Photo ID removed from bill

By Jim Siegel

Columbus Dispatch

COLUMBUS

Proposals to overhaul Ohio election law and require that voters show a photo ID at the polls took a few unusual turns Wednesay as Republicans, including the secretary of state, tried to work out a final deal.

One day after suddenly inserting a controversial photo ID requirement into a broad election overhaul bill, Senate Republicans decided to pull the provision back out and instead work to pass it as a separate bill.

Then the election overhaul bill briefly stalled when GOP leaders placed it on the Senate calendar but did not vote on it. A source said the move was related to uncertainty over whether Secretary of State Jon Husted was going to publicly oppose the separate photo ID bill — a House-passed bill that, before this week, Senate leaders did not appear interested in moving.

Senate President Tom Niehaus, R-New Richmond, said the elections bill would pass today adding that he just wanted to take another day to bring himself and members up to speed with its numerous provisions.

Meanwhile, Democrats and black leaders blasted the photo ID requirement as an attempt to suppress poor, minority and elderly voters, many of whom tend to vote Democratic. The photo ID bill, which has already passed the House, could pass the Senate today or early next week.

Sen. Keith Faber, R-Celina, said part of the decision to remove the photo ID section from the election bill was to ensure that the numerous other aspects of the bill would not be held up by legal challenges.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio has threatened to sue to block the provision, and Rep. Sandra Williams, D-Cleveland, head of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus, said, ‘If they do not vote these provisions down, we will spend every dime we have’ to challenge them in court.

Husted said he is pleased with how the elections bill stands now.

Judge Nathaniel Jones, a Youngstown native who retired from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2002 and served as general counsel for the NAACP, told lawmakers that they should be working to maximize voter participation.

‘Any strategy or program that decreases the tendency of people to step forward and participate is anti-democratic,’ he told a Senate committee. ‘There are all types of safeguards that can be constructed to ensure there is not an abuse of the process,’ and they can be done without suppressing votes.