Arizona Governor Brewer takes first step in removal of redistricting commissioners

AzCapitolTimes.com @ the link.  When a supposed non-partisan Commission provides a redistricting draft map that wholly favors Democrats in a state where all statewide offices are Republican and the Republican hold vast majorities in the legislature, this is the result.  

to the article:

Gov. Jan Brewer demanded answers from the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission about a handful of alleged improprieties, the first step in the process for forcibly removing one or more of the commissioners.


Brewer today sent a letter to all five commissioners seeking a response to allegations that the IRC violated open meeting laws, public records laws and the constitutionally mandated criteria for redistricting. The letter comes as Republican lawmakers, conservative activists and others have been clamoring for a special session of the Legislature to remove IRC Chairwoman Colleen Mathis, who has been accused of colluding with the commission’s two Democrats.


The governor accused the commissioners of “substantial neglect of duty and gross misconduct in office,” repeating verbatim the provision in the Arizona Constitution that details the grounds for removing a commissioner from the panel. The removal of a commissioner requires the approval of the governor and two-thirds of the Senate.

“I am duty bound to ensure that Arizona’s redistricting process is constitutionally sound and worthy of the full faith and confidence of Arizona voters,” Brewer wrote. “The IRC has violated constitutional requirements.”

some of the specific concerns:

Brewer also submitted her official comments on the maps. In the separate letter, said the IRC did not respect communities of interest, did not create compact and contiguous districts, disregarded geographic and political boundaries, ignored the needs of rural Arizonans and elevated competitiveness above all other constitutional criteria.


She specifically objected to congressional districts that cut Yuma and Cochise counties in half, and referred to proposed Districts 1, 3 and 4 as “patently tortured and spliced.” District 9, which includes Tempe and the Arcadia, Biltmore and Ahwatukee Foothills areas of Phoenix, was drawn in violation of the IRC’s six constitutional criteria, she alleged.


“I have many concerns about the draft map. The concerns are so grave that I believe the IRC has not satisfied its constitutional duty requiring it to conduct this vital electoral activity in an honest, independent and impartial fashion that upholds the public confidence in the integrity of the redistricting process,” Brewer wrote.

Black Caucus threatens lawsuit challenging Tennessee Republican redistricting plans

At the link.  In Nashville, Black legislative leaders said Tuesday their caucus will file a lawsuit challenging Republican redistricting plans if they think the map, which is being drawn in secret, violates the federal Voting Rights Act.  Rep. G.A. Hardaway, chairman of the Legislature’s Black Caucus, called on Republicans to include caucus members in helping shape the plan that reapportions and redraws the 99 House and 33 Senate districts to reflect minority voters.

“We will sue if it’s not in compliance with the Voting Rights Act as the Black Caucus sees it,” Hardaway said.


In a statement, Republican House Speaker Beth Harwell, of Nashville, said it “is well established that one of the many criteria we use in developing redistricting concepts is compliance with the Voting Rights Act, and it would be disingenuous to suggest otherwise. … Our goal has always been to draw fair and legal lines and to get 99 votes in the House.”

and this:


Republicans have been showing individual Democrats, including black lawmakers, what will happen to them under the redistricting plan, but Hardaway say it is difficult to construct the entire “puzzle” from those pieces.

Injustice in Dallas

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.

The “deserted agency” EAC is on the budget cutting agenda of the supercommittee

Link at the Washington Post.   As we enter the next round of budget cuts or taxes, it is becoming more likely that the EAC and FEC will need to merge duties to save money.  However, Democrats argued to the supercommittee that certain EAC duties should not be merged into the FEC because they are “increasingly deadlocked and incapacitated.”  Now, there may be some reasons not to disband the EAC; however, this isn’t one of them.  In fact, many observers would note that the EAC would be the agency that is unnecessarily partisan, discriminatory, deadlocked, and now chronically incapacitated (due to a lack of quorum).  Last time I checked, the FEC had a full compliment of commissioners.  Increasingly, the EAC is becoming the “deserted agency” as NASS has repeatedly called for an end to its mission and now FVAP is overtly lobbying to wrestle away the EAC survey of overseas and military voters.    


The EAC was established by the 2002 Help America Vote Act as an independent, bipartisan commission tasked with establishing election reform guidelines and handing out federal money to states to help them meet those rules and buy new voting machines. Those tasks have largely been completed, House Administration Republicans say, and the EAC spends far too much on staff and overhead to complete the work it has left.

The Election Assistance Commission has fulfilled its function and is now a perfect example of unnecessary and wasteful spending,” they wrote to the supercommittee.  The House Administration Committee approved a bill this year to end the EAC, but it failed on the House floor in June.

Committee Democrats strongly disagree with the majority’s recommendation, arguing that closing the EAC would shift its responsibilities — including certifying voting machines — to what they call “the increasingly deadlocked and incapacitated” Federal Election Commission.

Are Democrats imposing a party litmus test on Voter ID?

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.”


Davis continued, “The truth is that the most aggressive contemporary voter suppression in the African American community, at least in Alabama, is the wholesale manufacture of ballots, at the polls and absentee, in parts of the Black Belt.”

Allegation that SC voter ID law hits some Black precincts harder misses the mark

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

Voter ID will soon become law (in Mississippi)?

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.