JACKSON, Miss. — The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday overturned a ruling that would have forced Mississippians to register by political party and to show photo identification at the polls to be able to vote.
U.S. District Judge Allen Pepper in Mississippi ruled last year that the state should reregister all voters to allow people to declare themselves as Democrats, Republicans or members of another party. Or, Pepper said, people could register as unaffiliated with any party. Pepper said Mississippi must restructure its party primary system by Aug. 31, 2008. …
Pepper had also ordered the state to enact a voter identification law in time for the 2009 elections.
The Mississippi Democratic Party, which brought the lawsuit in 2006 seeking to keep nonparty members from voting in its primaries, appealed Pepper’s ruling. Some black Democrats have complained that whites sympathetic to Republicans have been voting in the Democratic primaries.
Joining the Democrats in the appeal were the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the state and the Mississippi Republican Party. …
The New Orleans court said Pepper’s ruling spawned a free-for-all on appeal.
The court noted the Democratic Party had appealed the mandatory photo ID requirement. The GOP appealed on grounds that Pepper’s order brought Republicans into a lawsuit they did not support. And attorneys for the Mississippi NAACP opposed the voter ID and re-registration portions of Pepper’s order.
There also were briefs filed by the attorney general, the governor and the secretary of state.
“The state is divided … We will put the parties out of their litigation misery,” wrote Chief Judge Edith H. Jones for the three-judge panel. …
More here.
(h/t ccvz)
Wow – a “h/t”!
I agree with Edith Jones about something.
Nice quote. I could not imagine how Judge Pepper’s ruling could get upheld. I understood but disagreed with his 1st Amend/association ruling on the primaries. But to leap from a requirement of a closed primary to (eseentially legislating, really) a remedy of a voter ID seemed literally irrational to me. I could not understand the logic the least bit; it was almost a way of saying “a pox on all of you!”
And thanks to Edith Jones, we have been put out of our litigation misery.
More about these later.
You’re right, nmisscommenter, about voter ID having no place in this case. Voter ID is not necessary for a party to be able to determine who votes in its primaries.
The courts’ proper role, of course, is to decide whether the law is constitutional. No court can order parties to conduct closed primaries.
We may not be “out of our litigation misery” yet, as the 5th Circuit’s ruling may be appealed to the US Supreme Court.
This Votelaw post includes a link to the PDF of the court’s opinion.
Everyone but Hood will move for rehearing and/or en banc hearing I’d bet.
What the heck were the Democrats thinking authorizing the filing of this suit? Even the relief they sought was dangerous in a big way.
The Democrats weren’t thinking! The move for a closed primary was slipped in at the end of a long meeting when everyone was ready to leave. No real discussion! When Judge Pepper made his ruling and the Party met to discuss the next move, Lawyer Turnage stood them up. There was not a quorum present to do business and the circus moved on.
NMC @ 2: ditto. Just goes to show if you live long enough . . . .