House Speaker Bobby Harrell on Monday defended South Carolina’s voter identification law, saying state officials will fight the law’s rejection by the federal government “with everything that we’ve got.”

Harrell said in an interview with GreenvilleOnline.com that the state’s law “is very, very similar” to one in Georgia, except that South Carolina allows someone to sign an affidavit confirming his or her identity if that person doesn’t have identification when voting. The U.S. Department of Justice approved Georgia’s measure.

full story

 “Desperate people do desperate things.”

More to follow. Some initial analysis of the argument here.

Link at the Cleveland Plain Dealer

Brad Smith, former Chairman of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) blogs:

This morning the Supreme Court summarily affirmed the decision of a 3 judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in Blumen v. Federal Election Commission, upholding the power of government to bar political contributions to parties, PACs, and candidates from non-resident aliens. The decision was no surprise here or elsewhere.

…Professor Hasen claims that the decision is contrary to the logic of the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, citing to language in that decision that suggests that the identity of the speaker doesn’t matter. The result, he claims, is “doctrinal incoherence.” But this is only because he insists on reading Citizens United on his terms, rather than the Court’s terms.

There is substantial precedent for holding that non-resident aliens lack all the rights of U.S. citizens. Simply put, Citizens United stands for the proposition that the identity of U.S. citizens and permanent resident speakers was irrelevant to their speech rights. The decision, on its own terms, specifically said that it was not considering the law prohibiting contributions and expenditures by non-resident aliens.

Full story at the link.

A Gannett editorial.  A reminder that I will be speaking in Tampa on Thursday of this week regarding the DOJ and the New Black Panther dismissal, as well as my book Injustice (<—-over there at the link Amazon had a price dip over the weekend).

 Stockton Ca.

 Link here.

I was on Secure Freedom Radio natiowide with former Asst. Secretary of Defense Frank Gaffney regarding the lawsuit against Guam last week.  Interview podcast link here.  Main interview starts at minute 13:16.

 More here.  “While Illinois now has a law requiring government-issued identification to buy Drano to protect the citizenry, it lacks similar means to protect them from voter fraud.

There is currently proposed legislation to require photo identification in order to vote, but a similar bill died in committee in 2008 on a partisan vote. As leadership has not changed hands since then, it can be expected that the current bills will languish. State Representative Jack Franks (D-Woodstock), the mind and the will behind the Liquid-Plumr Limitation, did not serve in the committee that tabled the voter ID measure but was a member of the legislature at the time.”