Just in case any of you thought our sharp political divide was not affecting the courts:
At a private conference next Monday, the Supreme Court will consider whether to hear a challenge to Indiana's new law requiring voters to show photographic identification at the polls. The court should take the case, both to correct a troubling partisan divide among lower-court judges over the constitutionality of such laws and to reject a pernicious opinion by federal Judge Richard A. Posner that belittles the right to vote.
It is no secret that a partisan divide over election administration has emerged since the 2000 Florida debacle. Republican state legislators push for laws that they say will prevent voter fraud, and Democratic legislators push for laws they say will prevent voter intimidation and remove barriers to voting. Every state legislature that has passed a voter identification law since 2000 has done so along party lines.
Less well known is that a partisan divide has also emerged in the courts.
[. . .]
A three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit split: The two Republican-appointed judges voted to uphold the law and the one Democratic appointee dissented. When the entire 7th Circuit considered whether to rehear the case, the court again split, almost perfectly along party lines.
State legislatures have voted generally along party lines for voter IDs, and courts also seemed so inclined. The interesting thing is that neither side offers much in the way of evidence. Republicans don't show examples of voters who might have committed fraud, and Democrats don't show examples of voters who might have been disenfranchised. That leaves everybody free to decide based on political predisposition.
