Hans Bader has this letter to the editor responding to crackpot University of Delaware Professor Gary May about the Voting Rights Act.

 Indiana: “A longtime politician was sentenced to 18 months Tuesday for pleading guilty to voter fraud. . . . Michael R. Marshall, 61, of North Vernon, pleaded guilty to three counts in Jennings County and in return, was given half his sentence and nine months suspended.

He was a state representative and a longtime Jennings County Democratic Party worker.

“A liberal group involved in a lawsuit to make Florida’s congressional districts less partisan engaged in its own partisan efforts by drawing Democratic-heavy Hispanic seats or trying to “scoop” Jewish voters.”

Miami Herald.

This is another example of groups posing as neutral fair redistricting advocates (they even name themselves as such) acting as partisan agents in the process.  It demonstrates further that purported nonpartisan redistricting efforts never really are.

But Republicans note that the emails involving Fair Districts leader Ellen Freidin and the consultants show that the plaintiffs’ proposals were drawn to strengthen Democrats, in general, and Wasserman Schultz in particular.

“I just got off the phone with Ellen,” consultant Brad Wieneke wrote in a Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2011, email to members of the team in discussing Wasserman Schultz’s district.

“They want to scoop as many Jews out of Tamarac and Sunrise as they can,” Wienke said.

Could this be evidence of impermissable racial intent behind the redistricting plan?  I suppose it might turn on whether the behavior involves a race.  Perhaps United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburgh speaks to this question. Found at 510 F.2d 512 (2nd Cir. 1975). 

United

USA Today reports that once again those with a whole bunch of money to spend on political speech (i.e. Billionaire Soros and his “Harvard educated” son), are now spending a lot of their hedge fund profits on political speech fighting to prevent others from spending their money on political speech.  That is the logic of progressive campaign finance reformers.  Just so happens 99% of the money will go to Democrats.

The super PAC that Soros co-founded in April last year, Friends of Democracy, plans to double the number of House races — from eight in 2012 to 16 in 2014 — in which it will spend money backing candidates who support stricter campaign-finance laws. And it hopes to double the amount it raises, from $2.5 million last year to $5 million for the 2014 elections.

Breitbart link here.

“Two Mississippi counties are facing lawsuits filed by the American Civil Rights Union (ACRU) that seek injunctions to compel election officials in Jefferson Davis and Walthall Counties to clean up their voter rolls. The two cases could have a nationwide ripple effect if the plaintiffs prevail. . . .

Former U.S. Justice Department attorney J. Christian Adams and former DOJ Voting Section Chiefs Christopher Coates and Henry Ross filed the lawsuits on behalf of the ACRU; they claim U.S. census data shows both counties have more active registered voters than there are voting age-eligible residents. . . .

According to the lawsuit filed against Walthall, the county has 14,108 registered voters but only 11,368 age-eligible citizens. This would mean that 124 percent of Walthall’s eligible voters are registered to vote. . . .

The two lawsuits filed in in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi are part of the ACRU’s Election Integrity Defense Project. The architects of the project include Edwin Meese III, who was U.S. Attorney General under Ronald Reagan and a board member of the ACRU, and J. Kenneth Blackwell, former Ohio Secretary of State and a member of the ACRU’s policy board.”

Saturday I will be speaking in Dallas Texas at David Horowitz’s Texas weekend.  My topic is Obamism, namely, how the Rule of Law has suffered under this administration.  Here are details and registration information:

As every member of the FEC start to serve expired terms, the Editors at Bloomberg.com asks whether We Should Kill the Federal Election Commission (FEC)

Given its propensity for deadlock, with the panel’s three
Republicans pitted against its three (and now, due to vacancy,
only two) Democrats, the FEC is arguably the most dysfunctional
agency in the federal government.

Members of Congress are more confident that the “Zombie Agency” otherwise known as the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), is the most dysfunctional agency in the federal government.  With the departure of each commissioner and majority of professional staff, the agency is an empty shell.

“The EAC, an obsolete agency that has long outlived its purpose, now has
no commissioners, no executive director, and no general counsel.  It is
a zombie agency, lumbering forward lifelessly devouring taxpayer
dollars.“

What is your vote?

As the Colorado Senate debates the Democrats’ partisan election code rewrite HB 1303 – which state Senator Lundberg just offered an amendment to rename the “Same Day Voter Fraud Act” – Republican Secretary of State Scott Gessler, who was shut out of the bill drafting process that included a multitude of progressive organizations, “has won the latest battle over whether ballots should be mailed to inactive voters.” 

 Breitbart.  A lawsuit “to obtain records revealing ‘any and all’ communications between the DOJ Civil Rights Division and New England United for Justice (NEU4J), NEU4J President Maude Hurd, the NAACP, Demos, and Project Vote regarding the enforcement and implementation of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) in Massachusetts.”

Subject to review under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act: “Texas Education Commissioner Michael Williams named the new board of managers in December, saying the replacements were needed to regain the public trust.”

Outcome: ” U.S. Department of Justice said it won’t oppose ousting the locally elected school board in the wake of a testing scandal at several of high schools.”

Story.