In ruling on the constitutionality of Indiana's voter ID law -- the toughest in the nation -- the Supreme Court had to deal with the claim that such laws demanded the strictest of scrutiny by courts, because they could disenfranchise voters. All nine Justices rejected that argument.
Even Justice Stephen Breyer, one of the three dissenters who would have overturned the Indiana law, wrote approvingly of the less severe ID laws of Georgia and Florida. The result is that state voter ID laws are now highly likely to pass constitutional muster.
But this case, Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, also revealed a fundamental philosophical conflict between two perspectives rooted in the machine politics of Chicago. Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote the decision, grew up in Hyde Park, the city neighborhood where Sen. Barack Obama -- the most vociferous Congressional critic of such laws -- lives now. Both men have seen how the Daley machine has governed the city for so many years, with a mix of patronage, contract favoritism and, where necessary, voter fraud.
That fraud became nationally famous in 1960, when the late Mayor Richard J. Daley's extraordinary efforts swung Illinois into John F. Kennedy's column. In 1982, inspectors estimated as many as one in 10 ballots cast in Chicago during that year's race for governor to be fraudulent for various reasons, including votes by the dead.
Mr. Stevens witnessed all of this as a lawyer, special counsel to a commission rooting out corruption in state government, and as a judge. On the Supreme Court, this experience has made him very mindful of these abuses. In 1987, the high court vacated the conviction of a Chicago judge who'd used the mails to extort money. He wrote a stinging dissent, taking the rare step of reading it from the bench. The majority opinion, he noted, could rule out prosecutions of elected officials and their workers for using the mails to commit voter fraud.
Three years later, Justice Stevens ordered Cook County officials to stop printing ballots that excluded a slate of black candidates who were challenging the Daley machine. The full court later ordered the black candidates back on the ballot.
Barack Obama has approached Chicago politics differently. He came to the city as a community organizer in the 1980s and quickly developed a name for himself as a litigator in voting cases.
In 1995, then GOP Gov. Jim Edgar refused to implement the federal "Motor Voter" law. Allowing voters to register using only a postcard and blocking the state from culling voter rolls, he argued, could invite fraud. Mr. Obama sued on behalf of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, and won. Acorn later invited Mr. Obama to help train its staff; Mr. Obama would also sit on the board of the Woods Fund for Chicago, which frequently gave this group grants.
Acorn's efforts to register voters have been scandal-prone. St. Louis, Mo., officials found that in 2006 over 1,000 addresses listed on its registrations didn't exist. "We met twice with Acorn before their drive, but our requests completely fell by the wayside," said Democrat Matt Potter, the city's deputy elections director. Later, federal authorities indicted eight of the group's local workers. One of the eight pleaded guilty last month.
In Seattle, local officials invalidated 1,762 Acorn registrations. Felony charges were filed against seven of its workers, some of whom have criminal records. Prosecutors say Acorn's oversight of its workers was virtually nonexistent. To avoid prosecution, Acorn agreed to pay $25,000 in restitution.
Despite this record -- and polls that show clear majorities of blacks and Hispanics back voter ID laws -- Mr. Obama continues to back Acorn. They both joined briefs urging the Supreme Court to overturn Indiana's law.
Last year, he put on hold the nomination of Hans von Spakovsky for a seat on the Federal Election Commission. Mr. von Spakovsky, as a Justice Department official, had supported a Georgia photo ID law.
In a letter to the Senate Rules Committee, Mr. Obama wrote that "Mr. von Spakovsky's role in supporting the Department of Justice's quixotic efforts to attack voter fraud raises significant questions about his ability to interpret and apply the law in a fair manner." Of course, now an even stricter law than the one in Georgia has been upheld by the Supreme Court, removing Mr. Obama's chief objection.
The hold on the von Spakovsky nomination has left the Federal Election Commission with less than a quorum. As a result, the FEC can't open new cases, hold public meetings, issue advisory opinions or approve John McCain's receipt of public funding for the general election. Now Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid claims that, even without the von Spakovsky hold, filling the FEC's vacancies will take "several months."
All of this may be smart politics, but it is far removed from Mr. Obama's call for transcending the partisan divide. Then again, Mr. Obama's relationship to reform has always been tenuous. Jay Stewart, the executive director of the Chicago Better Government Association, notes that, while Mr. Obama supported ethics reforms as a state senator, he has "been noticeably silent on the issue of corruption here in his home state, including at this point, mostly Democratic."
So we have the irony of two liberal icons in sharp disagreement over yesterday's Supreme Court decision. Justice Stevens, the real reformer, believes voter ID laws are justified to prevent fraud. Barack Obama, the faux reformer, hauls out discredited rhetoric that they disenfranchise voters.
Acorn's national political arm has endorsed Mr. Obama. And its "nonpartisan" voter registration affiliate has announced plans to register hundreds of thousands of voters before the November election. An election in which Mr. Obama may be the Democratic candidate.
The GOP has tried and will continue to try to disenfranchise anyone who is poor or likely to vote for Democrats. That is incontrovertible. Any so called voter law proposed by a GOP memeber has that intent behind it.
Any who believes that America's right wing is anything less than malevolent towards the average America citizen is either a fool or in a state of denial.
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He is a "faux reformer" because he disagrees with Stevens? Nice!
Here are some other faux reformers:
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Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter dissented.
Indiana's voter ID law "threatens to impose nontrivial burdens on the voting rights of tens of thousands of the state's citizens," Souter said.
The targets of the law, he said, are "voters who are poor and old."
...
It places "an unnecessary burden on elderly and low-income voters, not to mention other voters of disparate racial and ethnic backgrounds," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
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Mary Wilson, president of the League of Women Voters, said her group has never found a problem with in-person voter fraud. "We'd be the first ones out there to prevent voter fraud, if there really was a problem," she said.
...
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iegvd98ph9koi4IJgrhdaPAwZsxQD90B4M780
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And if this law is meant to prevent fraud, how would it prevent it for mailed-in votes, and increasingly popular method for voting?
How about calling it an honest disgareement between Stevens and Obama? But that would be too complicated to understand for mnay readers already dumbed down by columnists like Fund and commentators like Limbaugh.
We used to have a standard of "fairness." It was based upon an honest appraisal of facts after identifying a common problem. We called it "democracy."
Now we must endure these contrived arguments, all of which have no purpose other than to give advantage to the already advantaged. We've heard similar sorts of laundry-list justifications for Iraq and suspending the Constitution; we heard similar arguments justifying the unitary executive or lobbyist written legislation. They decide what they want, then they find "reasons". It doesn't matter if those reasons are accurate, if they make sense, if they contradict the premise they supposedly support or if they even apply. Having the outcome already decided, they pay toadies like Fund to try to make facts fit reality -- the reality they've "created."
Arguing that only Republican votes count would at least be more honest.
In a toughly worded dissent, Justice David Souter said "Indiana has made no such justification" for the statute "and as to some aspects of its law, it hardly even tried."
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/28/scotus.voter.id/
In Texas Mrs. Clinton won our Primary.
In Texas Mr. Obama won our Caucus.
In the primary people had to either have an ID or their voters registration card.
In Collin County, and other Texas counties the same rules were not enforced in the caucuses. This was despite State Party Rules and State law.
We did not require some voters give an address much less a last name to vote in our caucus. This was a clear violation of State Party Rules and State Law.
One delegate to our county convention had only given his name as "John" at the precinct convention. At the county convention people have to show ID to get credentials. Anyone named "John" could have gotten the credentials.
We also had a huge problem with precinct shopping. The number of delegates that each precinct gets is based on the number of people that voted democratic in that precinct in past elections. This makes some precincts gets lots of delegates while having relatively few voters. The Obama campaign sent e-mails to their supporters telling them to target those precincts.
At least 30 Obama delegates to the County Convention were elected to Precincts they did not even live in.
It is no more immorral to block a rightful voter from voting than it is to allow someone who is not a rightful voter to vote.
Unless the state pays for the ID, pays for the missed time in obtaining the ID, and provides transportation to register for the ID, then this type of law is no different than a POLL TAX!!!
Poll taxes are unconstitutional, and the fact that the current Supreme Court would overule precedent to uphold this law shows the rest of us how far the highest court of this country has fallen.
Acorn's efforts to register voters have been scandal-prone...Mr. Obama continues to back Acorn...Barack Obama, the faux reformer, hauls out discredited rhetoric that they disenfranchise voters.
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Certainly the Republican Party has been scandal-prone over these past 8+ years.
http://senate2008guru.blogspot.com/2007/08/republican-culture-of-corruption-2007.html
I'm glad to see that you, Mr. Fund, have disassociated yourself from this right-wing faux fiscally-conservative, faux troop-loving, faux patriotic party. And if you claim, "I'm not a Republican--I'm a Libertarian," then you're still associating with scandal:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/campaign2002/656850/posts
http://world.std.com/~mhuben/oconnell
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In Seattle, local officials invalidated 1,762 Acorn registrations. Felony charges were filed against seven of its workers...
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"No votes were cast in the names of the phony voters. Prosecutors said the defendants committed fraud in order to keep their jobs without actually registering voters."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003982533_acorn30m.html?syndication=rss
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So we have the irony of two liberal icons in sharp disagreement over yesterday's...decision.
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There's nothing ironic about liberals in sharp disagreement. We think for ourselves, rather than mindlessly goosestep off the cliff like dittohead lemming Republicans.
Back in the '70s, didn't you claim to run for a school board seat and get 46% of the vote when your name wasn't even on the ballot?
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8903
Why on Earth should we be lectured by someone with your track record?
- Tom
So now poorer folk are faced with an additional fee, to pay for a state ID card. Yes, there are waivers but then you are asking people to fill out additional paperwork from other people just to have a right that is a birthright of all Americans.
This is one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in decades.
If you don't know anybody who can't get their birth certificate, can't pay for it, and/or doesn't have a day to take the bus back and forth to the DMV to maybe get an id to cast a vote that may not be counted, look at your hands. I'm a magician. I know what color they are.
As for the nonsense about Obama being shady for supporting ACORN, whose ideal, if not always their reality, is community empowerment- well all I can say is Murdoch, Murcoch, Murdoch.
The Dems will then be able to focus attention on issues such as voting machines without paper trails and Republicans skewing Democratic Primaries at the behest of right wing radio talk show hosts, something no Republican, that I'm aware of, has spoken out against.
Guess you heard that some dems are just as gullible and looney as the cons, huh?
Yes.....who knew?
Sad but true.........these dems may believe even you.