According to media reports, the Section 5 litigation over one piece of legislation, the infamous photo ID bill, cost South Carolina $3.5 million dollars. That cost was to simply put the law into effect. That’s $3.5 million dollars and all-out assault by DOJ lawyers over a law that is not as strict as the Indiana photo ID law and which the Supreme Court found non-objectionable and non-discriminatory.
Of course, none of this would have happened if an overly politicized DOJ would have simply accepted the recommendations of career attorneys to provide preclearance. In the end, the political appointees improperly overruled that recommendation twice and South Carolina had to go the court to preclear the photo ID law when it should have been simply precleared administratively. Instead of administrative preclearance, we had Attorney General Holder make the bill a political issue, calling it a “poll tax.”
There is simply no way around it. The federal government (DOJ) wrongfully interfered with state election law, in part on non-substantive reasons: politics and overzealousness. This is not how a healthy political system works, much less the noble notion of “federalism.” After multiple administrative objections where South Carolina tried to work with DOJ to no avail, the state exercised its legal right to go to the DC District Court for preclearance. And they won. However, if South Carolina had not stood on principle, the will of their elected legislature would have never gone into effect. It is shameful that the courts once again had to reign in DOJ.
The damage caused by the federal government’s intrusion: A $3.5 million dollar Section 5 burden and the South Carolina photo ID law being delayed for over a year through multiple elections including the Presidential General Election. This may be what the Supreme Court meant by a law not being proportional and congruent to justify such an invasion of the normal balance between state and federal voting laws. Giving such authority to a politicized federal agency in the executive branch to preempt state law is no small matter. The Holder DOJ has proven why.