In case you didn't hear, this Monday the Supreme Court voted to uphold Indiana's photo voter ID law, much to the chagrin of liberals everywhere. Which, predictably, has focused the boys and girls in the mainstream media back on the fact that the High Court is the real prize in the upcoming election. For example, this from MSNBC [2]:
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court's decision Monday upholding Indiana's voter photo identification law was another timely reminder, if any were needed, of how big the stakes are in November's election.
The next president is likely to have the chance to nominate at least one justice.
The author of Monday's decision, Justice John Paul Stevens, age 88, will almost certainly retire in the next few years.
The next oldest justice, 75-year-old Ruth Bader Ginsburg, appointed by President Clinton, dissented from Monday's ruling.
Democrats are concerned that the Indiana voter identification law - and ones like it in other states - will make it harder for them to get the votes they need to elect the next president.
"These (voter photo ID) laws are no more than a cynical attempt to suppress turnout among groups who tend to vote for candidates who prioritize working families' issues, including lower income Americans and people of color," said AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, a member of the Democratic National Committee. ...
To add insult to the injury of Dems and liberals everywhere, the 6-3 decision was written by the usually reliably liberal John Paul Stevens:
Stevens' reasoning was this: "Not only is the risk of voter fraud real but ... it could affect the outcome of a close election," he wrote. The need to have photo identification is not "excessively burdensome" on any group of voters, he said, using the language of a 1974 precedent.
Well, I guess we can all say we've seen just about everything now... A liberal displaying a little common sense in a Supreme Court decision. Be on the lookout for those flying pigs.
In the meantime, they're longing for the good ol' days of Sandra D...
Simon Heller, the legal director of the Alliance for Justice, an advocacy group that opposed the Alito and Roberts nominations, said, "If we still had Justice (Sandra Day) O'Connor on the court instead of Justice Alito, we might have had a different lineup" in the Indiana decision.
"Without Alito and Roberts, I think the court might have come out differently in this case," Heller said. "Justice Stevens might have been persuaded by Justices Breyer, Ginsburg and Souter. Justice O'Connor was providing a fifth vote (for the liberal wing), but with Justice O'Connor having been replaced by the extremely conservative Justice Alito, it's a very different court now."
Exactly.
