Rep. Calvin Smyre (GA) on GOP motives

Here is a peculiar story.  Rep. Calvin Smyre, a black democrat in the Georgia House, made it clear that he and other black elected officials will fight against “Republican efforts” to weaken majority-black districts.  Huh?  What part of the last 20 years did Rep. Smyre miss? 

It isn’t newly empowered Republicans that Rep. Smyre needs to worry about.  Empirically, Republicans have been perfectly happy to strengthen, not weaken, majority-black districts.  The enemy of majority-black districts have been white southern democrats. 

It’s hard to know where Rep. Smyre’s misplaced barb is coming from.  Is this a reflexive response toward members of the GOP, the ever-hostile party to minority interests, he perhaps thinks?  Nevertheless, this mistake illustrates a central truth to the history or redistricting – in the past, Republicans and black Democrats have joined forces to weaken the political prospects of white Democrats.

 

Field Trip Day at the DOJ Voting Section




While most Americans with jobs will be busy flipping burgers, driving trucks or cleaning offices, Friday should be fun for all the Federal employees at the Voting Section at the Department of Justice. It’s “Field Trip” day to the federal court. Arguments will be heard in the case of Laroque v. Holder. This morning, an invitation went out to all 89 Voting Section employees encouraging them to leave work and trek across town to sit in on a court hearing. These are federal employees who are not assigned to work on the case being heard on Friday. They have no legitimate job related purpose to be there. They can read a transcript of the hearing if they need to.

But who can pass up a nice leisurely jaunt out of a moribund office to watch some courtroom drama? It’s the same reason prisoners are willing to pick filthy garbage up from the side of the road. Anything beats sitting around, doing nothing behind a closed door, watching the clock and scrambling for work assignments that never materialize.

Tired of cases being rejected to protect language minority voters in Democratic-controlled jurisdictions? Hand me a garbage bag! Confused why political leadership won’t approve investigations into states with too many dead people on the rolls? Sign me up for that Field Trip! No more Section two cases being approved?  Get me outta here!

It’s why even pressing license plates can be appealing after days of solitary idleness. So maybe the taxpayers funding the Field Trip can be merciful when an entire federal office of 89 people is invited to leave work and depart the office for some courtroom drama.

Of course many of their jobs will depend on the outcome of the hearing. If Section 5 is struck down, credible justifications to maintain these federal jobs evaporate.

In Laroque v. Holder, Kinston NC residents are challenging the Constitutionality of Section 5 preclearance requirements. In April 2009, then political appointee Acting Assistant Attorney General Loretta King interposed an objection to Kinston’s move away from partisan elections for town council – opining that black voters wouldn’t know for whom to vote if the word “Democrat” did not appear next to their name.

Then again, perhaps there will be no productivity loss – it is well known that nobody in the Voting Section has any work to do. So much for “reinvigorating” the voting laws.

Maybe someone can report back how many Voting Section employees went on the Field Trip to the Federal Courthouse on Friday. Or, maybe someone can submit a Freedom of Information Request to the Voting Section for all Voting Section employee emails “seeking permission from their supervisors pursuant to an email of December 1, 2010 from the Section Chief to attend a hearing in Laroque v. Holder” to this email: Voting.Section@usdoj.gov.

Shreveport Times on military voting

The Shreveport Times has this piece on the military voting mess of 2010.


“As the 2010 congressional elections neared, some states had been granted waivers and/or had not fully complied with the law, according to the Military Voter Protection Project. It and others charge that the Justice Department’s voting rights section had not vigorously enforced the law.  If Justice could care less about our troops and their rights to vote, maybe each state attorney general should assure that each registrar of voters office complies.”

 

Washington Times: A Fine Exit

The Washington Times editorializes  on the departure of Department of Justice Inspector General Glenn Fine.  The paper concludes that Fine should stay through the end of the investigation involving this mess:



Longtime Justice lawyer Christopher Coates testified under oath that many in the Civil Rights Division exhibit a “deep-seated opposition to the equal enforcement of the Voting Rights Act against racial minorities and for the protection of white voters who had been discriminated against.” He said Julie Fernandes, deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights, made clear at a Voting Rights Section meeting that the Obama administration wouldn’t pursue voting rights cases involving black perpetrators. At another meeting, she said the administration wouldn’t enforce part of another law that called for states to remove ineligible names – such as dead people and incarcerated felons – from voter rolls.


The Times is right to ask Fine to stay on, and I will be writing in the future about more reasons why Fine’s presence is absolutely necessary.  The Inspector General investigation is proceeding and multiple people inside the Voting Section have already been interviewed about what Julie Fernandes said at the meeting I was at.  Since Fine initiated the investigation, Fine should finish it.  Again, more on this in a future article somewhere.




Annie Taylor Award at Restoration Weekend

I’ve not posted about Restoration Weekend two weeks ago but have received a number of emails asking about it.   Indeed I received the 2010 Annie Taylor Award with a wonderful introduction by Karen Lugo.  Taylor was the first woman to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.  The list of previous winners itself is humbling.  I appreciated all of the kind comments from the attendees including Senator Sessions, and am thankful to Mr. Horowitz and Mr. Collier and everyone else at what was an excellent weekend.  This link discusses some aspects of Restoration Weekend and the award, including my remarks.  As I noted, I was profoundly humbled by the award and will leave it at that.

New York voter fraud: double votes, double registrations

A careful Fox News study of the closest Congressional race in the country has demonstrated that voter fraud occurred there.  At times the contest has been as close as 15 votes apart.  Of the 438 absentee voters in New York’s 1st Congressional district, 48 of them have double registrations in New York City.  One absentee voter in the 1st Congressional District also voted in New York City.  This would be a federal crime.  It also shows New York has problems complying with Section 8 of the Motor Voter law.  Let’s see if Eric Holder’s Justice Department does anything about it:



“The voter in question has an extensive voting record, having cast a ballot in New York City 33 times since 1984. Records show he not only voted in a Manhattan polling place during the general election this past November, but also in the Democratic primary in September. The voter has not returned our request for comment.


The overwhelming majority of the Long Island voters, who are also on the New York City voter rolls, appear to be wealthy Manhattanites who own second-homes in the posh resort towns of East Hampton, Southampton, Montauk, Amagansett and Shelter Island. Many of them voted in Manhattan as recently as last November in New York City’s mayoral election, and in the presidential election of 2008.”

Someone should alert Tova Wang at Demos that she needs to revise her November 4 report, concluding the day after election day there was no voter fraud.