Photo ID on the Texas Lege agenda?

Don’t tell me Speaker Tom “Kid” Craddock didn’t see the Supreme Court ruling today upholding Indiana’s photo ID law for voters. This is the DeLay-type wedge issue that he thrives on.

The SCOTUS 6-3 vote had two separate votes, a majority and a concurring decision.

The law “is amply justified by the valid interest in protecting ‘the integrity and reliability of the electoral process,’” Justice John Paul Stevens said in an opinion that was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy.

The hardcore right of Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas wrote a concurrence.

David Souter spoke for the opposition of himself, Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer:

In dissent, Souter said Indiana’s voter ID law “threatens to impose nontrivial burdens on the voting rights of tens of thousands of the state's citizens.”

Stevens’ is the vote that most surprises me. Maybe he was on the fence and jumped off when Roberts told him he could write the opinion, and craft it narrowly.

Update: Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst has already come out blazing with a promise of a 2007 do-over in trying to ramrod a voter ID bill past the Texas Senate.

Will he go so far as in the mid-decade redistricting fight and try to suspend the rules of the Senate?