Over the last six months here at TPM we've extensively discussed the issue of voter suppression tactics the Republican party uses to suppress voter turn out among minority and lower-income voters. One of the chief of these are so-called 'voter ID laws'. Now the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case about Indiana's voter ID law in advance of next year's election.

In the lower court ruling, right-wing Judge Richard Posner said the law was intended "to reduce voting fraud, and voting fraud impairs the right of legitimate voters to vote by diluting their votes" even though there's little or no evidence of in-person vote fraud in the United States today.

Historically, at least over the last half century, the Supreme Court has been very protective of the right to vote. But does anyone think the Roberts Court will uphold that tradition? I don't know where Kennedy is seen as standing on voting rights issues. But it sounds to me like the court is likely to give a big thumbs up to GOP voter suppression tactics in this case and probably usher in a whole new raft of these laws, perhaps in time for pumped up GOP voter suppression next year.