A curious article today in NOLA.com with this quote:

“The U.S. Justice Department generally has interpreted the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 to forbid reducing the number of districts where minority voters constitute a clear majority of residents. Tucker said attorneys from Justice’s Civil Rights Division don’t give explicit guidance in advance, but he said there was ‘zero chance’ that federal authorities would approve maps that reduce the number of majority-black districts. “

Hold on a second.  Zero chance?  What of the massive Katrina exodus out of the state?  What of natural retrogression?  Is Tucker just saying this, or was he told this?  One must presume the former because the latter would be contrary to the law and common sense.

Fayetteville Observer editorial.

This is novel, change your name so you can register to vote. 

Monday’s hearing is getting more reaction beyond the push to pass legislation stripping DOJ of monopoly enforcement powers and give soldiers the right to sue to get ballots.  Some more:

Rep. Aaron Schock:
“Some election authorities were derelict in their duty, but were let off too easy by the U.S. Department of Justice and it was the military personnel serving overseas who paid the price by not being allowed to participate in an American election,” continued Schock.

Here.  

More at PJ Tatler.

Arizona’s largest newspaper opines on Sunday:

“But where law in the United States is concerned, policies that prop up group victimization as a reason to apply laws differently simply invite contempt for the law itself. . . .

Foiled FOIA.   A portion:

“The situation is actually worse than what this former Justice lawyer described. Even when nonliberal outlets received extremely belated replies, the results frequently were nonresponsive. Two of the 10 delayed responses involved requests from The Washington Times. On July 9, 2010, Justice informed Investigative Editor Jerry Seper that 82 documents, consisting of 155 pages, were applicable to his Jan. 4 request. However, the department claimed an exemption for all 155 pages. Not a single word of a single document was provided.

Justice bureaucrats made the mistake of stonewalling for five months a FOIA request from Rep. Frank Wolf, Virginia Republican, who now chairs the subcommittee that oversees the department’s budget. Yesterday, Mr. Wolf wrote to Justice’s inspector general demanding “an immediate investigation” into what he called “potentially, a violation of federal FOIA law.” Hopefully, the intrepid Mr. Wolf can get to the bottom of the Obama administration’s latest affront to limited government.”

I am told by noted campaign finance lawyers that Don McGahn’s Statement of Reasons on the case In re: Softer Voices is one of the best pieces of legal work in campaign finance that has been done in some time.  This blog stays far away from campaign finance issues and instead focuses on civil rights and election mechanics. But for this, an exception is in order.

Lincoln Tribune.

Thanks to everyone who attended my talk today at the law school at William and Mary.  It was a pleasure to be there.  I had a great question afterwards regarding how to conduct discovery in a Voting Rights case, namely how to collect information about the community like I discussed today.  I wish I had the opportunity to address the question to everyone in attendance, but it is important to note that in voting cases, discovery will not be as useful as going to the community and just spending time there and investigating a case.  In other words, boots on the ground yields facts more than discovery will. 

I enjoyed visiting the campus and appreciate the William and Mary Election Law Society for putting it all together.  Students at William and Mary are lucky to have a group like that and so many educational options regarding learning about election law.