Some of the initial reports about this afternoon’s ruling by the state Supreme Court on the state’s new voter ID law were confused and contradictory, so let me briefly explain.
The court did not, as some reports suggested, throw out the voter ID law. Rather, it decided that the lower court’s decision not to block the law was premature — or to put a finer point on it, didn’t fully take into account all the relevant facts that it should have in declining to block the law.
As I explained below, the state Supreme Court is sending it back to the lower court for a do-over, with specific guidelines on what to consider in making the decision.
Ryan Reilly has our full report.
I’m going to need your ears and eyes on this one. I’m very eager to see how Republicans up for election in November react to Mitt Romney’s 47% remarks. Do they embrace them? Simply say they were awkwardly phrased? Or distance themselves entirely? This will be unfolding in places across the country. So if you see examples of any sort please let me know.
Shoot me an email at the TPM comments email address linked up there on the upper right of the site.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has vacated a lower court ruling that effectively upheld the state’s new voter ID law — and sent the case back to the lower court for further review. We’re still sorting out the implications.
To be more specific, opponents of the new voter ID law had sought a preliminary injunction to block the law and the lower court denied that request. The Supreme Court is now telling the lower court to revisit that denial — and giving the lower court judge the standards to use in deciding whether to grant an injunction.
Primarily at issue in the case is whether the state’s process of providing IDs to would-be voters is sufficiently robust to ensure that anyone seeking an ID can get one. In other words, does any difficulty in obtaining a state-issued ID amount to disenfranchisement?
More soon …
As many of you have asked, just who makes up the 47% moocher class?
This report from the Tax Policy Center gives us a good read on the numbers. First, the most recent numbers put the percentage at 46%. That makes sense because a substantial part of the number is a bulge created by the Great Recession. It appears to be tracking down now as the economy slowly recovers. The pre-Crash number was about 40%.
So who are they? Read More
TPM Electoral Scoreboard moves to Obama 278, Romney 206 as Virginia moves from Toss Up to Leans Obama.
Rough sign when the private equity guy who hosted the party reaches for the parachute.
Marc Leder, who hosted the now-infamous fundraiser in Boca Raton (and also hosts parties in the Hamptons where people get to do the 1% wild thing in the pool — not that there’s anything wrong with that) releases this statement to Fortune …
In a statement first given to Fortune, Leder says: “I hosted a fundraiser for an old friend in May. I believe all Americans should have the opportunity to succeed, to improve their lives, and to build even better lives for their children. I have supported people from both political parties who share this view and make it a priority, even though their ideas on how to achieve it may differ.”
Rich Lowry: “The overall impression of Romney at this event is of someone who overhead some conservative cocktail chatter and maybe read a conservative blog or two, and is thoughtlessly repeating back what he heard and read.”
I kind of agree with what Lowry says here simply because in addition to being contemptuous of half the American people and wildly offensive to ordinary people trying to make ends meet, Mitt seems to string together a handful of really distinct conservative talking points — and in a way that makes you think he just heard them in a fragmentary way and pasted them together without any clear sense of what he was saying. Read More
It’s not the biggest point. But it’s worth noting. One of the biggest drivers of the fact that 47% of households pay no income tax is Republican public policy. Specifically, the Earned Income Tax Credit or EITC. Now, to be clear, it’s a good policy. I’m not sure whether it’s better than others like just increasing the minimum wage. But we’re much better with it than without it. Again, though, that’s Ronald Reagan’s baby right there. And something Democrats eventually embraced. The basic idea is that if you’re working and have kids the tax code will try to nudge you up over the poverty line with negative taxes, i.e., tax credits. If this is a disaster, we know who to blame.
Romney adviser Bay Buchanan on CNN this morning pretty much reaffirmed everything Romney was “caught” saying about the 47 percent.