Attorney General Eric Holder is consistent about a few things. He thinks very little of ordinary criminal justice, and tends to favor criminals over their victims. After all, it’s Holder who wants a cop killer’s attorney to head up DoJ’s Civil Rights Division. Democrats in the Senate considering Debo Adegbile’s nomination refused to even hear from Mumia Abu Jamal’s surviving victim. Now, Holder is pushing to get felons’ voting rights restored.
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. called Tuesday for the repeal of laws that prohibit millions of felons from voting, underscoring the Obama administration’s determination to elevate issues of criminal justice and race in the president’s second term and create a lasting civil rights legacy.
In a speech at Georgetown University, Mr. Holder described today’s prohibitions — which in some cases bar those convicted from voting for life — as a vestige of the racist policies of the South after the Civil War, when states used the criminal justice system to keep blacks from fully participating in society.
“Those swept up in this system too often had their rights rescinded, their dignity diminished, and the full measure of their citizenship revoked for the rest of their lives,” Mr. Holder said. “They could not vote.”
Everything is about race and politics to Eric Holder. Every. Single. Thing. Well, that, plus he knows that he can stir the pot once in a while just by pointing his accusing finger at the rest of the country.
Speaking of accusatory fingers, Eric Holder was held in contempt of Congress for covering up his role in Fast and Furious, which left Border Patrol agent Brian Terry among the dead.
Reality: Only about 10 states currently ban felons from voting. Most states have provisions for felons who behave well in prison and show that they have reformed that allow them to apply and have their voting rights restored. The ACLU, which also wants felon voting rights fully restored, maps the felon voting laws among the states. Those states are not just in what was the Old Confederacy, as Holder seems to think.
Perhaps Holder should lean on Harry Reid to do something about Nevada, for instance.
Felon voting is a state issue. States have the right to set their own policies. But Democrats know that the vast majority of felons would vote for them. Holder’s aim here isn’t about justice, it’s about politics — similar to the Democrats’ insistence on “comprehensive immigration reform.” They just want to manufacture more Democrat votes, however they can.
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