Banks and business organizations have bankrolled Republican legislators as part of an effort to require all voters to show photo ID at the polls, a group opposed to the photo ID requirement said Wednesday.

TakeAction Minnesota, a coalition of labor, environmental and disability groups, said campaign-finance reports show strong business and banking financial support for Republican legislators and leaders who are active in the movement to require photo ID of all voters.

"This report outlines the financial interests and their efforts to insert photo ID into the state's constitution," said Dan McGrath, executive director of TakeAction. He focused on the state's three largest banks -- Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank and TCF -- for backing the Republican takeover of the Legislature in 2010, saying they helped "to elect many of the same legislators who are now pushing the photo ID amendment."

"The proposed photo ID amendment will make it harder if not impossible for hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans who are eligible to vote, to cast their ballot," McGrath said.

The Republican-controlled Legislature has introduced a photo-ID requirement for voters as a proposed constitutional amendment, and believe they have the votes to put the issue to voters in November. Supporters cite polls showing strong public support for the requirement. DFL Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed the requirement when it came before him as a bill last year, but the Legislature can get around that veto this year by putting it on the ballot as a proposed constitutional amendment.

McGrath listed business-backed organizations or campaign entities such as the Minnesota Bankers Association, the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and the Minnesota Business Partnership, saying they spent $375,000 in 2008 and 2010 to help elect legislators who are pushing the voter ID amendments. He said many legislative leaders promoting photo ID are active in a national organization of conservative legislators known as the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. According to TakeAction, ALEC "is a vehicle for the country's largest corporations to directly influence state legislation," and has developed its own model photo ID legislation for states to consider.

A spokesman for the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce declined to comment, except to say that the organization has not taken a position on the photo ID requirement for voters.

McGrath agreed that the Minnesota business contributions flowed to legislators based on a wider Republican agenda, of which photo ID is just one part. But he argued that the ID requirement, by making it harder for elderly, poor and disabled people to vote, is part of an effort to keep power and wealth concentrated.

"Minnesota's democracy is under threat from politicians and their corporate sponsors, whose aim is to keep wealth and power concentrated within the 1 per cent and make public institutions less accountable to voters," the TakeAction report concluded. "While Minnesotans face foreclosure, crumbling infrastructure and unemployment, the very people who should represent us -- state legislators and senators -- want to reduce our ability to stand up for ourselves by participating in the democratic process."

The report is available at http://www.takeactionminnesota.org/