Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The U.S. Supreme Court this morning granted certiorari to hear an appeal by the state of Arizona from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Arizona v. The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona Inc et al, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-71. Supreme Court to take up Arizona voter registration | Reuters:
The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to consider whether Arizona may demand that voters show proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.
The legal dispute over the registration requirement dates back to 2004 when Arizona voters passed a ballot initiative, Proposition 200, designed to stop illegal immigrants from voting. The measure amended state election laws to require voters to show proof of citizenship to register as well as identification to vote at the polls.
Arizona residents, Indian tribes and civil rights groups sued to challenge the new provisions.
While the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Arizona's right to require voter identification at polling places, the court in April found that the citizenship requirement conflicted with a 1993 federal law designed to make it easier for people to register to vote in federal elections by using a federal registration form.
The state requirement and the federal scheme did not "operate harmoniously," the appeals court found, so the federal rules won out.
On appeal, Arizona argued that the 9th Circuit owed more deference to the state's authority to administer federal elections.
The Supreme Court on Monday granted Arizona's appeal without comment.
The U.S. Supreme Court may be combining a series of cases from Alabama, South Carolina, Texas and Arizona for a review of the Voting Rights Act during this term. Voting rights may be redefined by this conservatiive activist court.
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The Elections Clause of the Constitution: “`The TIMES, PLACES, and MANNER of holding elections for senators and representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may, at any time, by law, make or alter SUCH REGULATIONS, except as to the PLACES of choosing senators.”
In Federalist Paper No. 59, Hamilton explained the problem under the Articles of Confederation, which let every state make its own rules for federal elections (including the way it selected U.S. House members): “Nothing can be more evident, than that an exclusive power of regulating elections for the national government, in the hands of the State legislatures, would leave the existence of the Union entirely at their mercy. They could at any moment annihilate it, by neglecting to provide for the choice of persons to administer its affairs. It is to little purpose to say, that a neglect or omission of this kind would not be likely to take place. The constitutional possibility of the thing, without an equivalent for the risk, is an unanswerable objection.”
This case has been in the federal courts for years. When it was called Gonzales v. Arizona, the Gonzales II opinion in 2010 by the Ninth Circuit — our beloved retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, was on the three-judge panel as an acting circuit judge and joined Circuit Judge Sandra S. Ikuta’s opinion — found that Arizona’s law directly conflicted with the “text, structure, and purpose” of the National Voting Rights Act, a legitimate vehicle of the powers granted Congress under the Election Clause.
Chief Judge Alex Kozinski dissented in large part, but his reasoning is tortured at best. Let’s hope that Justice O’Connor’s well-deserved respect and prestige among the Justices and the public, especially in Arizona, will have some weight with the Supreme Court.
We can only wish that O’Connor was still on the U.S. Supreme Court. When she was the Republican majority leader in the Arizona State Senate, she performed so far above the clowns of the last decade that it’s terribly sad that there are few politicians of her caliber here today. She understands the Constitution and she understands American and Arizona history and she understands the needs of citizens. Bless her.