Let's Talk About the Supreme Court

One of the reasons why I am so nervous about this election is that last term, despite an absence of evidence showing widespread fraud or any at all, the US Supreme Court upheld the strictest state laws in Indiana that require state-issued ID as a condition for voting. In all, 24 states have passed laws that require identification at the polls, allegedly to prevent voter fraud.

Ordinarily, that would be fine, to pass laws that maintain the integrity of the electoral process. But that is not what has been happening. Instead, as a revolt against easy registration that followed laws like "motor voter," where people can register to vote at motor vehicles and social services offices, many Republican-controlled legislatures, afraid of new Democratic voters, passed these draconian laws to suppress, not encourage voting.

This afternoon David Iglesias, one of the fired US Attorneys, whose dismissal is now the focus of a special prosecutor investigation ordered by Attorney General Michael Mukasey, was interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air. He has a new book "In Justice: Inside the Scandal that Rocked the Bush Administration." Read a bit about him on NPR.

During Iglesias' interview today, he admitted that since 1965, the focus of the US attorneys and Justice Department had been on protecting voters of color, poor people, and new voters from discrimination that prevented them from voting. A little history here. In the 1960 election between John F.Kennedy and Richard Nixon, for the first time, African American voters in the South voted Democratic instead of Republican. Of course, there was voter suppression: poll taxes, literacy tests, and intimidation. But the Republican Party was the party of Abraham Lincoln and those African Americans who could vote, did usually vote Republican.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been arrested for driving with an expired license and sentenced to hard labor. Both Nixon and Kennedy were approached for assistance with putting pressure on the Georgia governor to release King. It was Bobby Kennedy who made the phone call to get Dr. King out of prison. His role in the release was publicized throughout the South on blue mimeographed sheets of paper distributed in African American churches. For the first time, significant numbers of African Americans voted Democratic for Kennedy. After he became president, Lyndon Johnson understood the potential power of the African American vote and used his influence within the Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That law is probably the most powerful and effective use of federal enforcement power ever.

However, under the Bush administration, the energies of federal law enforcement as well as state efforts have been to suppress and intimidate voters, especially those voters who traditionally vote Democatic. Karl Rove is allegedly responsible for the cynical strategy of turning voter laws upside down.

According to Alliance for Justice, "in five years, the Bush administration filed just seven lawsuits under the main anti-discrimination provision of the Voting Rights Act. Fourteen were filed in the last two years of Clinton’s presidency alone."

This is why appointments to the US Supreme Court and lower federal courts are so important. The conservative members of the Supreme Court accepted without question this voter suppression strategy, despite the fact that there has been no evidence of any systematic fraud. The 6-3 majority did not question the intent of the legislature's move to insist on government-issued ID when coming to the polls. Now old people, people too poor to have driver's licences, and young voters without the ability to drive can be prevented from voting. Most of the nine fired Attorney Generals were fired because they refused to succumb to political pressure to prosecute voter fraud cases where there was none.

It's not just abortion. It's the tone of America that is at stake in this upcoming election.

Update: This morning's New York Times features an article on the illegal moves, apparently not politically motivated but with dire political consequences, performed by some swing states to remove eligible voters from the roles.