An Obama-Appointed Judge Might Have Delivered a Huge Blow to Dems' Anti-Voter ID Pushes

Matt Vespa | March 28, 2026 7:00 AM

While Congress is working out ways to fund the Department of Homeland Security, the core principles of the SAVE America Act are next. With the Democratic Party’s intransigence, there’s talk of including some of these provisions in a future reconciliation package, which will also fund ICE and Border Patrol—frontline officers are getting paid, but the civilian support staff is not right now. The issue surrounding voter ID is over: everyone supports it.

Overall, the Save Act has a 71 percent approval rating from a Harvard poll. On voter ID specifically, it holds similar approval figures across the board. It’s been that way since the Obama administration. It’s a popular policy that some Democrats have labeled Jim Crow 2.0. Well, in North Carolina, years of litigation have been settled on that state’s voter ID law, and it’s not good for Democrats. Oh, and this ruling was handed down by an Obama-appointed judge (via Carolina Journal):

In another major win for voter ID laws, Loretta Biggs, an Obama appointee, reversed her prior ruling and found the North Carolina law to be constitutional. Despite Democratic claims of these laws being Jim Crow 2.0, they have been uniformly upheld. https://t.co/kyf3fG5GrP
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) March 27, 2026

A federal judge has upheld North Carolina’s voter identification law nearly two years after holding a trial in a lawsuit challenging the ID requirement. The same judge had blocked the law from taking effect for the 2020 election cycle.
Her initial ruling against voter ID helped delay implementation of the ID law until 2023.
State lawmakers approved the ID law in 2018 after voters approved a state constitutional amendment enshrining voter ID in North Carolina’s governing document.
“Finally. After seven years, we can put to rest any doubt that our state’s Voter I.D. law is constitutional,” state Senate Leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, said in a prepared statement Thursday. “This is a monumental win for the citizens of North Carolina and election integrity efforts.”
“[It is important that this Court begins by recognizing what this case is, and what it is not,” US District Judge Loretta Biggs in her 134-page order Thursday. “This case is not about whether North Carolina law will require that voters show photo identification when they go to the polls. That question was settled on November 6, 2018, when approximately 55% of North Carolina’s registered voters enshrined a photo voter identification requirement in the State Constitution.”