Just last week, September 6th, U. S. District Court Judge Murphy, ruled in the Voter ID/Photo ID litigation that has been going on since 2005. Judge Murphy didn’t get around to deciding the issue of whether or not the law was constitutional. Instead, he found that the plaintiffs in the case (two individual voters and a bunch of organizations like Common Cause, the League of Women Voters and the NAACP) did not have standing to complain about the law.
While James and I may differ on whether or not the Court should have found that the plaintiffs had “standing,” we agree this was one of those pieces of legislation that was passed for purely political reasons, was totatlly unnecessary and had nothing to do with voter fraud–which essentially doesn’t exist at the polling booth.
I think I lost the battle of logic versus emotion to James because of his bottom line: If this law prevents people from voting, why couldn’t the plaintiffs find someone that it would actually prevent from voting? Good question, James! But I still don’t like the law! But what do I know, I’m only a lawyer!
Having lost that battle, we then get into Speaker Richardson’s plan to do away with the property tax at the 2008 session. I think we both agree that getting this accomplished is going to be war: Local government versus State government.
I can’t wait for 2008!
Sara has a good explanation of why the plaintiffs didn’t have a potential voter who was affected:
So, that’s why the “well, they couldn’t parade forth someone who was prevented from voting, therefore the argument is bunk!” thing doesn’t hold water for me.