Perry Calls on Obama to Rebuke Holder

Gov. Rick Perry has some unsolicited advice for Barack Obama during the president's visit to Texas on Tuesday: apologize for Attorney General Eric Holder's comments about the state's voter ID law.

“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," Perry said in a written statement. "Eric Holder purposefully used language designed to inflame passions and incite racial tension. It was not only inappropriate, but simply incorrect on its face."

During his speech to the NAACP in Houston last week, the attorney general said the state's voter ID law would disenfranchise minority voters who will be disproportionally impacted by the requirement that a photo ID be presented before voting.

"We call those poll taxes," Holder said. Poll taxes were used to keep blacks from voting in the South. They were made illegal by the 24th Amendment to the Constitution.

“The president should apologize for Holder's imprudent remarks and for his insulting lawsuit against the people of Texas," Perry said in his statement.

Obama is hoping to raise more than $3 million at events in Austin and San Antonio today.

Texas Democratic Party spokeswoman Rebecca Acuña said Perry is the one who should say he's sorry — for pushing the voter ID bill. She also made a reference to comments made a few years ago about the possibility that Texans might want to secede from the United States if they got fed up with Washington.

"Rick Perry knows a thing or two about incendiary remarks," Acuna said. "Rick Perry should apologize for wasting taxpayer money to disenfranchise Texans."