Leonard K. Brown, 56, still faces a charge of voting twice in the November presidential election and making a false statement to an election official on election day…

Watchdog.org explains the name game being played by Texas State Rep. Trey “Martinez” Fischer – real name Ferdinand Frank Fischer III – who is Chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus (MALC) that’s currently suing to challenge Texas’ voter ID law:

There’s no mystery why Fischer would want to pretend to be named Martinez. Sixty percent of the voting-age population in his district is Hispanic, and the percentage is even higher among Democrats. Six of the seven Democratic state representatives from Bexar County use Hispanic last names; the other five, as far as we know, have every right to do so.

Do Democrats like Fischer really believe they can’t get elected without a “Spanish surname” on the ballot? But beyond the obvious identity politics at play, Fischer’s use of an alias to run for public office appears to raise legal questions: 

The question is why he’s been allowed to use the name Martinez on ballots for more than a decade, when Texas law requires candidates to use their real names, with an allowance for one legitimate nickname.  

The San Antonio Democrat was elected seven times, from 2000 through 2012, under the name Trey Martinez Fischer, with no indication that either “Trey” or “Martinez” are nicknames and not part of his legal name. 

Fischer displayed the same level of truthfulness in a deposition opposing Texas’ voter ID law:

His story was that his own mother would be one of those poor people disenfranchised by a requirement to show a driver license when voting.  “My mother doesn’t have one,” was his exact quote. The media lapped it up, as actual examples of this sort of disenfranchised voter are nearly impossible to find.

During Fischer’s deposition in the federal case, a lawyer for the state of Texas confronted Fischer with a current copy of his mother’s driver license. It was valid when Fischer had given his press conference, and it had recently been renewed until 2017. Fischer had lied.

Fischer was on Eric Holder’s witness list as Trey Martinez Fischer.  He appears to be registered to vote in Bexar County under the name Ferdinand Martinez Fischer III, while the property at which he’s registered to vote is in the name Ferdinand Frank Fischer III.  One wonders which of these names appears on the government-issued photo ID he’ll be required to present when voting this year.

“for five of the eight years of the Bush Administration, [they] brought no Voting Rights Act cases of its own except for one case protecting white voters.”

The only problem with Karlan’s scholarship is that it is demonstrably false.  A short visit to the DOJ website demonstrates her false scholarship.  Remember, Karlan says the Voting Section brought no cases to protect minorities under the Voting Rights Act in 5 of 8 years.  Let’s look. . . .

Let’s rehash. Karlan claimed that no cases were brought by the Bush DOJ under the Voting Rights Act to protect racial minorities in 5 of 8 years (except of course to protect those undeserving whites.)

The truth?  Cases were brought under the Voting Rights Act to protect non-white racial minorities in 8 of the 8 years of the Bush administration.

And some people actually want this woman on the Supreme Court?

No Ed, airbrushing hasn’t fallen out of favor.  Sometimes they airbrush out inconvenient transcripts. Other times they airbrush out cases filed in United States District Court to protect minority civil rights. Stalin’s old airbrush artists are alive and well.

Couldn’t Karlan’s dishonesty offer the academic left a chance to redeem itself in a small way?  Couldn’t responsible left of center law professors publically toss Karlan overboard to demonstrate that intellectual honesty survives on the left side of law schools?  Couldn’t Karlan’s Dean at Stanford demand that Karlan correct her false scholarship?

Of course not.  That’s not how they play ball.  When rank academic dishonesty among one of their own is spoken of as a justification to disown her, to Karlan’s allies and sycophants, such observations are “bizzaro world.”  When an esteemed leftist law professor is called out for dishonesty, less esteemed leftist law professors can’t even begin to process the  possibility.

That’s the state of the academy today: dishonesty is ignored depending on the political persuasion of the liar.  Such evil compounds Karlan’s original lies.

Karlan will still get invited to speak at ACS events.  She will still get calls from Wall Street Journal reporters.  Her articles in barely-read publications will still be blogged about by left wing professors.  It is narrative uninterrupted over there.

Perhaps there is still enough credibility and honesty on both sides of the aisle in the United States Senate to ensure that Pam Karlan has hit her career ceiling.  Hopefully Democrats and Republicans alike can agree that it is best to keep a dishonest academic in her position as a dishonest academic.  Karlan’s corrosive and bitter worldview is best kept in the insular world of academia where her damage can be contained to corrupting scores of would-be lawyers who don’t have a clue about who is really standing at the lectern, where Deans like Elizabeth Magill can turn a blind eye to outright scholarly dishonesty on their faculty.  Confining her to a life in the academy will limit the damage Karlan could do to the Constitution and the Rule of Law compared to if she were ever nominated to the federal bench.

Article printed from Rule of Law: http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams