Supreme Court allows Texas to require photo IDs for voting

A divided Supreme Court early Saturday morning let a new Texas voter ID law take effect, the latest ruling in a series of decisions on voting laws in the states just weeks before midterm elections.

The court’s decision means Texas voters starting Oct. 20 must present one of several forms of photo identification.

“We are pleased that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed that Texas’ voter ID law should remain in effect for the upcoming election,” Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office said in a statement. Spokeswoman Lauren Bean added that the state “will continue to defend the voter ID law.”

The court’s majority did not issue a written explanation for the ruling issued about 5 a.m. But Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote emphatically on behalf of herself and two other dissenters.

“The greatest threat to public confidence in elections in this case is the prospect of enforcing a purposefully discriminatory law, one that imposes an unconstitutional poll tax and risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters,” Ginsburg wrote.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined Ginsburg in dissent. The court’s order did not say how the other justices voted, though at least five must have agreed with the decision.

The liberal group Alliance for Justice denounced the ruling as a “big setback for voting rights,” while prominent Democrat Donna Brazile declared the high court’s actions are “so hurtful to democracy.”

The decision extends the conservative-dominated Supreme Court’s role in the 2014 elections, as justices had previously reversed trial judges or appellate courts to let restrictive voter eligibility laws take effect in Ohio and North Carolina.

In Wisconsin, the court blocked state officials from implementing new voter ID requirements. In all of the cases, the laws may remain subject to scrutiny under continued litigation; the immediate question was whether the laws would be allowed to take effect for the November election.

The Supreme Court’s role this campaign season reflects, in part, the maturing of litigation over voter eligibility laws adopted by many states in the last several years. Critics pointedly note that a court controlled by five Republican appointees has empowered voter eligibility laws that critics say target minority voters.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority, moreover, had an indirect hand in the state actions. The court’s 5-4 decision in 2013 striking down a key plank of the Voting Rights Act effectively gave a green light to the states seeking to regulate voting without first getting federal approval, called preclearance.

“These measures likely would not have survived federal preclearance,” Ginsburg said in the North Carolina case.

Beyond the allegations of judicial partisanship, the Supreme Court’s voter eligibility decisions reflect justices’ stated desire to avoid last-minute confusion over election rules.

“The Supreme Court has continued to look askance at changing election laws on the eve of an election,” wrote Judge Edith Brown Clement of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Texas law, passed in 2011, requires voters to submit one of a limited number of ID documents, including a driver’s license, a military ID or a passport.

Before the law, Texas voters had to provide only voter registration cards or another form of identity proof, like a utility bill.

“Without this court’s intervention, voters across Texas will be irreparably harmed,” Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. wrote, citing the “potential disenfranchisement of over 600,000 Texas voters.”

The emergency applications were submitted to Justice Antonin Scalia, who oversees emergency issues in Texas and other 5th Circuit states. Scalia forwarded the application to all nine justices.

Texas officials argued that the requirement has not caused problems.

“Texas has already held three statewide elections, five special elections and countless local elections under (the law), and the number of complaints and incidents of voters being turned away is vanishingly small,” Abbott argued in a brief.

The Supreme Court’s decision Saturday agreed with Texas and upheld the stay imposed by the appellate court.

This story was originally published October 18, 2014 at 9:31 PM with the headline "Supreme Court allows Texas to require photo IDs for voting."