With 34 states now requiring some form of identification at the polls, former president Bill Clinton and civil rights leader Andrew Young on Wednesday endorsed the idea of adding photos to Social Security cards as a way to prevent voter suppression.

The two made the recommendation in separate appearances at a conference at the Lyndon B. Johnson presidential library, which is commemorating the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

Link at Roll Call.

 Story here out of Appropriations Committee.

The House Appropriations Report has language requiring an outside audit of the Civil Rights Division by an outside organization.  After the DOJ Inspector General released a blistering report on the malfunctioning of the Civil Rights Division, Congress is inserting the following language into the DOJ budget:

Independent review of the Civil Rights Division.–In response to the OIG report that found unprofessional and inappropriate behavior by the managers and employees of the Civil Rights Division over a period of time, the Committee has included language directing that $1,000,000 shall be transferred from the General Administration appropriation to the OIG to commission a comprehensive, independent assessment of the direction and management of the division, with specific recommendations for management and policy remedies.

Campaign finance law has indeed become a bewildering array of arcane, seemingly arbitrary distinctions and lines. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, I was one of a group of former FEC commissioners who attempted, in an amicus brief, to impress on the court the exceedingly complex nature of the law. Among other things, we noted that campaign finance regulations imposed unique rules on 71 different types of speakers, for 33 different types of campaign-related speech.

Much of this complexity has come about from the interplay of courts and regulators (by whom I mean not only those in government who do the regulating, but the substantial complex of lobbying organizations and foundations that promote further regulation of campaign speech). Regulators pass laws that are so broad as to offend most any normal interpretation of the First Amendment. The Courts attempt to confine those laws to a limited space, leaving ample alternative avenues for free speech. The regulators then pass laws attempting to block off those alternative avenues, and another go around begins.

The New York Times publishes the letter response of the three Republican Commissioners to the allegations of Commissioner Ravel that they are not enforcing the campaign finance laws.

To the Editor:

Re “How Not to Enforce Campaign Laws” (Op-Ed, April 3):

Our Federal Election Commission colleague Ann M. Ravel would rather grandstand than follow the law and judicial precedent. We enforce the law as written by Congress and construed by the courts, not as our colleague and her “reformer” allies wish it were.

She disparages the federal courts as “a rubber-stamp approval of inaction” and essentially encourages them to disregard our governing statute and decades-old legal precedent. By recklessly accusing the courts and us of “betraying the public” and “putting our democracy in jeopardy,” our colleague is actually the one encouraging the commissioners “not to cooperate with one another” and paralyzing the F.E.C.

As for us, we will continue to follow the Supreme Court’s guidance: “Where the First Amendment is implicated, the tie goes to the speaker, not the censor.”

LEE E. GOODMAN

CAROLINE C. HUNTER

MATTHEW S. PETERSEN

Washington, April 7, 2014

 Story here.

 PJ Media on the SDNY DEO at DOJ.

Lite blogging at least from me the next two days.  I’ll be speaking at the Northern Illinois University law school this evening in a debate with Ilya Shaprio.  He’ll take the position that the damage speech regulators can do to the nation is worse than the damage that the voter fraud deniers and process manipulators can do to the nation.  Because in many instances, the speech regulators and voter fraud deniers are one in the same, we both win the debate.

I”ll also be participating in a Voting Rights symposium at NIU law on Friday with Ilya, Hans von Spakovsky and a variety of others. 

Rep. Cummings didn’t tell the truth about his coordination with the IRS in attacking Tea Party groups like True the Vote.  I said he wasn’t telling the truth in 2012. Today documents proved it.