Voter ID is just common sense, but it needs the Supreme Court’s protection

Today, the public is more united than ever on the issue of election integrity. We all want an elections system with which it is easy to vote and hard to cheat and that guarantees accurate results and outcomes that voters can trust. This can be achieved when there are necessary and appropriate safeguards in place, such as photo voter ID.

Requiring a photo ID to vote is a commonsense safeguard that enjoys broad support among the public. Polling has found that 80% of voters favor requiring a photo ID to vote. Photo IDs are required for many things in our society, including boarding a plane, receiving government benefits, opening a bank account, and even purchasing certain over-the-counter drugs. Across the country, more than half of our states require some form of ID to vote at the polls — 17 of which require a photo ID.

The constant narrative peddled by many on the Left would have you believe a photo ID requirement is nothing more than a tool used to suppress, deter, or prevent eligible voters from voting. That is simply not true. In fact, states such as Georgia that require voters to present photo ID at the polls saw record turnout, particularly among minority communities, in the 2020 general election. During the onslaught of hearings held by the Democratic-controlled House Administration Committee last year, not one of their witnesses could identify a single voter who was unable to vote because he or she did not have photo identification.

To nullify a photo voter identification ballot measure approved by the voters of North Carolina and an accompanying law enacted by the state legislature, the NAACP filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging that the law discriminates against and disenfranchises black people and Latinos. Like in other states, the North Carolina attorney general is the state official responsible for representing the state and defending its laws in court. The difference here is that the attorney general decided not to defend the constitutionality of North Carolina’s law zealously because of his own partisan political beliefs. It is deeply troubling that the state’s chief legal official would replace the legislature’s judgment with his own and refuse to defend the constitutionality of a state law. To address this issue, the state legislature filed to intervene in the case to defend the constitutionality of this important election integrity law but was blocked by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Federal courts should not dictate to a state the agent best suited to represent it. When interests in defending a state law diverge, states should be given the right to intervene to defend the constitutionality of their laws, particularly when a court strikes down a statute and the attorney general takes a pass on an appeal. Intervention by a state legislature provides the court the opportunity to hear the issue in full when a rogue attorney general fails to defend the law or appeal it.

That is why I joined the Lawyers Democracy Fund in taking this argument to the Supreme Court, filing an amicus curiae brief to support the North Carolina legislature’s rightful intervention to defend its state photo ID law in Berger v. North Carolina State Conference of NAACP. Under the U.S. Constitution, state legislatures have the primary role in establishing election law. The role of a state attorney general is not to serve as the state’s lawmaker or policymaker, and an attorney general’s political party affiliation should never influence or dictate legal strategy in the defense of a state law.

This is important because many attorneys general have taken these partisan tactics a step further, entering into collusive settlements with friendly outside groups in order to change state law without the consent of the legislature. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened with North Carolina’s photo voter ID law. These actions not only deny North Carolina full representation but also undermine the will of the people who voted to amend their state constitution to require identification for voting.

I am hopeful that the Supreme Court will acknowledge the political gamesmanship that occurred and recognize the North Carolina legislature’s sovereign right to end these partisan games and defend the constitutionality of its state’s voter identification law.

Rodney Davis represents Illinois’s 13th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.