A federal trial opening Monday will examine the legality of South Carolina’s new voter ID law and also put on display the state’s history of racial discrimination.

The question: Has that history of racially charged politics faded into irrelevance? Or is the state still stacking the deck against African-Americans?

Dozens of S.C. legislators, officials, professors and interest group leaders will testify for five days under questioning by attorneys from a Washington law firm representing South Carolina and by civil rights lawyers with the Justice Department.

Among the legislators testifying will be the photo ID bill’s chief sponsors, Republican state Reps. Alan Clemmons of Myrtle Beach and Chip Campsen of Charleston, and a leading opponent, Democratic state Sen. John Scott of Columbia.

Scott, an African-American, will testify that he was excluded from final deliberations on the voter ID law as part of what he says was a broad plan by GOP legislators to suppress Democratic voters.

“Based on approximately 25 years of experience in the (S.C.) Senate and House of Representatives combined, I believe that the members of the General Assembly knew that minorities are overwhelmingly likely to vote Democratic,” Scott said in advance written testimony. “I also believe that the members of the General Assembly expected the voter ID bill to lead to lower turnout among minority voters.”

Clemmons and Campsen didn’t submit advance testimony. Campsen declined to discuss the case.

After hearing the testimony, a panel of three judges – two appointed by President George W. Bush, one by President Bill Clinton – is expected to rule in early fall. They must decide whether the law, enacted last year but blocked by the Justice Department, violates the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

The federal government’s top civil rights lawyer, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez, will argue that the law violates the Voting Rights Act, which Congress extended in 2006 for 25 years, because it would disenfranchise large numbers of African-American and minority voters.

“The United States will show that the impact of requiring photo identification to vote a regular, in-person ballot will fall far more heavily on African-Americans, and that South Carolina legislators knew, given the data provided by the State Election Commission, that this would be the case,” Perez wrote in a pretrial brief filed last Tuesday.

Paul D. Clement, a former U.S. solicitor general under President George W. Bush, will respond on behalf of South Carolina that the photo ID law isn’t discriminatory and has a legitimate, colorblind aim of preventing voter fraud.

“Act R54 is not the cause of any disparity in the rates of possession of photo ID by registered voters,” Clement said in his pretrial brief. “The Act will neither disproportionately affect nor impose a material burden on minority voters.”

Addressing the racial currents at the core of the case, Clement will argue that South Carolina’s Jim Crow era should not be held against the state in judging the fairness and legality of the photo ID law.

“Looking more broadly at South Carolina’s recent history, it is clear that the state has come a long way from the 1960s,” Clement wrote in his brief.

As proof, Clement noted that S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley, who signed the photo ID law in May, is “the first minority governor in the state’s history.” Haley is the daughter of Indian immigrants.