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Closing the courthouse doors to civil rights plaintiffs.

Article Excerpt
On January 9, the Supreme Court heard arguments in the consolidated cases of Crawford v. Marion County Election Board and Indiana Democratic Party v. Rotika on the question of whether an Indiana election law requiring voters to show photo identification as a condition for voting is constitutional. (1) The issue has sparked a deep partisan dispute. Republicans claim that the requirement is needed to prevent voter fraud. Democrats argue that many Democratic voters--especially African-Americans and Latinos--would be disproportionately turned away from the polls.

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During oral argument, several of the justices, led by Justice Antonin Scalia, questioned whether the challenge to the voter-identification law should be decided at this time. Their questions suggested that no one yet had standing to sue because the law had not been implemented and no one had been denied the opportunity to vote.

These justices seemed to be saying that the law could not be challenged until after it was used in an election. One reporter who follows the Court indicated that this may reflect the views of a majority of the justices. (2)

It is too soon to know what the Court will do in Crawford, but the justices' questions at oral argument reflect a major theme of the Roberts Court: closing the courthouse doors to litigants, especially in civil rights cases. This aspect of the Court's last...