The SCOTUS indicates it will uphold voter ID law

by: Jay Stevens

Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 08:28:08 AM MST

Justice David H. Souter countered, "That would be a virtue, but one of the vices would be that it would be after the election, and the entire matter would be academic for another two years."

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg raised a similar objection. "The reason they are bringing a facial challenge is because the horse is going to be out of the barn," she said. "They will have the election, and just what they are afraid of could happen - that the result will be skewed in favor of the opposite party."

The conservatives of the court want to wait until real damage is proven (wasn't that shown in the Georgia voter ID case?) -- although they require no such similar proof of damage if the state lacked a voter ID law. The liberal justices? Well, they apparently are concerned about the civil rights of those that will be adversely affected by the law.

Dahlia Lithwick:

I fear I am counting five justices who believe that a nonexistent problem can be constitutionally cured by burdening the fundamental right to vote. Happy byproduct? Doing away with those pesky facial challenges that liberals like to use to address massive injustices. So in the guise of doing away with hypothetical future challenges to a law, the court is poised to uphold a law that solves hypothetical future problems in voting. And for those of you wondering why the court didn't see fit to release audio for today's monumentally important argument, the answer remains, who knows? But here's one guess: The justices didn't want to be caught on tape sounding like the same 5-4 court that decided Bush v. Gore, even if nothing has changed.

What's up with conservatives? Don't they like civil rights? Don't they want people to vote? Oh...wait...