WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is giving Republican legislative leaders in North Carolina a win in an ongoing fight over the state’s latest photo identification voting law.
The 8-1 decision Thursday doesn’t end the more than three-year dispute over the voter ID law, which is not currently in effect and has been challenged in both state and federal court.
The decision just means that Republican legislative leaders can intervene in the federal lawsuit to defend the law.
A lower court had ruled the lawmakers’ interests were already being adequately represented by the state’s attorney general, Democrat Josh Stein.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented.
States are entitled to structure themselves as they wish and to decide who should represent their interests in federal litigation," she wrote. "State law may not, however, override the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure by requiring federal courts to allow intervention by multiple state representatives who all seek to represent the same state interest that an existing state party is already capably defending."
