WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on the Supreme Court rejecting an appeal to reinstate North Carolina’s voter identification law (all times local):
1:35 p.m.
North Carolina’s Republican legislative leaders say they’re going to try again after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear their appeal to reinstate a 2013 law mandating photo ID and other voting restrictions.
Senate leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore said Monday that North Carolina residents can bet that GOP legislators will keep fighting. The leaders of the Republican-dominated General Assembly want to implement what they call a “commonsense requirement” to show a photo ID when voting.
They cited comments from Chief Justice John Roberts released Monday when the justices denied the appeal. Roberts said the refusal wasn’t a judgment on the court’s view about the law’s substance.
More than 30 states have some kind of voter ID law in place.
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1:05 p.m.
The head of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP says it’s time for state legislators to stop trying to prevent African-Americans from voting now that the U.S. Supreme Court has weighed in on a voter identification bill.
On Monday, the court high court left in place a lower court decision that struck down a 2013 state law that mandated photo identification to vote in person and scaled back early voting.
The Rev. William Barber says in a news release that the victory is “unimaginably important for African-Americans, Latinos, all North Carolinians and the nation.”
Barber is the outgoing president of the state chapter of the NAACP, which sued over the law.
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11:45 a.m.
Democrats are praising the U.S. Supreme Court for refusing to hear an appeal aimed at reinstating North Carolina’s voter identification law, which opponents have said targeted African-Americans.
The high court left in place a lower court decision that struck down a 2013 state law that mandated photo identification to vote in person and scaled back early voting.
Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez called Monday’s order a “huge victory for voters and a massive blow for Republicans” that he says are trying to restrict ballot access nationwide.
Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper has opposed the law and didn’t want the justices to hear the case. He says elected officials should be making it easier to vote, not harder.
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9:35 a.m.
The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal to reinstate North Carolina’s voter identification law that a lower court said targeted African Americans “with almost surgical precision.”
The justices on Monday left in place the lower court ruling striking down the law’s photo ID requirement and reduction in early voting.
The situation was complicated when Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and Attorney General Josh Stein tried to withdraw the appeal, which was first filed when Republican Pat McCrory was governor.
Chief Justice John Roberts said the political situation created uncertainty over who is authorized to seek review of the lower court ruling.
The dispute is similar to the court fight over Texas’ voter ID law, also struck down as racially discriminatory.
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