Even After Court Ruling, Feds Want Control Over TX Election

For a school district engulfed in scandal

HOUSTON – Two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court put an end to the "pre-clearance" requirements of the Voting Rights Act, the U.S. Department of Justice is back in court trying to assert federal control over a Texas election.

Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez on Wednesday asked a three-judge federal court in Washington, D.C., to set the terms and date of an election for trustees of the Beaumont Independent School District.

The federal court issued an injunction earlier this year blocking a regularly scheduled May election. At the time, it asserted jurisdiction under the Voting Rights Act, which was drastically reshaped by the Supreme Court last month in the case of Shelby County v. Holder.