11th Circuit Court: State’s voter ID law constitutional

Date
Publication
The Selma Times Journal

According to Campaign Legal Center (CLC), the two groups “unearthed significant evidence” that the state’s voter ID law, passed in 2011 but not enacted until the U.S. Supreme Court’s Shelby County v. Holder decision gutted the pre-clearance requirement of the Voting Rights Act, “was passed with a discriminatory purpose.” Further, CLC questions the rationale behind the district court ruling, which paved the way for Wednesday’s decision. “This district court’s decision is not consistent with decades of law on how courts must analyze claims of intentional discrimination, the CLC, which signed onto a friend-of-the-court brief in an attempt to draw the 11th Circuit Court’s attention  to the “critical missteps” in the lower court’s ruling, said. “Laws that are passed with the aim of harming or favoring any racial group are unconstitutional, plain and simple. A court analyzing such a claim must evaluate all the evidence of intentional discrimination and determine whether discrimination motivated the law. If so, the court must strike down the law. Racially discriminatory laws have no legitimacy whatsoever.”

Read the full article here.