DoJ Argues for Voter ID Law in Supreme Court CaseSignaling that things haven’t changed all that much at the Justice Department, the DoJ has filed an amicus brief (pdf) with the Supreme Court in support of Indiana’s voter ID law.
The decision to file the brief in and of itself will prove controversial, but beyond that, opponents say that the brief’s argument would set a standard that stacks the deck in favor of vote suppression measures and against those who challenge them. Arguments in the case, Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, are set to be heard by the Court in January.
In the 42-page brief (pdf), the Department argues that Indiana’s law is a “reasonable administrative rule that furthers the State’s compelling interest in combating voter fraud.” Alleged voter fraud, of course, has been a continual preoccupation of the Department, even leading to the firing of at least two of the nine U.S. attorneys in the Gonzales-era purge, despite overwhelming evidence that such fraud is extremely rare and even then hardly ever intentional.
In a statement, the Brennan Center for Justice, which has filed an amicus brief against the law and calls the case “the most important voting rights case since Bush v. Gore,” denounced the Department’s argument as an “extreme legal position.” If accepted, the group argues, the standard set would mean “that there could be virtually no challenges to laws suppressing the vote before an election….
This means that any law meant to suppress the vote would have already accomplished its goal of disenfranchising voters before it could be challenged in Court. Their position, taken to its logical extent, would allow jurisdictions to suppress the votes of tens of thousands of voters before a single aggrieved voter could get their day in Court.”
David Becker, a former lawyer in the Civil Rights Division’s voting section and currently with People For the American Way, agreed that the brief is “extremely troubling,” adding, “if the DoJ has its way, it will be easier for a state like Indiana to erect barriers on voters rights than it will be for Congress to protect those rights.” The People for the American Way signed on to the Brennan Center’s amicus brief in the case.
But Becker said that the DoJ’s decision to file the brief is itself troubling. There’s “really no legal reason” for the DoJ to weigh in, he said, since there’s no federal statute implicated in the case. Becker drew a comparison to earlier instances of Department lawyers taking public positions on issues for seemingly political reasons.
The two senior Department officials to sign the brief are Solicitor General Paul Clement and Grace Chung Becker, who was recently nominated to head the Civil Rights Division. David Becker (no relation) said that the nominee’s decision to sign the brief was reason for “great concern” about her nomination.
“There’s so much talk about changing direction in the Civil Rights Division, and [Attorney General] Michael Mukasey is saying that he’s going to change direction, and then the new nominee comes in and says basically that it’s going to be business as usual.”
