The laws sound innocuous, even boring. Requiring photo identification to vote, or hospital credentials to perform an abortion. Changing building requirements for clinics, or schedules for elections.
But seen together, state measures that have swept the nation in recent years restricting access to voting and to abortion could represent some of the keenest successes of the conservative movement and the Republican Party.
The bulk of these restrictions have been passed since Republicans took control of a slew of state legislatures in 2010: Voter ID laws were passed in states like Texas, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, along with cuts to early voting in several more. Medically unnecessary restrictions have also been placed on abortion clinics in all three of those states, and similar laws threaten to close clinics in Louisiana, Alabama and Oklahoma.
Many of the laws intentionally push the legal envelope, and are now wending their way through the federal courts.