Link. But it now seems pretty likely that the South Carolina case will leapfrog over those others, and ask the Supreme Court to consider the constitutional question soon, in the same term that the court is likely to decide on the constitutionality of health care legislation, Texas’ new redistricting plans, and Arizona’s controversial immigration measure.
It is surprising that the Holder DOJ would risk the constitutionality of Section 5 over the bad facts of the South Carolina photo ID submission as the Court has already upheld the fundamentals of the concept years ago. South Carolina’s voter ID law is much more forgiving than the Indiana law. Apparently. DOJ is resting the future of Section 5 on the recently discovered discriminatory nature of photo ID laws. Why “recently?”
Well, just a few years ago, DOJ filed an amicus brief in the Crawford case informing the Supreme Court that photo ID requirements were not a severe burden on voters and did not have a discriminatory burden on the right to vote. In 2011, DOJ has reversed itself abruptly despite the Court essentially agreeing with its major amicus arguments in 2007. It resulted in the first objection to voter ID laws in 20 years. The abuse of the preclearance process under Section 5 by the Civil Rights Division and the recent politicization of the issue by Holder will not sit well with the Court.
Did Slate realize what a weak case DOJ presented in SC and is trying to lower lefty expectations?
In any case, let’s hope Slate is correct that Section 5 itself will be struck down by SCOTUS. This from Justice Roberts should give SC, TX and others encouragement – and an opening argument: “So is it … your position that today southerners are more likely to discriminate than northerners?”