WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether states can demand proof of citizenship from people registering to vote, taking up an Arizona case with racial overtones and nationwide implications.
The case, which the court won’t consider until after the Nov. 6 election, tests states’ power to impose requirements that go beyond the registration procedures set out by federal law. A U.S. appeals court invalidated Arizona’s proof-of-citizenship law.
That ruling would “interfere with the states’ ability to protect the integrity of their elections,” Arizona argued in court papers. It is one of at least four states - along with Alabama, Kansas and Georgia - that require would-be voters to show evidence of citizenship.
The case presents legal issues different from those in the voter-identification battles that have garnered headlines leading up to the November election. The new high-court case doesn’t directly involve allegations of racial discrimination. Instead, it centers on the constitutional roles of the state and national governments in overseeing elections and on a 1993 federal law designed to increase voter registration.
The court will hear arguments early next year and rule by June.
Arizona’s law, approved by the state’s voters in 2004, provides options for meeting the proof-of-citizenship requirement. Acceptable documents include a driver’s license or other state-issued ID, a birth certificate, a passport and naturalization papers.
The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 9-2 to strike down the Arizona law, saying the Constitution’s elections clause gives Congress the leading role to set the rules for federal voting.
“The states are obligated to conform to and carry out whatever procedures Congress requires,” Judge Sandra Segal Ikuta wrote.
The 9th Circuit said the 1993 law bars the Arizona registration requirements. The federal measure establishes a national voter application and requires every state to “accept and use” it.
The law “does not give states room to add their own requirements” to the federal application, Ikuta wrote.
The 1993 law was informally known as the Motor Voter Law because of a separate provision that requires states to let residents register to vote when applying for a driver’s license.
The ruling applies only to people who seek to register using the federal mail-in form. Arizona has its own form and an online system to register when renewing a driver’s license. The court ruling did not affect proof-of-citizenship requirements using the state forms.
Arizona officials have said most people use those methods and the state form is what county officials give people to use to register. But voting-rights advocates had hoped the 9th Circuit decision would make the federal mail-in card more popular because it’s more convenient than mailing in a state form with a photocopy of proof of citizenship.
The mail-in card is particularly useful for voter-registration drives, said Robert Kengle of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which is representing American Indian and Hispanic groups in the case.
The citizenship requirement stems from the Arizona law approved in 2004. The law also denied some government benefits to illegal immigrants and required Arizonans to show identification before voting. The 9th Circuit upheld the voter-identification provision. The denial of benefits was not challenged.
The Arizona law was challenged by minority and voter advocacy groups, including the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the League of Women Voters of Arizona and the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona. The Obama administration backed the lawsuits at the lower-court level.
Also Monday, the Supreme Court refused to revive lawsuits that blamed Citigroup Inc. and McGraw-Hill Cos. for the drop in value of employee retirement plans that invested in company stock.
The justices let stand federal appeals court rulings that threw out separate worker lawsuits against the two New York-based companies.
The appeals court said the companies didn’t breach their duties as plan sponsors by offering the stock in the months before their share prices plunged.
The Citigroup suit was filed on behalf of 150,000 employees covered by two retirement plans. They said the company should have done more to protect them from the fallout from Citigroup’s exposure to the subprime mortgage market.
The McGraw-Hill employees said that the company’s stock was too risky for retirement accounts in 2007 and 2008 and that the company should have known its shares were likely to fall over allegations its Standard & Poor’s unit gave improperly high ratings to mortgage-backed securities.
Both suits were filed under the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
Information for this article was contributed by Greg Stohr of Bloomberg News and by staff members of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 10/16/2012