The Committee on House Administration has scheduled a full committee hearing today to mark up a number of bills, including HR 1994 (the Election Assistance Commission Termination Act) and a few bills that end the public financing of party conventions and presidential campaigns.  Speaking of machines, the Terminator is looking to save some money.  You can watch live here at 11:00a.m.

In HR 1994, the sponsors state emphatically that the EAC is not necessary for the conduct of federal elections and cites to numerous resolutions of the National Association of Secretaries of States (NASS) calling for the end to the agency.  The bill estimates savings of between $10-20 million dollars a year. Under the legislation, the federal testing of voting machines would be pushed back to the states, governmental actors or other private entities. 

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit last week sent a lawsuit brought by federal contractors over their right to make campaign donations back to a federal court.  Legal Newsline

My latest is at Breitbart (and linked as the top story (R) at Drudge).  A snip:

“Campaign finance zealots and free speech regulators have sought to stifle the freedom of conservative organizations, such as the Tea Party, by falsely claiming they are “political” while giving a pass to leftist groups that still enjoy unimpaired 501(c) IRS tax-exempt status. As the IRS attacked Tea Party groups, it left hundreds of leftist activist groups alone. A quick review of just eight of those leftist, tax-exempt activist groups demonstrates the IRS’s hypocrisy. . . .

Ruckus Society

The Ruckus Society (photo above) is part of the Occupy Movement–and donations to this 501(c)3 organization are tax deductible. The George Soros-funded organization’s purpose reads like a parody of the modern Left.

The Ruckus Society provides environmental, human rights, and social justice organizers with the tools, training, and support needed to achieve their goals through the strategic use of creative, nonviolent direct action.

Ruckus also evidently organizes criminal trespass:

The Brass Liberation Orchestra accompanied a second round of the “I Will Survive…Capitalism” flashmob before leading the crowd of over 1,000 people onto the Bank of America, and deployed a giant balloon banner with our friends at [Rainforest Action Network] reading “Defend Human Dignity: Challenge Corporate Power”…The day of course culminated in the truly mass marches to the Port of Oakland to shut down all operations at the Ports for the night. Some reports say 50,000 people marched and danced the three miles to the ports from Camp, and it was truly an unforgettable experience, marching in a sea of thousands at sunset.

None of this seems to attract any IRS attention. Ruckus’s 2011 IRS Form 990 indicates that it has maintained undisturbed 501(c)3 status. The form states Ruckus “provides environmental, human rights, and social justice organizers with the tools, training and support needed to achieve their goals.”

The Ruckus training offers the manual “Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution” and provides suggestions for direct action such as “take over intersections and use for community activities,” give “fake parking tickets on SUV’s,” “Occupy Bank Foreclosed Homes,” and “rip out rancher’s fences” to free livestock.

Planning illegal acts is incompatible with 501(c)3 status. Ruckus is run by Megan Swoboda. . . . .”

Full story.

“The U.S. Justice Department says it will monitor elections in six cities to ensure people are complying with the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race or other factors. The federal observers will be in Brookhaven, Greenwood, Isola, Meridian, Philadelphia and Ruleville.”

I spoke in Alabama a few weeks ago.  I was introduced by Quin Hillyer in this very nice and sometimes funny introduction talking about the DOJ Voting Section and Tracy Schmaler’s reputation.  Since then, Quin has announced he is running for Congress in Alabama’s First Congressional District.

Investors Business Daily link.

More on the Florida voter fraud scam run by a Democrat Congressman’s chief of staff.  Cue the voter fraud denier’s usual script: voter ID would not have…, not an epidemic, absentee ballots… etc etc.

“Jeffery Garcia, the congressman’s chief of staff allegedly participated in a “sophisticated scheme to manipulate last year’s primary elections by submitting hundreds of fraudulent absentee-ballot requests.”

Bad news for Section 5.  From the February sitting, there are now three Justices who have not written – Roberts, Scalia and Sotomayor. Of course anything is possible, but the odds are increasing that one of these three Justices will write the Shelby opinion – and that isn’t good news for Section 5.

 Data. 25% have a favorable opinion of him.