Meanwhile…Back up in Wisconsin, where two different courts have already found the Republicans’ polling place Photo ID restriction law to be in violation of the state constitution, a decision on an appeal waits at the state Supreme Court.
But, no worries, if that Court also agrees that it’s unconstitutional to deny WI voters their right to vote, Gov. Scott Walker is ready to call the state legislature back into an emergency session to try to pass another such law, according to the Journal Sentinel…
Shortly after taking over all of state government in 2011, Republicans passed a law requiring voters to show photo ID at the polls. In 2012, two Dane County judges blocked the measure.
Those cases are now before the state Supreme Court, which is expected to rule by June. Separately, U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman is considering two other cases that argue the voter ID law violates the U.S. Constitution and federal Voting Rights Act.
Despite the fact that an expert on voter fraud testified during one of the trials last year that there was only one single case of voter impersonation in WI that might have been deterred by such a law over the past 10 years, the Wisconsin State Journal reports that Walker sees this issue as very very urgent — the only one, in fact, that is urgent enough that he would find it necessary to call for a special session of the legislature, for some reason…
“The only real thing I thought that was pressing, and it may still continue to be pressing depending on what the courts react on, is voter ID,” Walker said.
So why is Walker suddenly so panicked to put in place a voting restriction that could keep tens of thousands of otherwise perfectly legal Wisconsin voters from being able to cast their vote as usual?
Back to the Journal Sentinel for one potential answer…
He also held open the possibility lawmakers could call themselves back into the session — rather than having the governor do so — in what is known as extraordinary session.
Such a move could help ensure the voter ID requirement is in place for the November elections, when Walker will be on the ballot for re-election.
Oh. Got it. In January, Walker’s upcoming re-election contest, totally coincidentally, was being described as “a real horse race”. This week, Republican polling outfit Rasmussen calls the race “a dead heat”.
Cue longtime Rightwing demi-god Paul Weyrich, father of the modern day Republican voter suppression movement…
Even if they did pass another voter ID law wouldn’t it just end up in court again, probably too late to affect the November election?
You know your political philosophy is totally bankrupt when the only way you can win is to deny your opponent’s voters the right to vote. However, I don’t think the Republicans are any where near done when a lot of recent elections are being decided by less than 3%. I’m chalking it up to the disinformation campaigns financed by people like the Koch Bros. How else could such an ignorant, hateful, right-wing lobbyist tool like David Jolly win a Congressional seat in FL?
There’s a positive to Walker’s remarks. It reflects that his own attorneys believe it likely that Photo ID may be permanently enjoined as a result of the federal case, which has been under submission since 12/23, after a full blown trial on the merits.
While it is too soon to tell, should the federal court issue a broad ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, if the WI legislature passed a new Photo ID law that violates the decision, the court could not only immediately enjoin it, but could possibly consider contempt against those who attempted to defy a court ruling.
Ernie @3,
I wonder how the court could find contempt for a group, since this seems to be done by groupies.
Perhaps our laws need to consider group mentality?