I have posted the opinions in In re request for Advisory Opinion Regarding Constitutionality of 2005 PA 71 at this link. This news report notes “The court’s five Republicans voted to uphold the law while two Democrats dissented. The issue has fiercely divided Democrats and Republicans for a decade.”
That divide appeared in the 7th Circuit’s Crawford opinion (Indiana voter id law) as well, as I noted in this blog post (and as discussed in my forthcoming Stanford Law Review piece, “The Untimely Death of Bush v. Gore.”)
The majority decided the question under both the federal and state constitutions. Because of the federal claim, this case could be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the Crawford petitions for cert are pending.
UPDATE: On the last point of a cert petition in the Supreme Court, some people have raised the question whether the Supreme Court could hear an appeal from an advisory opinion. I think the question depends not upon the label given by the state supreme court, but on whether there is an actual controversy between adversarial parties.
But Jocelyn Benson tells me that the state attorney general briefed both sides of the case, inviting the parties to file amicus briefs. So there could be a serious question about justiciability. Jocelyn further writes: “Under Michigan law, an advisory opinion does not constitute a decision of the MI Supreme Court and is not precedentially binding in the same sense as a decision of that court after a hearing on the merits. See, e.g., Advisory Opinion on Constitutionality of 1975 PA 227 (Questions 2-10), 396 Mich 465, 242 NW2d 3 (1976); In re Requests of Governor and Senate on Constitutionality of Act No. 294 of Public Acts of 1972, 389 Mich 441, 208 NW2d 469 (1973). As such, today’s decision should not preclude — and I suspect it will not deter – a formal constitutional challenge to the MI ID law in federal district court.”