Charles Lane on Judge Posner on Voter ID

Lane: “Some critics of voter ID laws may revel in Posner’s confession. I wish he’d kept his mouth shut. Not because I’m a fan of voter ID laws — I’m not — but because Posner’s casual mea culpa is improper behavior for a sitting federal judge.”

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It doesn’t help matters that Posner’s confession of error contained a gratuitious slap at the losing lawyers or that it hinged on a vague notion of how the Indiana law, and others like it, are now “regarded.” As it happens, opinion polls consistently show that voter ID laws are popular among voters of both parties.

When I presented this data to Posner, he replied by e-mail, “That’s not my impression. I believe that all but one of the photo ID identification laws were passed by state legislatures that are Republican controlled.”

He and I could debate this forever. But that’s just the point — judges shouldn’t engage in the hurly-burly of political argument. It fosters the impression, corrosive to the rule of law, that there is no difference between a judicial process and a legislative one.

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