I will be on Dallas talk monster KSKY in the 6pm hour (local) talking about the DOJ Voting Section, the Civil Rights Division and unequal enforcement of federal election laws – and probably campaign posters in the offices of certain DOJ employees.  Maybe Harlngen TX will be on tap too.

Here is the link at Roll Call as Emanuel Cleaver and Artur Davis spar over voter ID laws:

 “I have heard many Democrats criticize Republicans for imposing litmus tests on their membership,” he said. “I certainly hope that Congressman Cleaver and others are not suggesting that if a Democrat does not hold a certain position that he is no longer fit to be a Democrat. Since I am not a candidate for office, I don’t have to grapple with the question of what party label to wear, but I know that the quickest way for an organization to lose a member is to suggest that he is no longer welcome.”

In the column posted Oct. 17, Davis wrote: “When I was a congressman, I took the path of least resistance on this subject for an African American politician. Without any evidence to back it up, I lapsed into the rhetoric of various partisans and activists who contend that requiring photo identification to vote is a suppression tactic aimed at thwarting black voter participation.”

The link to this article reveals how the DOJ and the media is getting the analysis on photo ID wrong and the Voting Section is failing to faithfully enforce the laws of the land.  If the burden is minimal and not an increase in usual voting burdens for all voters, how can the voter ID law have an disparate impact on minority groups.  Of course, the analysis should focus on the law and not on ideological flame-throwers alleging Jim Crow, lynching, and now apparently electoral genocide.  

“This is electoral genocide,” state Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian said, “disenfranchising huge groups of people who don’t have the money to go get an ID card.”

Here is how the Supreme Court in Crawford dealt with the issue of minimal burden and neglible impact on voters and whether the law was discriminatory toward different voters:

The different ways in which Indiana’s law affects different voters are no more than different impacts of the single burden that the law uniformly imposes on all voters: To vote in person, everyone must have and present a photo identification that can be obtained for free. This is a generally applicable, nondiscriminatory voting regulation. The law’s universally applicable requirements are eminently reasonable because the burden of acquiring, possessing, and showing a free photo identification is not a significant increase over the usual voting burdens, and the State’s stated interests are sufficient to sustain that minimal burden

Here at the link.  The voter referendum on photo ID looks to be on cruise control for approval by the citizens of Mississippi.  Not to burst any bubbles before the champagne cork has even popped, but the executive branch of the Mississippi state government and attorney general (whoever it is) needs to prepare now for litigation in the DC District Court.  Why?  Simply put, DOJ has already made up its mind to block any voter ID laws that cross its path despite the Supreme Court ruling in Crawford that requiring a person to obtain a photo ID is not a undue burden.  If such a requirement is a neglible burden on all citizens, how can such a law have a disparate retrogressive impact on minorities.   

This article on the debate between the Mississippi Attorney General candidates indicates they each promise to vigorously defend the law.   Democrat Jim Hood is the current incumbent and the only Democrat elected to statewide office.

Hood said he’ll defend the voter ID amendment if it passes and is challenged in court, just as he would any part of the constitution or any law enacted by the state Legislature. Simpson said he supports voter ID, but hasn’t decided how he’ll vote on Initiative 31, which would restrict governments’ taking of private land for private economic development projects.

Politicians make many promises.  These candidates should vow to go straight to court.

Fox News has more.

Redstate discusses racial gerrymandering in Maryland

NPR reports.

The Salt Lake Tribune comes out against voter-suppression tactics with an editorial entitled “The Right to Vote.”  Sounds good, except for the fact that this activity isn’t voter suppression rather prudent voter registration list maintenance.  This editorial is really misleading and a disservice to Utah citizens.  Apparently, the paper believes it is a fundamental right to be on the voting rolls even though you have long since moved or no longer eligible to vote in a certain district.  But give them credit, they were able to work in their opposition to voter ID and cite the Brennan Center report – wholly separate issues. 

As a voter-suppression tactic, the latest bill to come out of a Utah Legislature interim committee is fairly weak tea. As part of a growing trend by state governments to reduce the number of citizens who can vote, it is just another sign that our elected servants want to limit the number of people who can fire them.

Acting once again in fear of an imaginary threat of voter fraud, the Legislature’s Government Operations and Political Subdivisions Interim Committee last week advanced a bill that would direct county elections officials to watch who fails to vote in two consecutive elections and send them a letter. If they don’t reply, and they miss two more general elections, the county officials would be required to remove those voters’ names from the rolls.

never a good headline

from San Francisco— Seven candidates vying to become this city’s next mayor have requested that federal observers and state election monitors be dispatched to San Francisco immediately amid allegations of ballot tampering by interim Mayor Ed Lee’s supporters.

“Depriving someone of their ability to freely exercise their vote is the most unconscionable crime,” Jeff Adachi said during a news conference Monday. The public defender is among those who signed the letter seeking intervention from the U.S. Justice Department and California secretary of state. “What we are seeing here is a pattern of corrupt activity,” Adachi said.

Here at National Journal/HotlineOnCall and a commentary piece at the Atlanta Journal Constitution that opines:  There is a constant refrain from the opponents of voter ID laws: that it
is an attempt by white Republicans to suppress the votes of black
Democrats. I’ve never understood why these opponents are allowed to get
away with making what strikes me as a bigoted statement on its face:
that African Americans are somehow less capable or motivated when it
comes to obtaining a state-issued photo ID. But they do get away with
it.