Author Archives: J Christian Adams

Tom Perez Uses Home Email on St. Paul

Wall Street Journal has the story of AAG Tom Perez using a private Verizon email account to work the St. Paul quid pro quo.

“Asked in his March 22 interview with congressional investigators about the use of personal emails in the St. Paul matter, Mr. Perez responded: ‘I don’t have any recollection of having communicated via personal email on this matter.'”

Add to the list of instances of questionable testimony under oath. 

Ooops: “Republican lawmakers investigating the matter said they had obtained at least one email from Mr. Perez’s Verizon account related to the St. Paul cases.

Rep. Trey Gowdy Lights into a Law Professor On SC Voter ID

I testified today at the House Judiciary Committee.  The Republican members were on their game.  An example is below.  Background:  The DOJ Voting Section lawyers recommended that South Carolina Voter ID be precleared.  Tom Perez overruled them.  Senator Lindsey Graham wants the preclearance memos else he may vote to block Tom Perez’s nomination as Labor Secretary. Today we learned whether or not the academy cares about the political ranks overruling the career ranks.



Expect to see more of this until the DOJ releases the memo by Chris Herren and Bob Berman on SC Voter ID.

Also from my testimony today: Perversely, this is the precise conduct which some have alleged occurred in the preclearance of Georgia Voter ID in 2005 – except the IG Report says that didn’t occur.  Career attorneys recommended preclearance of Georgia’s Voter ID law and political leadership adopted their recommendation.  Nobody was overruled.  See, IG Report, 85-87.

Jerrold Nadler’s Crocodile Tears

Yesterday during the House Judiciary Committee Hearing at which I testified, Rep. Jerrold Nadler cried crocodile tears about the fact that Hans von Spakovsky and I have published inside information about matters such as the South Carolina voter ID preclearance recommendation. 

Nadler was outraged that we had the audacity to exercise first amendment rights and publish information about decisions which wasted $3.5 million in South Carolina taxpayer money and sent electronic surveillance into Louisiana welfare offices.

Nadler asked us why we would publish such scandal.  He bemoaned the effect on morale these revelations had.

Von Spakovsky answered the question but time ran out before I could.  Too bad.  

I was prepared to take Mr. Nadler on a trip down memory lane – a trip which once saw him signing the praises of Dan Eggen at the Washington Post.


Eggen (among others) published a series of articles containing internal memos.

Read one here on Texas redistricting.

Read another on Georgia Voter ID.

Nadler really doesn’t like that it’s not 2006 anymore, where his side of the Judiciary Committee is the only one armed with information.  His side of the hearing room is no longer the only one with any fight in them.  And the Washington Post is no longer as relevant as it once was when internet media outlets are getting 25 to 50 million hits a month.

Yesterday the Republicans greatly outnumbered the Democrats in both attendees as well as information.  Only John Conyers and Mr. Nadler asked any questions of substance – a far cry from 2006 where a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the voting section was a firing line from the Democrat side with GOP who couldn’t get out of first gear.  Those days are over and aren’t coming back.

Scalia: Failure to Protect White Victims Under Section 5 Weakens Constitutionality

Justice Scalia has weighed in on the Justice Department’s refusal to protect white victims of discrimination under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.  Wall Street Journal has the story (paywall):


Justice Scalia, speaking Monday night at the University of California Washington Center, elaborated on remarks he made in February during Supreme Court arguments over the act’s Section 5, which requires states and localities that historically discriminated against minority voters to obtain federal approval to change election procedures.


Section 5 functions as a racial entitlement because the federal government doesn’t take a similar interest in protecting the voting rights of white people from racial discrimination, Justice Scalia said.


This is precisely what I wrote about here at PJ Media when the Department was reviewing redistricting in Noxubee County Mississippi.  The plan was designed in part by a defendant in a Section 2 case who was found to have committed intentional racial discrimination.  The defendant had professed his desire to draw district lines to exclude the white minority from all county supervisor seats.  But this didn’t matter to the Voting Section.  Indeed, AAG Tom Perez later confirmed to the Inspector General that he does not believe whites are protected by the Voting Rights Act.

The racialist chickens are coming home to roost.

Just imagine how much might have been avoided, including possibly the loss of Section 5, if blind ideology hadn’t governed the review of the Noxubee County redistricting proposal.  Imagine how easy it might have been to interpose a purpose objection given that the person who helped draw the district lines had expressed explicit desire to ensure that no members of the white minority won office.  One thing is for sure, Justice Scalia wouldn’t have been able to say what he said last night.  And in June, you would have no chance of a concurring (or majority) opinion saying that Section 5 is unconstitutional because, in part, the Voting Section refuses to protect white victims of discrimination.  Blind ideological zeal, in this case, may contribute to the demise of Section 5.  By now, blind ideological zeal in in vouge in certain places.

“Far fewer voters” lack photo ID than critics claimed, new North Carolina data show



Surprise.  “House Republicans say new data from the State Board of Elections show far fewer voters lack photo identification than the numbers cited by critics of a voter ID bill up for debate this week.”


 


How many fewer?  About half.  New data, which State Elections Director Gary Bartlett says his office will publish Wednesday, put the number of registered voters without photo ID at about 318,000, down dramatically from the previously reported 610,000.


 


There’s more.  “A spokesman for Speaker Thom Tillis argues the number may be less because about 115,000 of those identified in the latest analysis haven’t voted in the last five elections.”


 


So inaccurate, out-of-date voter rolls provide false support for the anti-ID crowd?  One more reason it’s no surprise that the same parties who oppose voter ID also oppose cleaning up state voter rolls.