Next November, Missouri voters will consider a ballot measure to amend the state Constitution to require voters to present a photo ID at the polls. Aside from depriving some voters of their most fundamental democratic right, voter ID measures also cost state taxpayers significant amounts money at time when budgets are tight — a fact that Missouri’s GOP state Senate leader seems to be hoping voters won’t realize. Senate President Pro Tem Rob Mayer (R), who supports the measure, went so far as to consider suing the state’s Republican auditor to get the high pricetag he placed on the measure changed:

State Auditor Tom Schweich’s surprisingly hefty estimate of the annual government cost of Missouri’s proposed photo ID requirement for voters has some Republican legislative leaders now fearing that the proposal could be a tougher sell when it hits ballots in 2012.

A spokeswoman for state Senate President Pro Tem Rob Mayer, R-Dexter, said he even briefly considered filing suit by today’s 5 p.m. deadline in a last-ditch attempt to get the estimate changed.

Schweich estimated the measure would cost state taxpayers $3 million to $6.5 million a year for enforcement, education, and subsidies to voters who do not already have valid photo IDs. Of course, it’s highly unusual for a lawmaker to sue a member of his own party, so the move suggests Mayer is seriously concerned voters will balk at price of the measure on next year’s ballot. But if voting rights activists have their way, it won’t even make it there.

A coalition of voting right groups is now suing Missouri over the ballot measure, hoping to stop it from even getting on the ballot. In a press release announcing the suit today, the Advancement Project, the Fair Elections Legal Network (FELN), and two local chapters of the ACLU call the measure “unconstitutional” and and “shameful”:

The ballot initiative, SJR2, slated to be placed on the ballot for November 2012, was passed by the legislature in May in an attempt to circumvent the Missouri Supreme Court’s 2006 ruling that restrictive photo ID voting laws are unconstitutional.

“I cannot imagine anything more cynical and shameful than using the voting process itself to trick voters into giving up their rights,” said Denise Lieberman, senior attorney for Advancement Project, a civil rights organization that works to eliminate barriers to voting and has been fighting photo ID laws across the country. “Just as the Missouri Supreme Court rejected Missouri’s photo ID law as a ‘heavy and substantial burden’ on voting rights, the court should reject this deceptive initiative. It does not make clear to voters that they will be giving up a fundamental right.”

The lawsuit, which is the first of its kind in the nation, lists eight voters who could be disenfranchised as plaintiffs, including two elderly women, college students, and a former Parliament Funkadelic band member now stricken with multiple sclerosis.

“There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the other Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today,” former President Clinton said at the Campus Progress conference yesterday.

South Carolina already has one of the toughest anti-immigrant laws in the nation, but last week Gov. Nikki Haley (R) made it even tougher when she signed a bill modeled on Arizona’s notorious SB 1070. During the signing ceremony, the new governor declared, “Illegal immigration is not welcome in South Carolina.” Like legislation recently passed in Georgia and Alabama, South Carolina’s law will require police to check the immigration status of anyone they stop and suspect may be in the country illegally.

But unlike other states, the law Haley signed allocates $1.3 million for a special “enforcement unit” of immigration cops:

Under the new law, employers in South Carolina will be required to use the federal E-Verify system to check the citizenship status of employees and job applicants. Penalties for knowingly employing illegal immigrants will include suspension and revocation of a business license by the state.

The law also creates a $1.3 million Illegal Immigration Enforcement Unit within the state public safety department to serve as a liaison between local police and federal immigration officials. The unit will have 12 full-time officers, as well as its own unique uniforms and vehicle markings.

The unit will be formed after July 1 when the new state budget takes effect.

Haley, the child of legal immigrants and the first non-white governor of the state, bragged that the law will save money because undocumented immigrants will be denied state services. But civil rights groups like the ACLU are already planning to challenge the new law in court, which could cost South Carolina hundreds of thousands in legal fees. State ACLU Director Victoria Middleton said the law invites racial profiling. “It basically will subject anyone who looks or sounds foreign to discrimination,” Middleton added. A federal judge already blocked Georgia’s more moderate law from taking effect.

South Carolina faced a staggering budget deficit of $1.3 billion. Greg Torrales of the South Carolina Hispanic Leadership Council said the law is hypocritical for a governor who claims to be a fiscal conservative. “I challenge the governor to stick to the platform she ran on,” he said. “South Carolina cannot afford this law. It’s too expensive.”

Haley is already in trouble with fellow Republican lawmakers in the state over the budget. During a showdown, the legislature overrode most of Haley’s $200 million in vetoes out of the $6 billion budget. Lawmakers also “excoriated” her on the House floor for breaking several funding deals. The House and Senate restored millions in education funding and $108 million for items that include college maintenance, police gear, and training programs for workers, including those taking jobs at the new Boeing plant.

In a nuanced article about President Obama’s decision to continue military action in Libya without congressional approval, former Obama Office of Legal Counsel nominee Dawn Johnsen criticizes the president’s reading of the law — and calls upon Congress to reverse this misinterpretation of the president’s war powers:

Contrary to the Obama administration’s legal interpretation, recent military operations in Libya—which include repeated piloted and drone air attacks—should be treated as “hostilities” under the War Powers Resolution. This is reportedly what the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel advised. Yet the president rejected this view, instead siding with that of the State Department and White House counsel’s office. [...]

It’s high time for Congress to exercise its own constitutional authority, as encouraged by the War Powers Resolution, and authorize the Libya operation with whatever conditions it sees fit—conditions that this administration, in contrast to the last, recognizes its constitutional obligation to honor.

Congress should also codify its understanding of the terms of the War Powers Resolution. A pending Senate resolution, which as amended by Sen. Richard Lugar specifies that hostilities have been ongoing, would accomplish both goals.

As Johnsen points out, the administration deserves credit for rejecting the John Yoo position that presidents can simply ignore laws constraining their warmaking powers that they don’t feel like obeying — and the Obama Administration is unambiguously right about this. As far back as 1804, the Supreme Court established in Little v. Barreme that Congress may place limits on how the president exercises his authority as commander-in-chief. This is why Congress could have prevented President Bush from escalating the Iraq War, and it is also the reason why Congress can tell President Obama that he needs approval to continue combat in Libya.

In the end, Johnsen’s article highlights the utter unconscionability of the GOP’s decision to filibuster her nomination to head OLC. The OLC head’s most important and most difficult job is to tell the president of the United States when he is wrong about the law. Johnsen proved she is up to that task, and she deserved the opportunity to perform it from within the administration.

Last week, 49 GOP members of Congress wrote House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) asking him to launch an utterly frivolous investigation into whether Justice Elena Kagan needs to recuse from the Affordable Care Act litigation. As ThinkProgress explained, the case for a Kagan recusal is so utterly lacking in merit that this call for an investigation can only be interpreted as a transparent attempt to distract from the very serious ethical scandals facing Justice Clarence Thomas.

Nevertheless, Smith took them up on their request for an investigation. In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Smith seeks a pile of documents regarding Kagan’s non-existent involvement in the health care litigation:

1. All documents referring to any meetings or conversations (personal or electronic) about potential or actual health care legislation or litigation in which Solicitor General Kagan was involved, mentioned or copied.

2. All documents referencing potential or actual health care legislation or litigation in which Solicitor General Kagan was involved, mentioned or copied.

3. All documents referencing excluding Ms. Kagan from any matters involving health care legislation or litigation while she was Solicitor General.

4. All documents referencing possible recusal by Solicitor General Kagan from any matters relating to health care legislation or litigation if she were confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice.

Most of the documents Smith seeks are already public, and they reveal absolutely no evidence whatsoever suggesting Kagan should recuse. Earlier this year, a conservative news outlet filed a FOIA request seeking documents relating to Kagan’s involvement in the health care litigation. All that they were able to uncover is that Kagan directed other lawyers within her office to work on the Affordable Care Act matter, rather than actually working on the case herself.

Under federal law, judges must recuse themselves from cases where they “participated as counsel, adviser or material witness concerning the proceeding or expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy.” To participate as counsel, a lawyer must actually provide legal advice or otherwise act as an attorney in a case — telling another lawyer to work on a case does not constitute participation as counsel. So the right’s so-called evidence against Kagan actually proves the opposite of what they claim it proves — it shows that she scrupulously directed Affordable Care Act work away from herself and onto other lawyers in a way that eliminates any recusal issues for her as a justice.

Nevertheless, there is something ingenious about Smith’s document request. His request for documents referencing pending litigation will undoubtedly include some documents that are protected by attorney-client privilege (although the federal courts recognize a narrow exception to governmental attorney-client privilege for criminal cases, that exception does not apply here). When DOJ honors its ethical obligation not to turn over these documents, Smith will almost certainly use their adherence to legal ethics as an excuse to rant about an imagined cover-up.

Ultimately, however, the most likely purpose of Smith’s investigation remains the same. Smith would uncover nothing jeopardizing Kagan’s ability to hear the health care cases even if he were given unlimited access to DOJ’s archives. What he may accomplish, however, is shifting attention from the many, many ethics scandal involving Thomas — including a scandal strikingly similar to the gifting scandal that forced Justice Abe Fortas to resign from the Court in 1969.

Speaking yesterday at the annual Campus Progress convention, former President Bill Clinton called out the GOP’s state by state efforts to make it harder to vote — a war on voting designed almost entirely to reduce the number of Democrats who cast ballots:

I can’t help thinking, since we just celebrated the Fourth of July and we’re supposed to be a country dedicated to liberty, that one of the most pervasive political movements going on outside Washington today is the disciplined, passionate, determined effort of Republican governors and legislators to keep most of you from voting next time. There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the other Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today.

Getting rid of same-day registration. Some states getting rid of all advanced voting. Governor of Florida proposed to reverse his Republican predecessor’s signing of a bill that gave people the right to vote when they got out of prison and they’d finished they’re probation period, even if they didn’t have a pardon—that’s one of the most important things we can do. Why should we disenfranchise people forever once they pay their price? Cause most of them in Florida were African Americans and Hispanics and would tend to vote for Democrats, that’s why.

Why do we want to get rid of same day registration? Why has New Hampshire made it almost impossible for college students who come from other states but live in New Hampshire most of the year to vote there? Why is all this going on? This is not rocket science. They are trying to make the 2012 electorate look more like the 2010 electorate than the 2008 electorate.

Watch it:

Clinton is exactly right to question why anyone who professes a love of liberty could work so passionately to prevent Americans from exercising their most sacred right to vote, and the examples he cites are just a small taste of the GOP’s pervasive effort to keep people from going to the polls. Numerous GOP state legislatures rammed through “voter ID” laws, which disenfranchise thousands of elderly, disabled, and low-income voters. Republicans typically justify these voter disenfranchisement laws by claiming that they are necessary to combat voter fraud at the polls, but in-person voter fraud is only slightly more common than unicorns. A recent Supreme Court decision upholding a voter ID law was only able to cite one example of in-person voter fraud in the last 143 years.

Similarly, Republicans declared war on campaign finance regulations intended to allow candidates without massive corporate or other wealthy donor support to still compete fairly in an election. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) gutted his state’s public financing system for candidates to pay for a voter disenfranchisement law. And a 5-4 Supreme Court decision just declared laws enabling publicly financed candidates to defend themselves against unlimited corporate attack ads unconstitutional.

It’s much easier for the GOP to win the game, after all, if they can make it impossible for the other team’s players to even take the field.