to travel great distances to get them, and some would struggle to pay for the documents they might need to obtain them. We call those poll taxes.”