BYRON YORK: Biden’s politicized Justice Department.

The Democratic Party’s number-one priority is to pass a voting “reform” bill that would federalize elections under rules favorable to Democratic candidates. It’s more important than infrastructure, or massive new social spending, or anything else, which is why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer gave their election bill the designation H.R.1 in the House and S.1 in the Senate.

The House passed H.R. 1 in a nearly straight party-line vote on March 3. (All Republicans voted against it and all Democrats, with the single exception of Representative Bennie Thompson, voted for it.) The problem for Democrats is that there is no chance S. 1 will pass in the Senate, where Democrats do not hold a majority of seats. To pass S.1, Democrats would first have to eliminate the filibuster, and then muster all of their 50 senators to vote for the bill against 50 Republicans, and then call in Vice President Kamala Harris to break the tie. The short version: Not gonna happen.

That is where Attorney General Merrick Garland comes in. On June 11, Garland gathered the employees of the Justice Department to deliver a speech promising that the Department will intervene in election procedures around the country, to do at least some of the work that Democrats are failing to accomplish on Capitol Hill.

Remember when they told us he was a moderate centrist?

Related: Former Justice Department Lawyer Testifies to Voting Section’s History of Abusing Its Authority. “At a hearing Tuesday intended to build support for HR 4, Maureen Riordan did the exact opposite. A career attorney who served in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department for more than two decades, she testified before the House Judiciary Committee on the long history of abuses she witnessed while working at the department.”