Perry: In Texas, Obama Should Apologize For Holder
AUSTIN (CBSDFW.COM) –Gov. Rick Perry welcomed President Barack Obama back to Texas by calling on him to apologize for remarks made last week by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
The President has been campaigning in both San Antonio and Austin and hopes to raise about $5 million for his re-election campaign.
While addressing the NAACP's convention in Houston last week, Holder criticized Texas' law that requires voters show identification when they vote.
Holder compared the state law to Jim Crow-era poll taxes, which were used to disenfranchise minority voters.
The Justice Department blocked Texas from enacting the law last March.
The state then sued the federal government. The trial wrapped up last week, and now a three judge panel in Washington, D.C. is considering the law's fate.
Today, in a statement, Perry said, "Perhaps while the President is visiting Texas, he can take a break from big-dollar fundraisers to disavow his Attorney General's offensive and incendiary comments regarding our common-sense voter identification law. "In labeling the Texas voter ID law as a "poll tax," Eric Holder purposefully used language designed to inflame passions and incite racial tension. It was not only inappropriate, but simply incorrect on its face."
President Obama didn't make any mention of the Voter ID law in his first speech in San Antonio.