An opinion piece from Texas Senator John Cornyn in the Statesman.

The Supreme Court has ruled that such laws are constitutional. In 2008, the court upheld Indiana’s voter-ID law, which is substantially similar to the Texas law. Writing for the court, Justice John Paul Stevens explained that “the application of the statute to the vast majority of Indiana voters is amply justified by the valid interest in protecting ‘the integrity and reliability of the electoral process.’ ”

In the face of clear Supreme Court precedent, and despite the fact that lawyers at the Justice Department have not completed their review of voter-ID laws, Holder has publicly compared them to literacy tests and poll taxes. This comparison is outrageous. The attorney general has clearly prejudged voter-ID laws. Even worse, he is sending an unmistakable message to his own department in the midst of their review.

By urging Americans to campaign against voter-ID laws, Attorney General Holder has once again placed himself on the wrong side of a critically important issue, not to mention the wrong side of public opinion. Safeguarding the credibility and soundness of our voting process is vital to the health of American democracy. Does the Attorney General really want us to become a nation where the federal government discourages efforts to preserve electoral integrity?

Here is the link.  The U.S. Justice Department is reviewing new voter-photo ID laws in some states, but apparently Kansas is not one of them.  “We have not been contacted at all by the Justice Department in this respect,” said Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach.

Secretary Kobach should understand that DOJ will focus its efforts on delaying voter ID laws only in those Section 5 southern states where they can hide behind their obscure, subjective and ever malleable retrogressive standard. 

Where, despite the best efforts and practices implemented by jurisidictions, DOJ can simply send a last minute letter stating that the jurisdiction has unfortunately failed to meet its burden of proof in convincing the bureaucracy that the laws are not discriminatory. 

It is not an accident that DOJ decides the fight the last battles over photoID in Section 5 states where they can hide behind their manufactured burdens of proof.

Tom Fitton has more at the Bigs.

Here.  “This warning from the attorney general is ill-conceived, ill-timed, and I think a terrible mistake,” says diGenova, a prominent Republican commentator.

“At a time when we’re trying to do everything we can to identify who is in the country, why they are in the country, and what they are doing, it is so fundamentally simple to want to assure ourselves that the people who are voting in elections are citizens and have the right to vote,” diGenova says.

and: DiGenova says Holder has been injecting himself into the political process, raising questions about the impartiality of the Justice Department.

“The department is known historically for being above the fray and enforcing the law,” diGenova says. “I think it [Holder’s statement about law requiring photo ID] looks political, which is very bad for the attorney general particularly in light of everything that is going on around him,” diGenova notes, referring to Holder’s conflicting statements about when he knew about the Fast and Furious operation conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).

“It creates a patina of political interference,” diGenova says. “It makes it appear that their cases may be politically motivated.”

DiGenova says Holder is accusing states of misconduct simply because they want “to ensure that the votes that are going to occur are not going to be fraudulent.” DiGenova calls his position “absolutely absurd.”

“This is about states wanting to ensure that the people who show up at the ballot box live in the district, are American citizens, and have the right to vote and that they haven’t voted someplace else on the same day,” diGenova says.

I will be on 96.9 Boston Talks with Michael Graham today at 5:30 to talk about Fast and Furious and more.  I will also be on NRA News radio sometime today after 6pm.

The Justice Department has started calling state election officials across the country asking them to provide DOJ their “UOCAVA” plans.  That means the DOJ wants the states to self-report information to Justice which will then be analyzed in Washington for possible violations of federal law.

Philadelphi Inquirer: Black Panther voter-intimidation debacle still gnaws at nation’s values.

“Yet the Black Panther case was about much more than two racist jokers strutting in front of the Guild House. It is about what sort of nation we want to be.

The most tragic part of the Panther dismissal is how it erodes the precious principle of equal protection. No part of our Constitution was purchased with more blood and treasure than the Civil War Amendments – the 13th, 14th and 15th.

The 15th Amendment secures the right to vote free from racial discrimination and is the basis of the Voting Rights Act, under which the Panthers were sued. These amendments stand for the principle that the law treats everyone equally, regardless of race. People continued to die for this precious idea in places like Selma and Philadelphia, Miss., even a century after the Civil War ended.”

Politico story at the link.

Pennsylvania Democrats already had a daunting road back to the majority within their own House delegation. Now that Republicans have unveiled their redistricting map, that road is close to a dead end.

The plan, released Tuesday by the GOP-controlled Legislature and expected to be passed largely in its current form, significantly shores up all of the state’s most endangered GOP House members, from the Philadelphia suburbs to the shore of Lake Erie. It assures that Democrats will bear the brunt of the state losing a congressional district by throwing Reps. Jason Altmire and Mark Critz into the same western Pennsylvania seat. In a final insult, it rips the bluest areas out of freshman Rep. Lou Barletta’s northeast Pennsylvania district, putting the Democrats’ top target further out of reach. Former Democratic Rep. Chris Carney, who had wanted to run against Barletta, lives outside the new district.

The Washington Times reports:

In Ohio, a redistricting plan recently approved by state lawmakers is pitting longtime incumbents against each other, turning up the heat in the politically divided Buckeye State’s 2012 election cycle.

….Some of the 16 districts they created will match well-known incumbents against each other, making for a game of congressional musical chairs and must-watch races in several districts next year.

Rep. Betty Sutton, a Democrat and former labor lawyer from Copley Township, for example, has been redrawn into the district of Rep. James B. Renacci, a Republican financial consultant from Wadsworth.

“The Sutton-Renacci race is going to be the war,” predicted David Wasserman, the Cook Political Report’s redistricting specialist. “I think it’s the next big labor fight in Ohio, a former labor lawyer running against the multimillionaire Republican.

and: Still, many political observers contend that the overall map favors the GOP.

“Ohio is a major disappointment for the Democrats,” Mr. Wasserman said. “They thought there would be a way by petition to block the map and force the issue to court. Instead, Democrats were unable to collect the required petition signatures and Republicans now have a map that they like. What has happened here fits a pattern consistent with many states in the country.”

In a state Mr. Obama carried in 2008, Republicans are poised to grab a 12-4 advantage in the U.S. House delegation next year.

Ohio Republicans called the map a bipartisan deal.

A link to the NPR audio and transcript of What’s a Reasonable Requirement; a discussion of photo identification laws.

Host Audie Cornish talks with two people who hold opposing views on the issue: NAACP president Ben Jealous and Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a former Justice Department official under President George W. Bush