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Cite as: 574 U. S. ____ (2014) 1 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

Nos. 14A393, 14A402 and 14A404 

MARC VEASEY, ET AL. 

14A393 v. 

RICK PERRY, GOVERNOR OF TEXAS, ET AL. 

ON APPLICATION TO VACATE STAY 

TEXAS STATE CONFERENCE OF NAACP

 BRANCHES, ET AL. 

14A402 v. 

NANDITA BERRY, TEXAS SECRETARY

 OF STATE, ET AL. 

ON APPLICATION TO VACATE STAY 

UNITED STATES v. TEXAS, ET AL. 

14A404 

ON APPLICATION TO VACATE STAY 

[October 18, 2014] 

The applications to vacate the stay entered by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on October

14, 2014, presented to Justice Scalia and by him referred

to the Court are denied. The motion for leave to file the 

response to the applications under seal with redacted

copies for the public record is granted. 

JUSTICE GINSBURG, with whom JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR and 

JUSTICE KAGAN join, dissenting.

I would vacate the Fifth Circuit’s stay of the District

Court’s final judgment enjoining the enforcement of Senate Bill 14. 

This case is unlike the Ohio and North Carolina applications recently before the Court concerning those States’ 
 

2 VEASEY v. PERRY 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

election procedures. Neither application involved, as this 

case does, a permanent injunction following a full trial and 

resting on an extensive record from which the District

Court found ballot-access discrimination by the State. I 

would not upset the District Court’s reasoned, recordbased judgment, which the Fifth Circuit accorded slim, if 

any, deference. Cf. Purcell v. Gonzalez, 549 U. S. 1, 5 

(2006) (per curiam) (Court of Appeals erred in failing to 

accord deference to “the ruling and findings of the District

Court”). The fact-intensive nature of this case does not 

justify the Court of Appeals’ stay order; to the contrary, 

the Fifth Circuit’s refusal to home in on the facts found by

the District Court is precisely why this Court should 

vacate the stay.

Refusing to evaluate defendants’ likelihood of success on 

the merits and, instead, relying exclusively on the potential disruption of Texas’ electoral processes, the Fifth 

Circuit showed little respect for this Court’s established

stay standards. See Nken v. Holder, 556 U. S. 418, 434 

(2009) (“most critical” factors in evaluating request for a 

stay are applicant’s likelihood of success on the merits and 

whether applicant would suffer irreparable injury absent a

stay). Purcell held only that courts must take careful 

account of considerations specific to election cases, 549

U. S., at 4, not that election cases are exempt from traditional stay standards.

In any event, there is little risk that the District Court’s 

injunction will in fact disrupt Texas’ electoral processes. 

Texas need only reinstate the voter identification procedures it employed for ten years (from 2003 to 2013) and in

five federal general elections. To date, the new regime, 

Senate Bill 14, has been applied in only three lowparticipation elections—namely, two statewide primaries 

and one statewide constitutional referendum, in which 

voter turnout ranged from 1.48% to 9.98%. The November 

2014 election would be the very first federal general elec-
Cite as: 574 U. S. ____ (2014) 3 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

tion conducted under Senate Bill 14’s regime. In all likelihood, then, Texas’ poll workers are at least as familiar 

with Texas’ pre-Senate Bill 14 procedures as they are with

the new law’s requirements. 

 True, in Purcell and in recent rulings on applications 

involving voting procedures, this Court declined to upset a

State’s electoral apparatus close to an election. Since 

November 2013, however, when the District Court established an expedited schedule for resolution of this case,

Texas knew full well that the court would issue its ruling

only weeks away from the election. The State thus had 

time to prepare for the prospect of an order barring the

enforcement of Senate Bill 14. Of greater significance, the 

District Court found “woefully lacking” and “grossly” 

underfunded the State’s efforts to familiarize the public

and poll workers regarding the new identification requirements. No. 13–cv–00193 (SD Tex., Oct. 9, 2014), pp.

20, 31–32, 91, n. 398 (Op.). Furthermore, after the District Court’s injunction issued and despite the State’s

application to the Court of Appeals for a stay, Texas

stopped issuing alternative “election identification certificates” and completely removed mention of Senate Bill 14’s 

requirements from government Web sites. See Emergency 

Application to Vacate Fifth Circuit Stay of Permanent 

Injunction 11 and App. H. In short, any voter confusion or 

lack of public confidence in Texas’ electoral processes is in

this case largely attributable to the State itself. 

Senate Bill 14 replaced the previously existing voter 

identification requirements with the strictest regime in 

the country. Op. 20–21. The Bill requires in-person voters to present one of a limited number of governmentissued photo identification documents. Ibid. Texas will 

not accept several forms of photo ID permitted under the

Wisconsin law the Court considered last week.* For ex-

—————— 

*The District Court enjoined Wisconsin from implementing the law,

the Seventh Circuit stayed the District Court’s injunction, and in turn, 
 

 

4 VEASEY v. PERRY 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

ample, Wisconsin’s law permits a photo ID from an instate four-year college and one from a federally recognized

Indian tribe. Texas, under Senate Bill 14, accepts neither. 

Those who lack the approved forms of identification may 

obtain an “election identification certificate” from the 

Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), but more than

400,000 eligible voters face round-trip travel times of three 

hours or more to the nearest DPS office. Op. 18, 76.

Moreover, applicants for an election identification certificate ordinarily must present a certified birth certificate. 

Id., at 70. A birth certificate, however, can be obtained 

only at significant cost—at least $22 for a standard certificate sent by mail. Id., at 22. And although, for voting 

purposes, reduced-fee birth certificates may be obtained 

for $2 to $3, the State did not publicize that option on

DPS’s Web site or on Department of Health and Human 

Services forms for requesting birth certificates. Id., at 70. 

On an extensive factual record developed in the course 

of a nine-day trial, the District Court found Senate Bill 14

irreconcilable with §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 

because it was enacted with a racially discriminatory

purpose and would yield a prohibited discriminatory 

result. The District Court emphasized the “virtually 

unchallenged” evidence that Senate Bill 14 “bear[s] more 

heavily on” minority voters. Id., at 133. In light of the 

“seismic demographic shift” in Texas between 2000 and 

2010, making Texas a “majority-minority state,” the District Court observed that the Texas Legislature and Governor had an evident incentive to “gain partisan advantage by suppressing” the “votes of African-Americans 

and Latinos.” Id., at 40, 48, 128. Cf. League of United 

Latin American Citizens v. Perry, 548 U. S. 399, 438–442 

(2006) (Texas Legislature acted with a “troubling blend of

politics and race” in response to “growing” minority partic-

—————— 

this Court vacated the Seventh Circuit’s stay. See Frank v. Walker, 

ante, p. 1. 
 

 

 

 

Cite as: 574 U. S. ____ (2014) 5 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

ipation). The District Court also found a tenuous connection between the harms Senate Bill 14 aimed to ward off, 

and the means adopted by the State to that end. Between 

2002 and 2011, there were only two in-person voter fraud 

cases prosecuted to conviction in Texas. Op. 13–14. Despite awareness of the Bill’s adverse effect on eligible-tovote minorities, the Texas Legislature rejected a “litany of 

ameliorative amendments” designed to lessen the Bill’s 

impact on minority voters—for example, amendments

permitting additional forms of identification, eliminating 

fees, providing indigence exceptions, and increasing voter

education and funding—without undermining the Bill’s

purported policy justifications. Id., at 35–37, 132 144–147. 

Texas did not begin to demonstrate that the Bill’s discriminatory features were necessary to prevent fraud or to

increase public confidence in the electoral process. Id., at 

133; see also Id., at 113 (proponents of Bill unable to 

“articulate any reason that a more expansive list of photo

IDs would sabotage” their efforts at detecting and deterring voter fraud). On this plain evidence, the District

Court concluded that the Bill would not have been enacted 

absent its racially disparate effects. Id., at 133. 

The District Court further found that Senate Bill 14 

operates as an unconstitutional poll tax—an issue neither 

presented by any of the recent applications nor before the 

Court in Crawford v. Marion County Election Bd., 553 

U. S. 181 (2008) (upholding Indiana voter identification

law against facial constitutional challenge). See Id., at 

186, and n. 4. Under Senate Bill 14, a cost attends every 

form of qualified identification available to the general

public. Op. 140. Texas tells the Court that any number of 

incidental costs are associated with voting. But the cost at 

issue here is one deliberately imposed by the State. Even 

at $2, the toll is at odds with this Court’s precedent. See 

Harper v. Virginia Bd. of Elections, 383 U. S. 663 (1966).

And for some voters, the imposition is not small. A voter 
 

 

6 VEASEY v. PERRY 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

whose birth certificate lists her maiden name or misstates 

her date of birth may be charged $37 for the amended 

certificate she needs to obtain a qualifying ID. Texas 

voters born in other States may be required to pay substantially more than that. Op. 71–74. 

The potential magnitude of racially discriminatory voter

disenfranchisement counseled hesitation before disturbing 

the District Court’s findings and final judgment. Senate 

Bill 14 may prevent more than 600,000 registered Texas

voters (about 4.5% of all registered voters) from voting in 

person for lack of compliant identification. Id., at 50–51, 

54. A sharply disproportionate percentage of those voters 

are African-American or Hispanic. Ibid. 

Unsurprisingly, Senate Bill 14 did not survive federal

preclearance under §5 of the Voting Rights Act. A threejudge District Court unanimously determined that the law 

would have a prohibited discriminatory effect on minority 

voters. See Texas v. Holder, 888 F. Supp. 2d 113, 115, 138 

(DC 2012) (Tatel, J.). Although this Court vacated the

preclearance denial in light of Shelby County v. Holder, 

570 U. S. ___ (2013), racial discrimination in elections in

Texas is no mere historical artifact. To the contrary,

Texas has been found in violation of the Voting Rights Act 

in every redistricting cycle from and after 1970. Op. 7. 

See, e.g., Texas v. United States, 887 F. Supp. 2d 133 (DC 

2012) (Griffith, J.). The District Court noted particularly 

plaintiffs’ evidence—largely unchallenged by Texas— 

regarding the State’s long history of official discrimination

in voting, the statewide existence of racially polarized 

voting, the incidence of overtly racial political campaigns,

the disproportionate lack of minority elected officials, and

the failure of elected officials to respond to the concerns of 

minority voters. Op. 3–13, 122–126, 144–147.

The greatest threat to public confidence in elections in 

this case is the prospect of enforcing a purposefully discriminatory law, one that likely imposes an unconstitu-
Cite as: 574 U. S. ____ (2014) 7 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

tional poll tax and risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters. To prevent that

disenfranchisement, I would vacate the Fifth Circuit’s stay

of the permanent injunction ordered by the District Court.