Although I try to steer clear of politics with this blog, there are times that issues of such overriding importance arise it would be shirking my duty as a citizen of this great republic not to discuss them. I don’t really consider what I’m going to talk about today as a matter of partisan politics, anyhow. I consider it a matter of common sense.

Our nation, as everyone knows, is made up of fifty states—well, everybody except certain political candidates who think there are fifty-seven. These states are not just administrative districts of our federal government.

When we first won our independence from Great Britain, the former colonies formed a confederation. Each state, under the Articles of Confederation, was an autonomous entity which cooperated with other autonomous states for mutual benefit.

Under the constitution passed a few years later, the states were a little bit less autonomous, but they were still pretty much self-governing entities. Our history for the last two and a quarter centuries is one of constant erosion of that self-governance. The federal government has usurped more and more power, leaving the states with less and less.

At the present time, our federal government is trying to remove the power of the state of Texas (and others as well) to assure its citizens of fair elections. Here in Texas, we have an untold number of people—a number probably in the millions—living here illegally. They have neither citizenship nor resident alien status. They entered our state by simply crossing the border without permission from any level of authority.

In order to differentiate our legal citizens from non-citizens, whether legally here or not, our legislature passed a law providing that proof of identity be given in order to register to vote. A simple and straightforward requirement against which no one has, as yet, come up with a sound argument.

We are required to show identity—with a picture—for numerous activities. If I want to cash a check, I have to show identity. If I want to borrow money, I have to show identify. If a policeman stops me for some traffic violation, I have to show identity.

Isn’t maintaining the integrity of our electoral process at least as important as cashing a check at Walmart? Do we really want to make it easy for anyone desiring to manipulate an election to go out and round up people who are not citizens and get them to vote? Where is our sense of fairness?

If we passed a law that said you can’t vote if your skin is too dark, or if you are a homosexual or anything else designed to prohibit certain classes of citizens from voting, that would obviously be morally wrong as well as unconstitutional. But that’s not what our legislature did. All this legislation says is, if you are a citizen qualified to vote, prove it. That’s all. No discrimination against any qualified voter.

The federal judiciary has messed with Texas long enough. It’s time for them to back off and let our duly-elected officials do their job.

Three years ago, our legislature, consisting of 181 people elected by the people of Texas because they liked what these people stood for, redesigned all the legislative and Congressional districts in Texas. That was its duty under both the U.S. and state constitutions. New maps emerged from that process representing the will of the people of Texas.

One crybaby state senator didn’t like the senatorial map, because it made her district a bit less favorable to her, so she sued in federal court to negate all three maps. The courts did as she wished and subverted the will of our citizens for the benefit of this woman and her party.

Since then, she gained national prominence by staging a last-minute filibuster to defeat passage of an important bill. Once again, she managed to defeat the will of the voters of Texas, causing our governor to have to call a special session to finish what should have be done in the regular session. This cost our taxpayers millions of dollars.

When are we going to stop allowing prima donna politicians and federal judges to subvert our political processes and defeat the public’s clear expression of its desires? This has gone on long enough. It’s time to bring it to a screeching halt.

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WANA: We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

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For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.