Rep. Derwin Montgomery Statement on Voter ID Appeal

Rep. Derwin Montgomery Statement on Voter ID Appeal

I am calling on North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein to reconsider his decision to appeal U.S. District Court Judge Loretta Bigg’s decision, striking down North Carolina’s new, unjust voter identification law. 

Yes, NC voters approved a constitutional amendment to have Voter ID. The vote then required the legislature to take action to set the standard for this requirement. The standard set by the General Assembly was rushed through a special session, and fails to meet constitutional scrutiny. 

To my fellow colleagues in Raleigh who proclaim that people must have an ID to vote, I am reminded of when Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was thrown in jail in Birmingham, Ala., on Good Friday in 1963. Jailed for marching to protest that city’s racist segregation laws. During his time in jail, he wrote a letter in which he explained the moral and religious foundation of the law.  

King explained that there are two types of laws: There are ‘just’ laws and there are ‘unjust’ laws. I will always be the first to advocate obeying ‘just’ laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey ‘just’ laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey ‘unjust’ laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that an unjust law is no law at all.

I stand with St. Augustine, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and  U.S. District Court Judge Loretta Bigg’s decision to block this unjust law.