No “controversy” in Edinburg, Texas, where officials, voters and candidates agree the new photo Voter ID requirement is “no big deal”: While the national controversy works its way through the courts, a steady flow of voters turned out Wednesday morning seemingly unbothered by the change. “We haven’t had anybody fighting us on it, no complaining,” said Myra Ayala Garza, city secretary of Edinburg. Outside the single polling place open for early voting, Hector Garza, 52, said he was prepared and saw no problem with the change. “No big deal”… candidate John de la Garza said the law would likely cut down the influence of politiqueras, who help bring voters to the polls. “I think it’s a good thing,” said De la Garza, a candidate for city council, “and it’s the law.” “Everything went pretty smoothly,” said Irma Garza, a spokeswoman for the city. “No problems,” said voter Elida Gomez, 72, as she left the polling place at the Hidalgo County Elections Administration Annex in downtown Edinburg. “Everything worked out just nice.” Voter ID was also no big deal in a just-concluded Galveston, Texas election that county officials report went “very smoothly.” In fact, at this point there appear to be more anti-ID plaintiffs and professional complainers than voters reporting ID issues.
“Nevada joins effort to prevent voter fraud”
“Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach says Nevada has joined a program in which states compare voter registration records annually, bringing the number participating to 25. “The [Interstate] Voter Registration Crosscheck Program is designed to identify people who are registered in two or more states and people who cast ballots in more than one state.”
Another state acknowledges voter fraud is a problem, one that dirty voter rolls enable, and the way to detect and deter fraud is to look for it.
“Why the Left Really is against Voter ID Laws”
“For most Americans who are not political, the opposition is bizarre and nonsensical. The underlying logic of the far left is against common sense measures that preserve the integrity of elections because they pursue utopia, not a system of checks and balances.” American Thinker.
Anything but elections: Defund Evil
My op ed in today’s Washington Times.
“Certainly, the health care law is a burden on business and increases costs for everyone. But how is it evil?”
UPDATE: The Washington Examiner follows on my piece.
“Widespread”
Can anyone point to “widespread” disenfranchisement by voter ID? Names? Plaintiffs? Or isolated incidents? Maybe proving widespread disenfranchisement is a little bit like looking for Sasquatch.
“Clinton’s ID Fallacy”
More lies about voter ID.
“This is vintage stuff from Slick Willy: It contains just about enough truth to seem credible while leaving a distinct and outsized — and thoroughly misleading — impression upon the listeners, most of whom will never bother to check the facts.”
The “Voter ID Plaintiff” Search Party: Day 1
In the everlasting search for a plaintiff, Election Law Center feels obligated to do some ambulance chasing, searching for a actual injured party who has no photo ID, cannot get an ID, even a free ID, lost their photo ID in the couch cushions or is somehow allergic to the plastic of an photo ID.
Let’s start with Dina Martinez in Texas? Was she able to get an ID for the Texas election in the City of Edinburg as reported by the Texas Tribune?
“I didn’t have a problem,” Dina Martinez said. “I didn’t know about [the new law].”
She didn’t know about the new law. Oh my, perhaps there is an opportunity to file a federal lawsuit based on a lack of knowledge? But she didn’t have a problem. This is very disappointing for the search party. Oh well, the search continues.
Attorney General Holder needs to brief President Obama that he may no longer “move administratively” against states and block voting laws
Attorney General Holder is falling down on the job. National Review Online reports that President Obama is very confused on the current power of the federal government:
In an interview on PBS NewsHour
following his speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March on
Washington yesterday, President Obama said that he would “move
administratively” to block state laws “that seem to be intent on
preventing people from voting and that have a racial element to it.”
Apparently, Holder has not briefed the former constitutional law professor that the Department of Justice no longer has any covered states to “move administratively” against. It is also interesting that the President would administratively move against a state simply based on the whim that there “seems to be intent to prevent people from voting.” Instead of responding to the echo of MSNBC commentators, whatever happened to actual evidence of vote denial that can withstand scrutiny in court. However, this is exactly indicative of how DOJ has reviewed laws when they had the opportunity for mischief before Shelby. After such subjective abuse for years, it is highly doubtful the Congress will give DOJ bureaucrats the unilateral power to administratively halt state voting laws based on their “whims” and “seems.”
The states should swear to never again submit any voting change (even the slightest change) to the DOJ for administrative review. If ever covered by reversed engineered federal formula, the state should promise to go to federal court for each and every single voting change. It would be a principled stand and the Courts and DOJ should be prepared for states to exercise their rights and have full judicial review for every voting procedure. The radical lawyers at the DOJ should never be given the opportunity to review voting changes (any voting change) and insert their ideology into the process.
Quest for the “credible academic” won’t end at Stanford Law
The lectures and edicts from the academy never seem to stop. First there were demands that Election Law Center update comments at a pace acceptable to some academics. Now it’s lectures to Jonathan Tobin containing the dusty tropes that voter fraud isn’t “widespread” and thus shouldn’t be talked about in polite company. Never mind that “widespread” always remains undefined. These arguments—that the Brown case was the first Section 2 case brought by the Bush DOJ, and that for five years no case was brought to protect minority voters—are common untruths told by critics of the Bush administration. Stanford Law professor Pam Karlan peddled this nonsense in a published law review article that falsely states ‘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.’ In a footnote, Karlan says she relied on Obama Voting Section chief Chris Herren for information for her article.” The Brown case was not the first case to protect voters under Section 2 brought by the Bush DOJ. Nor was there ever a gap of five years where no case was brought to protect minority voters. Karlan is outright making things up. She entirely ignores multiple Section 2 cases
The latest lecture from the academy is directed toward Tobin’s piece Are You Sure There’s No Voter Fraud.
The complaint is that no “credible academic” has found “widespread” voter fraud.
Both quotes are unintentional laugh lines.
Lets focus on the “credible academic.” Putting aside the oxymoronic nature of the term, all I could think of is the entirely incredible Stanford Law Professor Pam Karlan.
Pam Karlan is incredible because she has published demonstrably false and dishonest scholarship in the Duke law journal. The scholarship from this academic is a rolling lie.
The scholarship from the incredible academic Pam Karlan is a rolling lie which has never been corrected or retracted. It was a lie designed to smear the Bush administration, and that’s why she gets a pass from all of the other “credible academics.”
None of the Credible Academics have had a single word to say about Karlan’s false scholarship. But they can be forgiven for being cowards. Part of being a Credible Academic on the left is to never criticize another Credible Academic. See, “Credible” is another way of saying “left leaning simpatico.”
All of the Credible Academics probably count Pam Karlan among the Credible Academics.
This is what reveals the Credible Academics as ultimately in the tank for dishonest scholarship. Otherwise, they’d speak up about her lies.
We can take some solace that these little read and rarely seen lectures from Credible Academics don’t usually escape an audience of captive students, academics in the echo chamber and occasionally some leftist blogs.
Rep. Sensenbrenner’s shallow approach to 2006 Voting Rights Act reauthorization caused its constitutional downfall
There have been recent coverage on Representative Sensenbrenner and his desire to work with the Congressional Black Caucus and the Obama Administration to place states under federal receivership with the Holder Department of Justice.
As the article points out, Sensenbrenner was the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee during the reauthorization hearings and was responsible for the approach at establishing the congressional record necessary to support a reauthorization.
Sensenbrenner was instrumental in helping pass reauthorizations of the Voting Rights Act in 1982 and again in 2006, when Congress supplied 15,000 pages of supporting documents justifying the sustained need of the Act.
While some reporters will highlight the 2006 reauthorization as a success, both conservative and liberal commentators opined that the “quantity over quality” approach to collecting evidence was wrong-headed and that ignoring Supreme Court constitutional concerns expressed in Georgia v. Aschroft and other opinions actually set the Voting Rights Act for future constitutional challenge.
Sensenbrenner ignored these reasoned arguments and pushed forward with dozens of hearings and developing a record a mile wide in paper and an inch deep in substance. He was warned by experts, staffers and his colleagues, yet he ignored them all to earn the praise of civil rights groups. Years later, his stubbornness in keeping the flawed coverage formula resulted in the overturning of the Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act. He is the person most responsible for the constitutional failings and he received grief for it.
“My colleagues from Texas and Georgia were kind of in my face after the Supreme Court decision saying ‘Ha-ha, we told you so,'”
Sensenbrenner wasn’t listening to the experts and he never will. Instead, he was listening to liberal interest groups and was deeply desirous of their praise. He did the civil rights groups no favors by refusing to update the coverage formula or listen to Supreme Court concerns. Now, he wants a seat at the table to develop a new record of testimony and a new coverage formula when he was one person most instrumental and responsible in developing a flawed congressional record which failed to support the obsolete coverage formula under Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act.