Texas Senate Approves Update To State’s Racial Profiling Law

The Texas Senate approved a bill intended to update the state’s racial profiling law Thursday. The bill provides for listing the race or ethnicity of drivers on licenses or personal identification cards, although residents could chose not to have the information included. The measure was authored by Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas. The state law that prohibits racial profiling by law enforcement mandates that the race of people detained be documented. West said one of the problems with the law is that police officers sometimes must depend on their own observations in making a determination of race. "As you know, visual identification is not always accurate," West said. West also said that while Hispanics now make up one-third of Texas' population, in many official records, Hispanics are categorized as white/Caucasian or Anglo. The bill, approved 28-3, was met with concern from some who wanted to make sure that Texans did not have to provide the information if they did not want to. [more]