Help Election Integrity, End Senate 30-Hour Rule

Elections across America are suffering from vulnerabilities in the system.  In some cases, states can implement best practices to close these vulnerabilities.  But there are also a number of pending nominations tied up in the United States Senate that should be confirmed immediately.  These nominations are important to ensuring that our American electoral system does all it can to make voter fraud harder to commit.

For starters, Senate Republicans should dump the “thirty hour rule” so that nominees can be confirmed more efficiently.  The thirty hour rule “limits” debate on any nominee before the Senate to thirty hours once cloture is achieved.

In other words, once a filibuster is ended, the filibuster can continue for thirty more hours.

That’s absurd.

Some have proposed reducing the thirty hour rule down to eight hours.  That’s a good thing.  The last thing Americans want is more hot air coming out of Congress, especially when cloture has already been achieved.

So how does this affect election integrity?  Though the bulk of election administration rightly occurs at the state and local levels, there are specific federal posts that broadly impact voting in terms of access, integrity, and disclosure.

The Senate should get to work, and end the thirty hour rule and move nominees that are important to election integrity.

These are the four nominees:

Eric S. Dreiband
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights
Nominated: June 29, 2016

The AAG for Civil Rights sets the tone for voting law enforcement. For the past eight years, this chair was occupied by scoundrels.  That one went on to become Democratic National Committee chair tells you all you need to know about their ultimate view toward civil rights enforcement. Never once did these Holder-era scoundrels bring actions under the National Voter Registration Act to fix corrupted and bloated voter rolls. They covered their eyes in the face of voter intimidation carried out by their ideological allies. They waged racially divisive campaigns against voter ID laws, and did just about nothing else in eight years (besides dividing the nation and conducting a war on police).

The Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, where I previously served, is still mired by an ideological rot that exclaims minorities are not sophisticated enough to follow common-sense election integrity reforms. Mr. Dreiband’s work is certainly cut out for him—if only he could clear the Senate’s inefficient rules.

Eric Dreiband

James E. Trainor III

Federal Election Commissioner

Nominated: September 14, 2017

James “Trey” Trainor’s nomination is a direct challenge to those who see campaign finance laws as a weapon to destroy speakers—and their audiences–instead of ideas. The hackademics teaching in law schools who lust after regulating free speech won’t be happy when Trey is confirmed.  But the First Amendment will be safer when Trey is sworn in.  The recent disclosures from the Wisconsin John Doe investigation show us what a weaponized criminal investigation supported by hackademic legal activists, combined with the power of the state can do to abuse basic political freedom.

Trey Trainor

Kevin K. McAleenan

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner

Nominated: May 22, 2017

Though technically on the job already in an acting capacity, the CBP needs sustained leadership all the same. Research continues to mount about the scale of foreign influence in our elections, particularly where resident noncitizens are concerned. Although requiring proof of citizenship in voter registration is a solution looking forward, we must study our rolls for those still hiding behind false claims of eligibility. Mountains of data related to alien residents sit within the CBP, waiting for proper agreements to be outlined that will allow election officials to browse records. No such planning can realistically happen without more permanent leadership in place.

Thomas A. Farr

District Judge for the Eastern District of North Carolina

Nominated: July 13, 2017

Thomas Farr’s stellar legal career has earned him a prestigious credential among his peers: the American Bar Association highest possible rating with respect to fitness for the bench. North Carolina is ground zero for the heart of the Voting Rights Act’s enforcement trajectory in the 21^st Century. Farr was retained to defend the common-sense voter ID law for the Tar Heel State after he spent decades defeating unconstitutional gerrymandering ploys by a racialized DOJ and local politicians.   That’s what the Soros-funded leftist groups dislike about Farr.  That’s precisely why the majority of Americans would be pleased to see Farr confirmed.

If the Senate is committed to only putting in two days of work a week, the least it could do is change the debate rules to make those two long hard days of work more efficient.  You can reach your own Senator at (202) 224-3121.