Repub Federal Judge Who Approved Photo ID Law in 2008 Writes Devastating Dissent AGAINST Such Laws

[BradBlog]

13. Read his dissent...

Read the dissent (or, at very least my summary as linked above.)

SCOTUS has only (conditionally) approved Photo ID restrictions one time, Indiana's Crawford v. Marion County in 2008. That was the case which Posner initially upheld and, essentially, admits here that he got it totally wrong.

In Crawford, SCOTUS did not find the law Constitutional. Rather, they said that, based on the record in that particular case, they had no evidence anybody had been disenfranchised, but invited plaintiffs to return with such evidence at a later date. Both Roberts and Kennedy signed on to that part of the SCOTUS opinion, agreeing that if evidence showed the law burdened voters more than it served any compelling governmental interest, it was likely to be struck down in the future.

That's a VERY brief summary of the previous SCOTUS case, finding that the law "on its face" was unconstitutional, but might be "as applied". (With my apologies in advance to actual legal scholars who might be able to explain it more accurately or concisely!)

A hearing on the "as applied" cases, such as in WI, TX, etc., are likely still to come at SCOTUS. This was the first chance that Posner had to revisit the issue in a case coming before his 7th Circuit. So, essentially, that's what "took him so long"