Erika Johnsen:
In a 2004 ballot initiative, Arizona voters decided that they wanted their state to go one step further on the requirements of a 1993 federal law that allows people to register to vote via a single form accepted by all the states, on which they must “swear” that they are citizens of the United States, by asking people to instead actually present documentary proof of citizenship like a birth certificate, passport, or tribal ID card before registering in order to prevent voter fraud.
The border state has been fighting to be allowed to ask for evidence of prospective voters’ citizenship ever since, but in a major decision released this morning, the Supreme Court struck down Arizona’s Proposition 200 as an attempt to override the federal “motor voter” law in a 7-2 ruling, with Justice Kennedy concurring and Justices Thomas and Alito dissenting:
A federal appeals court said that Arizona had gone too far and essentially rejected the federal form. Arizona said it was not a rejection of the federal form any more than asking for ID at an airport is a rejection of a plane ticket. …
At an oral argument in March, Thomas Horne, a lawyer for Arizona, told the justices that the state was within its rights to ask for additional information beyond the simple federal form.
“It’s extremely inadequate,” Horne said. “It’s essentially an honor system. It does not do the job.”
“Well,” answered Justice Sonia Sotomayor, “that’s what the federal system decided was enough.”
The court’s conservatives appeared sympathetic to the Arizona side. Scalia said that federal law clearly empowers the states to take additional action to assess a potential voter’s eligibility.
“Under oath is not proof at all,” he said. “It’s just a statement.”
Alabama, Georgia, and Kansas all have similar laws to Arizona’s proof-of-citizenship requirement and joined Arizona in their suit, and the Court’s ruling (written by Justice Scalia) pointed out that their next recourse action-item would be to petition the federal government to allow for state-specific instruction on the form and/or beef up the federal law altogether, and then go to court if the government declines to do so. …I’m going to go ahead and throw out a guess right now that the Obama administration would probably be disinclined to acquiesce to their request, for the very same reasons that so-called rights groups are pretty darn pleased about today’s decision:
This clearly seems to indicate that if we want to secure our election system from voter fraud by foreign nationals, we shall have to either change the “Motor Voter” laws or begin mass deportations.
This SCOTUS Father’s Day gift ruling to Obama and Democrats means that they can succeed in their mission of turning the Republican into a minor party though the undermining of our election system without even having to pass “Immigration Reform”
from what others have written it appears that the state does not need to provide the Federal form and need only use State forms. By doing so the Federal form is no longer relevant to the process.
http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2013/06/17/left-loses-big-in-arizona-supreme-court-case/?singlepage=true
A good explanation of how the Right won 4 out of 5 parts and the Left one only one part….the least important part.
And, yes, as J. Christian Adams points out, the Right is easily distracted.