Outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder will be remembered for opposing voter ID laws and for interfering from Washington with valid state laws, writes Edwin Meese and J. Kenneth Blackwell
in The Wall Street Journal.
Holder will leave "a dismal legacy at the Justice Department" particularly for "demonizing" efforts by states to guarantee honest elections. "Those who oppose photo voter ID laws and other election integrity reforms are intent on making it easier to commit vote fraud," Meese and Blackwell assert.
Meese was U.S. attorney general under Ronald Reagan from 1985 to 1988 and Blackwell was mayor of Cincinnati and until 2007 Ohio secretary of state.
The 2013 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Shelby County v. Holder invalidated the parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that have become archaic while leaving the federal government with sufficient power to block genuine racial discrimination in voting, Meese and Blackwell write.
The argument that voter ID laws disenfranchise minorities or discourage minority voting is contradicted by the facts. Far from inhibiting turnout, states with voter ID requirements such as Georgia, Indiana, and Texas, are showing higher voting turnout and greater minority participation. Claims by the NAACP that a quarter of Africa Americans don't have government issued photo IDs are simply not factual, according to Meese and Blackwell.
In Wisconsin, a new photo voter ID law will be applied in November after being upheld by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. In Texas, indigent voters can obtain free voter IDs. Indiana's photo voter ID law has become a prototype for other states. Most American regardless of party affiliation or ethnic background back voter photo-ID laws, write Meese and Blackwell.
They urge that Holder's replacement for attorney general be probed for where they stand on voter-identification laws in the Senate confirmation process.
"Ascribing racial animus to people who are trying to safeguard democratic integrity is a crude yet effective political tactic that obscures the truth, Meese and Blackwell assert.
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