John Fund: “After years of legal battles between the governor’s office and the Obama administration, a federal-appeals-court panel issued an astonishing ruling last November. It forbade Florida from removing aliens here illegally and other non-citizens from its voter rolls in the 90 days prior to a federal election. Because Florida has a September primary, that means it would be effectively blocked from cleaning its voter rolls after early June of any election year. The panel overturned District Judge William Zloch’s earlier ruling, which had concluded that such an interpretation would “stand in direct contravention of Florida law [and] produce an absurd result.”

PJ Media: “Florida Governor Rick Scott has opened the door to illegal aliens voting in Florida elections.  He has decided that Florida will not appeal a ruling that limited the state’s ability to remove illegal aliens and non-citizens from Florida’s voter rolls.  Even Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi opposes Scott’s abandonment of the appeal.”

From Chairman Grassley’s written questions.

b. Stephanie Celandine Gyamfi, an attorney with the Department’s Voting Rights
section, was found to have engaged in perjury during a 2013 DOJ IG investigation. In
addition, Ms. Gyamfi posted comments regarding an ongoing matter at the Voting
Rights section suggesting that the State of Mississippi should change its motto to
“disgusting and shameful.”58 If confirmed, what steps will you take to ensure that
appropriate disciplinary action is taken in this case, and will you pledge to provide
updates to this committee about the status?

RESPONSE: As the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, I am not
familiar with the details of this matter, so I am not in a position to know what personnel actions
have taken place to date or whether they were appropriate. If I am confirmed as Attorney
General, I will commit to ensuring that the Department holds accountable any employees who
are found to have committed misconduct

Chairman Grassley’s written questions for Loretta Lynch contained this sequence:

28. In 2008, the Justice Department brought suit against the New Black Panther Party and
two of its members for voter intimidation. The defendants did not contest the claims. But
when the Obama Administration took over, they would not allow career litigators to
move for a default judgment. The career litigators have stated that political appointees
would not allow a case to be brought against Black citizens for intimidation of White
voters. Internal investigations of misconduct have led nowhere after all these years. The
Civil Rights Commission has criticized the Department for not cooperating with its
investigation into the matter.

a. If confirmed, will you conduct a thorough and fair investigation of this matter and
apply any appropriate disciplinary action? [ELC note: Steve Rosenbaum would be on the clock.]

RESPONSE: I am not personally familiar with the details of this case. My general
understanding is that there have been extensive internal Department reviews of this case, but I
am not personally familiar with those reviews or their outcome. If I am confirmed as Attorney
General, I will ensure there has been a fair and impartial consideration of the results of those
internal reviews, and will take any appropriate action based on that consideration.

b. Is it your position that the Voting Rights Act applies in a race neutral way to voter
intimidation?

RESPONSE: If I am confirmed as Attorney General, I am committed to enforcing all the
federal laws within the Department’s jurisdiction, including the Voting Rights Act Act, according to
their specific terms and applicable case law, in an even-handed manner.

Senator Vitter pressed Loretta Lynch in written questions if she believes voter ID laws are racist.  The written questions by Senator David Vitter:

“12. Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III
Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, former member of the Federal Election
Commission, and former Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at
the U.S. Department of Justice, and J. Christian Adams, former counsel for the Voting
Rights Section at the U.S. Department of Justice and blogger for PJ Media, wrote a
January 27, 2015 article in the National Review entitled “The Questions Loretta Lynch
Needs to Answer”. Please answer the following questions from their article:
a. Do you “believe, as Eric Holder does, that voter-ID laws are racist?”

RESPONSE: I cannot speak to Attorney General Holder’s views, nor do I have any categorical
views on these issues in the abstract. My general understanding is that the Department considers questions of the validity of voting practices, such as state voter identification laws, based on the particular requirements of the federal law being enforced, based on the particular facts of the practice being investigated, and based on the particular law and facts in the jurisdiction.

As the Supreme Court held in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, voter identification
laws are not per se unconstitutional. Nor do they necessarily violate the Voting Rights Act. I
understand that before the Shelby County decision, the Department did preclear some voter
identification laws, such as in Virginia and New Hampshire. The analysis of a voter ID law is very specific to the particular law, the particular jurisdiction, and a wide range of factors that Congress has identified as relevant to determining whether a particular voting practice comports with the Voting Rights Act. As such, it is difficult for me to comment on the merits of any law (or in the abstract) without a full understanding of how the law actually operates in a particular jurisdiction.”

In response to questions from Senator Vitter, Loretta Lynch assured the Senator she is committed to enforcing Section 8 of the NVRA. This might be [unwelcome] news to the folks in the Voting Section.

20. As Attorney General, will you commit to equal investigation and enforcement of Section
7 and Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA)?

RESPONSE: The Department enforces a number of federal voting rights statutes, including the
NVRA. If I am confirmed as Attorney General, I am committed to enforcing all of those laws in
an even-handed manner.

Senator Cruz in his written questions probes into reports that the Voting Section fails to enforce the laws in a race neutral fashion.  Cruz cites “U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Letter from Commissioner Peter Kirsanow to Chairman Charles Grassley, 1-4 (Feb. 3, 2015) (detailing Department conduct, including that of former Deputy Attorney General Julie Fernandes, with respect to the Civil Rights Division’s removal of cases involving white voters from Civil Rights
Division consideration and citing specific Commission reports that explore this subject in depth).”

A portion of the written questions:

III. Selective Voting Rights Enforcement
There is concern that the Department of Justice under Attorney General Holder has
embraced the view that federal voting rights laws should not be enforced in a race-neutral
manner but should only be enforced to protect the rights of minority voters. Reports
produced by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, in addition to feedback from the
Commission’s membership, indicate that the Department has incorporated this view into
its policy and strategy.

1. Do you agree or disagree that federal voting rights laws are intended to
protect—and that the Department of Justice should protect—the rights of all
voters regardless of race? If you disagree with this view, please provide a
detailed explanation as to why.

RESPONSE: I am not personally familiar with the specifics of each one of the civil and
criminal provisions of the federal laws regarding voting rights, nor am I familiar with the
specifics of their interpretation by the Department or the federal courts. My general
understanding is that in some provisions of the federal civil and criminal laws regarding voting,
Congress has sought to protect all voters in all elections, while other provisions are more
specific; for example, in some provisions Congress has sought to protect voters in particular
types of elections (e.g., voters in elections for federal office), while in other provisions Congress
has sought to protect voters it has identified as having particular challenges with regard to voting
(e.g., voters away from their place of residence due to service in the uniformed services and
American citizens living overseas, or voters who suffer from blindness, disabilities or an
inability to read or write). If I am confirmed as Attorney General, I am committed to enforcing
all the federal laws within the Department’s jurisdiction, including the federal voting rights laws,
according to their specific terms, in a fair and even-handed manner. As a general matter, I agree
that the right of every eligible American citizen to vote and have that vote counted in our
elections is fundamental to our democracy and should be protected.

Lynch demurred to a written question from North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis about an expert the Voting Section put up who had some rather controversial opinions about minority voters.  From the written questions:

5. In July of 2014, during a preliminary injunction hearing in the case of Holder v. North
Carolina, 997 F. Supp. 2d 322 (M.D.N.C. 2014), an expert testifying on behalf of the
United States Department of Justice opined:

Also, understanding within political science, that people who register to
vote the closer and closer one gets to Election Day tend to be less
sophisticated voters, tend to be less educated voters, tend to be voters who
are less attuned to public affairs. . . . People who correspond to those
factors tend to be African Americans, and, therefore, that’s another vehicle
through which African Americans would be disproportionately affected by
this law.

Are you willing to condemn the reasoning of this expert witness insofar as his testimony
effectively asserted that African American voters tend to be “less sophisticated” than
non-minority voters? If not, please explain why not. Would you agree that the
Department of Justice should not use taxpayer dollars to retain such experts who hold
such opinions?

RESPONSE: Because this question relates to pending litigation in which the Department is
participating, I cannot comment.

6. Without regard to the context of the statement referenced in Question 5, above, do you
agree that any assertion that minority voters are somehow “less sophisticated” than nonminority
voters should be rejected as repugnant and offensive? If not, please explain why
not.

RESPONSE: Because this question relates to pending litigation in which the Department is
participating, I cannot comment.

My latest at PJ Media:

“Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner has introduced legislation which would have the effect of placing all of Virginia’s election laws under Justice Department oversight, and Virginia isn’t the only state that would fall into federal election receivership….

Virginia satisfies Sensenbrenner’s new triggers. Remember, under Sensenbrenner’s proposal, one statewide violation and four violations by any local or county government trigger federal oversight, including past administrative objections by the attorney general. Five strikes, and you’re in.

Here are the cases which would capture Virginia for Justice Department control . .  . .

Presto — Virginia would fall under federal control, and the Department of Justice bureaucrats would leverage federal power over every election in the state. Virginia faces this perverse outcome: a plan created black-majority congressional districts so that the Justice Department would approve the plan, then a federal court finds (after the Shelby ruling struck down the DOJ power) that creating those black-majority districts violates the law, and that violation will be used to place Virginia back under federal control.

Virginia has suffered constitutional whiplash, and Sensenbrenner’s bill would keep it going.”

It’s pretty clear the advocates of the VRAA bill didn’t count on it capturing Virginia, especially under such constitutionally dubious circumstances of partial coverage morphing into full coverage after Virginia was cited as the bailout darling.

The proposed VRAA the civil rights industry has drafted finds a way to screw the home states of four key Republican leaders who stand in the way of the proposal: Speaker Boehner, Rep. Steve Chabot, Rep. Trent Franks and Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte.  The VRAA proponents get an F for strategic thinking.

Chairman Grassley pressed Loretta Lynch in written questions about attorney misconduct in the Civil Rights Division.

55. Department of Justice attorneys have a great deal of power and discretion but I am
concerned that without proper oversight, this power and authority can be abused without
consequences. For example, the Department of Justice’s Inspector General (IG) does not
have the ability to investigate attorney misconduct. Rather, attorney misconduct is
currently investigated by the Office of Professional Responsibility but this office does not
have the same strong statutory independence as the IG. Currently, there are at least three
examples of attorneys who remain employed by the Department despite evidence that
these attorneys committed serious misconduct.

a. A Federal judge found that Karla Dobinski, a trial attorney in the Civil Rights
Division, engaged in a “wanton reckless course of action” when she posted comments
to Nola.com news stories under a pseudonym about a trial where she provided
evidence as a disinterested expert witness.57 If confirmed, what steps will you take to
ensure that appropriate disciplinary action is taken in this case, and will you pledge to
provide updates to this committee about the status?

RESPONSE: Consistent with the positions taken by previous Attorneys General, across
Administrations, I support the role of the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) in
investigating attorney misconduct. OPR has been recognized consistently as a strong,
independent entity within the Department that has a long and distinguished history of
investigating allegations of attorney misconduct and recommending appropriate punishment. I
understand that OPR is unique in that it has a singular focus on investigating attorney
misconduct. If confirmed, I will commit to ensuring that the Department holds accountable any
employees who are found to have committed misconduct.