# I Pit the ID-demanding GOP vote-suppressors (Part 1) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 12, 2012, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943 "2012-06-12T19:15:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 408
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8141 "2015-03-23T23:15:59Z")
Got nothing against someone enjoying a good cold laugh. Gloat while you can, hoss. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8142 "2015-03-23T23:17:30Z")
Avogloato’s Number, huh? I’m not actually sure leftists were defeated; it’s more like the integrity of the American electoral process taking a hit. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8143 "2015-03-23T23:28:23Z")
On further reflection, how is this a left/right issue? If for some demographic reason, the legislation happened to tend to favour the Democratic Party (say, it was happening in the pre-Southern Strategy days), would the issue still have the same left/right orientation? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8144 "2015-03-23T23:34:10Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > On further reflection, how is this a left/right issue? If for some demographic reason, the legislation happened to tend to favour the Democratic Party (say, it was happening in the pre-Southern Strategy days), would the issue still have the same left/right orientation? The left says, “I know what’s best; screw the legislature. Judges, help! Find me some penumbras and emanations!” ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8145 "2015-03-23T23:36:56Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > The left says, "I know what’s best; screw the legislature. Judges, help! " _ **cough** King v. Burwell__cough_\*\* ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8146 "2015-03-23T23:42:39Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > The left says, “I know what’s best; screw the legislature. Judges, help! Find me some penumbras and emanations!” Is that an honest or a sarcastic opinion? I’d kind of prefer the former, since you have no skill with the latter. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2015, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8147 "2015-03-23T23:52:37Z")
Bricker incidentally didn’t answer my question about how this particular issue falls on the left side of the spectrum. I get that in the current climate, it _favours_ the relatively right-wing political party, but how does that make the challenge leftist in nature? ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8148 "2015-03-24T15:39:09Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Today, the Supreme Court declined the invitation to overturn Wisconsin’s Voter ID law. > > The Seventh Circuit upheld it, pointing out that the issue was already decided in _Crawford v. Marion County_, and panicked lefties wanted the Supreme Court to step in and undo the law. > > The Court did not do so. The Court needs only four votes to accept a case. The Court did not accept the invitation to overturn the Wisconsin Voter ID law, which means that the Wisconsin Voter ID law remains the law. > > The Wisconsin Supreme Court has already upheld the law. So has the Seventh Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision not to grant cert means that the decision is effectively final. > > This is, obviously, excellent news. Three cheers for the U.S. Supreme Court! Three jeers for the challengers! Today is a good day to be alive. Couldn’t another challenge be raised by another party that has standing in that district, or, a separate challenge in another district that has passed various voter ID laws? SCOTUS denying cert in one case shouldn’t be an indicator that the issue as a whole is final, just that this particular challenge is final, right? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8149 "2015-03-24T18:13:08Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > Couldn’t another challenge be raised by another party that has standing in that district, or, a separate challenge in another district that has passed various voter ID laws? SCOTUS denying cert in one case shouldn’t be an indicator that the issue as a whole is final, just that this particular challenge is final, right? Yes and no. SCOTUS denied a writ of certorari from the decision of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The Seventh Circuit’s decision is binding precedent on every state in the Seventh Circuit. And the Seventh Circuit rested their decision on an earlier Supreme Court decision in which the Court granted cert and then upheld a substantially similar Indiana Voter ID law. So in a sense, the answer is that in the whole country, the “issue” is final, and has been since 2008. And certainly another challenge raised by another party in Wisconsin is very unlikely to get any traction at all. But of course it’s possible to rest a new challenge on some slightly different variance in a new state’s laws. The greater the variance between the new law being challenged and the ones already upheld, the more chance such an appeal has. In other words, if another state passed a carbon-copy duplicate of the Indiana law, I think it’s fair to say that a successful challenge is very unlikely. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8150 "2015-03-24T18:44:41Z")
So, Bricker, is challenging legislation in the American courts a oberwhelmingly left wing exercise, a mostly left wing exercise, a left wing exercise a little more than 50% of the time…? I could imagine it being more of a leftist pursuit in the sense that the right wing likes passing laws and preserving laws stemming from a reduced interest in personal freedom, if we’re going to toss out broad generalizations and such. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8151 "2015-03-24T19:27:19Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > So, Bricker, is challenging legislation in the American courts a oberwhelmingly left wing exercise, a mostly left wing exercise, a left wing exercise a little more than 50% of the time…? > > I could imagine it being more of a leftist pursuit in the sense that the right wing likes passing laws and preserving laws stemming from a reduced interest in personal freedom, if we’re going to toss out broad generalizations and such. The temperature of the water depends on where you drop the thermometer. In the past forty-fifty years, the tactic has been largely (i.e., comfortably better than 50%) one of the left. Leftists have relied on the courts to be wise philosopher kings and undo the bad policy choices they feel have been made by the legislature with the tactic of finding some constitutional ground upon which to rest Now, you might look at a case like _Hobby Lobby_ and imagine it’s an example of a right-wing attempt to do the same. But you’d be wrong. Because of course _Hobby Lobby_ did not rely upon some vague, easily-changed constitutional principle. The plaintiffs in _Hobby Lobby_ invoked the legislature’s guarantees in the RFRA to defeat the executive’s interpretation of the legislature’s grant of authority in the ACA. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8152 "2015-03-24T20:27:12Z")
And we can take that for Gospel, then? And no one with any standing in legal studies disagrees? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8153 "2015-03-24T21:56:41Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > The temperature of the water depends on where you drop the thermometer. > > In the past forty-fifty years, the tactic has been largely (i.e., comfortably better than 50%) one of the left. Interesting choice of time frame, I gather selected by you to avoid the sticky problem of _this particular issue_ within living memory not being a windmill for leftists to tilt at. Heck, back then, putting in barriers against voting was openly, indeed proudly, a matter of race, as well as to the benefit of Democrats. Back then, was trying to help black people vote a leftist issue? If so, that can’t speak well of the right. > [@](#): > > Leftists have relied on the courts to be wise philosopher kings and undo the bad policy choices they feel have been made by the legislature with the tactic of finding some constitutional ground upon which to rest Yeah, I was asking for evidence, not an expansion on your fantasies. I suppose we could review SCOTUS rulings for the last fifty years and try to sort the plaintiffs (and whatever organizations may be supporting them) by what side of the spectrum they might be on. Barring that, I see no basis to take your word for it. > [@](#): > > Now, you might look at a case like _Hobby Lobby_ and imagine it’s an example of a right-wing attempt to do the same. > > But you’d be wrong. Because of course _Hobby Lobby_ did not rely upon some vague, easily-changed constitutional principle. The plaintiffs in _Hobby Lobby_ invoked the legislature’s guarantees in the RFRA to defeat the executive’s interpretation of the legislature’s grant of authority in the ACA. _Hobby Lobby_ hadn’t occured to me, actually. I was thinking more along the lines of _Heller_, which unlike _Hobby_ didn’t strike me as utterly ridiculous. Anyway, again, how is the challenge in this specific issue - voter ID - a leftist one? I can see it breaking along _party_ lines for purely pragmatic reasons, but if for some demographic reason the legislation had the promise of biasing elections toward Democrats, would opposition still be leftist? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8154 "2015-03-24T22:20:49Z")
Dunno how we could separate them. Dems favor political equality and power sharing across racial and economic divides. They must win votes to enact those goals, and enacting those goals would make getting those votes more likely so… And if these voter ID perversions took place in a vacuum, the Republicans pious bleating about principle would be easier to swallow. But it is only the most prominent point in the pattern of cutting early voting opportunities and making voter registration drives more difficult and legally precarious. These are not accidents. Once is accident, twice coincidence, but three times is Republicans. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2015, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8155 "2015-03-24T23:14:12Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Dunno how we could separate them. Dems favor political equality and power sharing across racial and economic divides. They must win votes to enact those goals, and enacting those goals would make getting those votes more likely so… Sure, _now._ Not the case historically, of course, but I’m mildly curious how Bricker defines “leftist” and if that definition is solely the product of the last 50 years in America and, if that is the case, then how flexible a definition is he using? At the moment, he sounds a lot like Starving Artist in pining for the old days, presumably to a time when all court challenges to legislation were done in a _gentlemanly_ fashion, good sport, tally ho. Anyway, I’m not sure what the “leftist” angle of the voter ID issue is. One can readily object on purely practical grounds, as it creates a problem greater than the one it ostensibly solves. On that basis, it is not offensive to a leftist sensibility but merely a rational one. > [@](#): > > And if these voter ID perversions took place in a vacuum, the Republicans pious bleating about principle would be easier to swallow. But it is only the most prominent point in the pattern of cutting early voting opportunities and making voter registration drives more difficult and legally precarious. These are not accidents. Once is accident, twice coincidence, but three times is Republicans. Oregon was trying an automated registration process in conjunction with the DMV records, weren’t they? How much resistance would there be to a Canadian style elections agency to compile and store such information to make the registration process easier still? Is that a leftist dream, Bricker? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8156 "2015-03-25T01:12:26Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > And we can take that for Gospel, then? And no one with any standing in legal studies disagrees? Correct. Not one person with any standing in legal scholarship would possibly disagree: Hobby Lobby was not grounded on or decided on constitutional principles, but rather the statutory provisions of the RFRA. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8157 "2015-03-25T01:20:11Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > _Hobby Lobby_ hadn’t occured to me, actually. I was thinking more along the lines of _Heller_, which unlike _Hobby_ didn’t strike me as utterly ridiculous. Heller was indeed grounded on the Constitution – but not on a penumbra or an emanation. Heller was grounded on the plain text. > [@](#): > > Anyway, again, how is the challenge in this specific issue - voter ID - a leftist one? I can see it breaking along _party_ lines for purely pragmatic reasons, but if for some demographic reason the legislation had the promise of biasing elections toward Democrats, would opposition still be leftist? Yes. Assuming the legislation biased election towards Democrats, of course, leftists wouldn’t judicially challenge it. Perhaps those on the right would. If they did, they’d be stealing a page from the leftist playbook. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8158 "2015-03-25T01:22:03Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Correct. Not one person with any standing in legal scholarship would possibly disagree: Hobby Lobby was not grounded on or decided on constitutional principles, but rather the statutory provisions of the RFRA. You guys might be talking past each other. I don’t think Bryan meant to restrict the discussion to only cases involving constitutional principles. A left wing or right wing group can challenge the interpretation of the law, too, as in the Hobby Lobby case. So I don’t think you can just write that off as “doesn’t count; isn’t a constitutional issue”. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8159 "2015-03-25T01:37:27Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Assuming the legislation biased election towards Democrats, of course, leftists wouldn’t judicially challenge it. Perhaps those on the right would. If they did, they’d be stealing a page from the leftist playbook. On an issue where it is the GOP which abandons all decency, sense of fairness, and faith in democracy to seek crass political advantage, the bloated-amygdala **Bricker** accuses his moral superiors of being the crass partisans. Most amusing. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2015, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943/8160 "2015-03-25T01:37:50Z")
Was talking about this part, the important part: > [@](#): > > …In the past forty-fifty years, the tactic has been largely (i.e., comfortably better than 50%) one of the left. Leftists have relied on the courts to be wise philosopher kings and undo the bad policy choices they feel have been made by the legislature with the tactic of finding some constitutional ground upon which to rest… A contention that, for some reason, you figure a counter-example would support, _Hobby Lobby_. What you might think that proves eludes me. At any rate, the statutory nature of the _Hobby Lobby_ decision was, in no wise, the point of my question. (And I’d bet my last dollar that you knew that. Slippery as a catfish in a barrel of motor oil, Counselor.) So, anyway, insinuations about “activist judges”, that’s all you got on that? Your simplistic characterization of leftish legal efforts is facile and shallow. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943.md?page=407) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-id-demanding-gop-vote-suppressors-part-1/624943.md?page=409)