Officials in both Texas and Mississippi have indicated they will enforce new ID laws. | AP Photos Stage set for voter ID battle

The Supreme Court decision Tuesday striking down a key plank of the Voting Rights Act dramatically eases the way for states to push through stricter voting laws — and the flurry of action could reverberate into 2014 and beyond.

Some states such as Texas moved within hours of the landmark ruling to implement so-called voter ID laws — requiring voters to show valid identification before they can cast ballots — that had been on hold. Others, such as swing state North Carolina, are expected to pass legislation this year that could complicate Democrats’ chances in 2014 midterm elections.


Democrats hope to use the issue to galvanize minority voters by accusing the conservative-leaning Supreme Court and Republican statehouses of turning back the clock on hard-won voting rights. But the effect of the actual statutes, in terms of preventing people from voting who show up to the polls without proper ID, could be “devastating and immediate,” said Penda Hair, co-director of the voting rights group Advancement Project.

( PHOTOS: 21 landmark SCOTUS rulings)

In North Carolina, the Republican governor and GOP-led Legislature have been working to pass a strict photo ID requirement, as well as restrictions on voter registration deadlines and on students voting on campus. Passage of those laws is likely to speed up now that the court has effectively removed preclearance, which critics said unfairly subjected southern states to excessive federal scrutiny that is no longer warranted.

The high court decision brings the law “into this century, not the last century,” North Carolina GOP state Sen. Tom Apodaca told The Charlotte Observer.

At the same time, North Carolina’s looming voter ID law could spell trouble for incumbent Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan, a top target of Republicans whose fate may hinge on high turnout among minority voters.

( Also on POLITICO: Obama's muted response)

“I see these Southern legislatures just sharpening their knives,” Hair said. “I feel like they were waiting to submit things that were already enacted, or in North Carolina, potentially waiting for this decision to come through before they moved [on legislation].”

The high court’s Tuesday decision invalidated part of the Voting Rights Act requiring that some or all areas in 15 states get advance clearance from the Department of Justice before any voting changes can go into effect. New laws can still be contested under another provision of the VRA, but states no longer carry the burden of proving upfront that their laws don’t discriminate.

The law has been a key tool for voting rights groups to contest — and prevent — restrictive voting laws they say disproportionately suppress minority turnout.

In fact, almost every state included under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act has passed or considered passing some sort of restrictive law in the past year: voter ID laws, voter registration restrictions, early-voting restrictions or others.

( Also on POLITICO: Left fumes over ruling)

In Texas, state Attorney General Greg Abbott announced — within hours of the Court’s decision — that a voter ID law that had been postponed by the Justice Department, as well as the state’s previously blocked redistricting maps, would take effect immediately. The maps had been put on hold when a three-judge U.S. District Court panel ruled last summer that the state Legislature had discriminatory intent in drafting them. Opponents of the new maps said they shoehorned Hispanic and black voters into fewer districts, diminishing their political clout.

( Also on POLITICO: Trent Franks: GOP silence is safer)

Mississippi and Alabama, too, will immediately implement their voter ID laws, state officials announced Tuesday.

Other states previously covered by the VRA, like South Carolina and Alabama, passed voter ID laws last year that weren’t in effect for the 2012 elections but will likely go into effect going forward.

Young, elderly, minority and urban voters tend to be most affected by stricter voting requirements — a fact that could hurt Democrats across the board in the states where new laws are being passed.

“I don’t want to predict doom and gloom — I would like to think that we can fight voting discrimination in our country and that we can come together and do that,” said Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Project at the Brennan Center for Justice. “But that said, even if you’re looking at just the new sweeping voting restrictions that were the subject of battles in 2012, several of them were blocked or mitigated by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.”

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a key player in the civil rights movement, put it more bluntly: The Supreme Court “stuck a dagger in the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” he told reporters after the ruling.

For their part, Democrats plan to use the issue against Republican candidates and politicians who push through stricter requirements in the wake of the court’s decision — and to help motivate Democratic voters to get the required IDs and turn out to the polls next November.

Democrats in states with new voter ID legislation used the issue against Republicans last year, accusing their adversaries of working to disenfranchise minority voters. A handful of states — including Pennsylvania, Texas, South Carolina and Wisconsin — passed voter ID laws that were delayed by state and federal courts.

Last year, Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai made headlines when he said the voter ID law in that state would “allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.”

His comments gave Democrats fodder for insisting that GOP-led voter ID efforts were undertaken for partisan reasons.

In Virginia, strict photo ID requirements that were passed earlier this year won’t take effect until 2014, after the governor’s race this November. But Democrats are already making an issue of some of state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s past comments on the VRA.

The Virginian-Pilot reported that, in a speech last year, Cuccinelli likened the VRA’s preclearance requirements to “running to mommy” — a comment Democrats are already circulating and criticizing.

“Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires federal permission to do anything, to move a polling place, you have to go … I call it ‘running to mommy’ which you get my level of respect for it,” he said.

In a statement through the attorney general’s office Tuesday, Cuccinelli said the state is “committed to fair elections, fair voting districts, and ensuring everyone’s vote counts.”

Justin Barasky, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said the committee will certainly make voting rights an issue in states where GOP candidates — especially Senate hopefuls, like state House Speaker Thom Tillis in North Carolina — are involved in passing restrictive laws.

“It will be an issue for them,” Barasky said. “Any Republican who supports making it harder to vote will face some level of backlash.”

National Republican Senatorial Committee spokeswoman Brook Hougesen said in a statement that the committee “firmly believes all men and women must have an equal right and opportunity to vote and have their voices heard regardless of background, ethnicity, or gender.”

Voting rights activists stressed that the next step in the battle rests with Congress, which must rewrite which states and counties would be covered under the VRA — and said they were hopeful Congress would put aside partisan differences to deal with the issue.

“In 2006, it won overwhelming bipartisan majorities … with this coverage formula,” Weiser said. “While this is not the same Congress, many of those members of Congress are still there, and it’s still a law that garners bipartisan support.”