Let's ask Alito about voter IDs

Maybe Sens. Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl should be asking justice nominee Samuel Alito his views on the constitutionality of requiring voters to have government-issued photo ID cards.

We seem headed, some years down the road, toward a Supreme Court decision on Wisconsin's requirement.

The Assembly Tuesday passed a constitutional amendment to require photo IDs, despite a warning from the ACLU that it is probably unconstitutional. (The ACLU knows a little something about the subject, having just gotten a court order to stop a similar law from taking effect in Georgia.

Republicans, whose transparent goal is to reduce the Democratic vote, claim it's the will of the people to require photo IDs, citing public opinion polls which are duly noted in news coverage of the Assembly vote.

But majority rule doesn't apply when the the constitution is at stake. That's why we have a judiciary and, ultimately, the Supreme Court.

Tuesday's action was just a vote by the first house of the legislature. It needs State Senate approval this session, and then must pass both houses again next session before going to the voters for a statewide referendum. The soonest that could happen is spring of 2007. If it passes, it is no doubt headed for the courts, and, not inconceivably, the Supremes.