Supreme Court Upholds Voter IDs, Sending Many to Blockbuster
CHICAGO. Billy O’Coyne doesn’t usually following the Supreme Court, but yesterday’s 6-3 decision upholding Indiana’s voter ID law caught his attention. “If the Supreme Court of the United States can make me produce a photo ID every time I exercise my right to vote,” he says angrily as he reads of the ruling in the Sun-Times, “I might as well go to Blockbuster, where the selection is better.”
“But how do I know you’re the Duchess of Windsor?”
Chicago is infamous for voter fraud, as are other older U.S. cities such as Boston, where Mayor James Michael Curley ran for office from jail and famously urged his supporters to “vote early and often.” “I have a right to vote as many times as they’ll pay me to do so,” says Michael “Mickey” Farnam, who frequently serves as a “sign-holder” on “stand-outs” along busy streets, holding placards supporting various candidates for public office. “At least at Blockbuster they have action films–all I ever get out of elections is comedy.”
The State Attorney General of Indiana persuaded the justices to uphold his state’s law by pointing to various commonplace transactions for which a photo ID was required, including movie rentals at Blockbuster:
INDIANA ATTORNEY GENERAL: May it please the court–we should not elevate the right to rent a movie at Blockbuster Video over the sacred right to vote, enshrined in our Constitution . . .
JUSTICE SCALIA: Councillor, if there are no more late fees at Blockbuster, why do they send you those annoying automated phone calls saying your movie is overdue?
ATTORNEY GENERAL: Was it a two-day or a seven-day rental?
SCALIA: Uh, let’s see. It was “Prizzi’s Honor”, which has been out for a while. Seven days I guess . .
ATTORNEY GENERAL: Wasn’t Nicholson great in that?
JUSTICE GINSBURG: I liked Meryl Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada”–
JUSTICE ROBERTS: Oh, please–that was such a chick flick!
GINSBURG: Uh, I am a woman.
ROBERTS: The only one on the Court–and just barely.
GINSBURG: You’re a stupid nimmy-not!
ROBERTS: Am not!
GINSBURG: Are too!
ATTORNEY GENERAL: Late fees are a barbaric anachronism, a miscarriage of justice, a riddle wrapped up in an enigma and a slice of bacon. Why don’t you just use Netflix?
Copyright 2008, Con Chapman
