Yesterday, Virginia’s state redistricting plan was approved by Eric Holder’s Justice Department. Why? Because Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli simultaneously sought approval from a federal court. The Voting Rights Act gives covered states both options, and Cuccinelli chose both. Smart move. His decision derailed preordained DOJ plans to engage in a wide array of behind the scenes mischief in the administrative review of Virginia’s house and senate plans.
Contrast Cuccinelli’s smart decision with Florida’s bad decision on a voting change which the civil rights industry is aligning to scuttle at DOJ. I blog at Election Law Center:
Kirsten Clarke [of the NAACP], et al, in a letter to Chris Herren, Voting Section Chief of at the Justice Department, requests DOJ to object to the new Florida law designed to cut down on mischief involving Acorn-style voter registration drives. The Florida law does three primary things: 1) limit the time Acorn-style groups can sit on voter registration forms they have collected, 2) compress the dates of early voting but keep the same number of hours, and 3) require voters who no longer live where they are registered to cast a provisional ballot to be verified later in the precinct they have moved to but failed to move their voter registration. These three requirements, according to Clarke and the NAACP, are racially discriminatory. Read the full letter here.
Florida may have gravely miscalculated by sending this law to the Justice Department for approval. Instead, Florida could have gone straight to the United States District Court in D.C. for approval by a judge. Because Florida chose to submit to Eric Holder’s Justice Department, it opened the door for lobbying by Clarke and other well connected racial interest groups. . . . At a minimum, Florida will probably be burdened with more information requests, a range of questions which could otherwise only be obtained in discovery, and general hostility toward the Florida plan.
More likely, Florida’s law faces a potential DOJ objection. Obama’s base is screaming for it, loudly. Bottom line, states must go to court on voter ID and redistricting, not to DOJ.
“The Department of Injustice” which must not and cannot be referred to because it is corrupt.
Nice going Mr. President.
I’m not sure I understand the DOJ’s and NAACP’s logic. It seems like they still regard black people as disenfranchised, illiterate Jim Crow victims or something. They’re simpletons, unable to read or understand voting regulations. So the DOJ will simply ban all attempts to regulate voting. And if some people take unfair (illegal) advantage of this lack of accountability – well, consider it payback for years of injustice.
I don’t think this is an Obama thing or a Democrat thing. My impression is that it’s a DOJ thing, and has been at least since the late 50s. Like many other “affirmative action” measuers, you have to ask whether it’s still necessary or fair.
That’s exactly what they think, because that’s exactly how they argue in court and in public. Any attempt to make sure registrations are correct, that voters are following the proper procedures, that people are only voting once — and the Democrats claim minorities won’t be able to abide by the new restrictions. All around the world voters have to go through more to ensure they’re entitled to vote, but the Democrats claim America’s minorities can’t handle it.
They either make that argument because they truly believe America’s minorities are uniquely incapable compared to, say, the illiterate hill people of some third-world nation, or because the Democrats depend on vote fraud.
“They either make that argument because …, or because the Democrats depend on vote fraud.”
Dingdingding we have a winner.
Sorry, the solid (not made up or paranoid delusions of) evidence of GOP illegal conduct in recent elections FAR surpasses that of others. Evidence is not on your side.
This is always fun. Partisans on each side will tell you proudly that the other side engages in all sorts of election day fraud and abuse, while their side is blameless and pure as the driven snow. In truth, both sides now and again indulge in tactics that are against the spirit of free elections, and oftentimes they break the law. We know this because the Justice Department catches the Republicans, and various dissidents in the media (often from Fox News) catch the Democrats.
Nonsense on stilts, commie.
“The soft bigotry of low expectations.”
Republicans: the Stupid Party. At least the guys in VA are getting it. The guys in FL tried to go the normal route, expecting propriety from the Justice Department, despite all the accumulated evidence to the contrary. How utterly stupid can you get?
I’m puzzled. Why would such simple confirmation procedures be considered “racially discriminatory?”
I’m serious. I don’t get this. What’s the rationale?
GDi – then you haven’t been paying attention. The law now says (thanks to Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner) ANY bad effect on minorities for an election change means the DOJ cancels the law. If the Florida law makes it harder for ACORN to register black voters, the law WILL be cancelled.
Not just ACORN, but for anybody to conduct registrations. For instance, school principals often try to register their 18 year old students as part of civics courses. They may also have grounds to file a law suit, or the LWV, who often help schools run these efforts. It’s a bad law and serves no real policy.