Attorney General Eric Holder (Larry Downing/REUTERS)
This week, Attorney General Eric Holder traveled to Texas, to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library to give an
important and comprehensive explanation of the administration's voting rights policy. Coming nearly five decades after President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, the speech was appropriate for both time and place.
In 1965, when President Johnson signed the landmark Voting Rights Act into law, he proclaimed that, "the right to vote is the basic right, without which all others are meaningless."
Today, as Attorney General, I have the privilege—and the solemn duty—of enforcing this law, and the other civil rights reforms that President Johnson championed. This work is among the Justice Department's most important priorities. And our efforts honor the generations of Americans who have taken extraordinary risks, and willingly confronted hatred, bias, and ignorance—as well as billy clubs and fire hoses, bullets and bombs—to ensure that their children, and all American citizens, would have the chance to participate in the work of their government. The right to vote is not only the cornerstone of our system of government—it is the lifeblood of our democracy. And no force has proved more powerful—or more integral to the success of the great American experiment—than efforts to expand the franchise.
Despite this history, and despite our nation's long tradition of extending voting rights—to non-property owners and women, to people of color and Native Americans, and to younger Americans—today, a growing number of our fellow citizens are worried about the same disparities, divisions, and problems that—nearly five decades ago—LBJ devoted his Presidency to addressing. In my travels across this country, I've heard a consistent drumbeat of concern from many Americans, who—often for the first time in their lives—now have reason to believe that we are failing to live up to one of our nation's most noble, and essential, ideals.
As Congressman John Lewis described it, in a speech on the House floor this summer, the voting rights that he worked throughout his life—and nearly gave his life—to ensure are, "under attack… [by] a deliberate and systematic attempt to prevent millions of elderly voters, young voters, students, [and] minority and low-income voters from exercising their constitutional right to engage in the democratic process." Not only was he referring to the all-too-common deceptive practices we’ve been fighting for years. He was echoing more recent concerns about some of the state-level voting law changes we've seen this legislative season.
The Justice Department is examining new laws restricting voting in eight states, including Texas. "Although I cannot go into detail about the ongoing review of these and other state law changes, I can assure you that it will be thorough and it will be fair," Holder said. "We will examine the facts and we will apply the law."
This is going to be another long fight, with a Supreme Court that might be hostile to preserving the protections that have been law for the past half century. But the fight is fully engaged by this Justice Department.
In other news:
- Republicans continue to screech FRAUD!!!! without being to back it up.
[T]he Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA) unveiled what they suggest are game-changing numbers on voter fraud, claiming in a press release: "NAACP Has It Wrong: Map Presents Evidence of Nationwide Vote Fraud Convictions & Prosecutions." A subtitle boasts, "46 States Have Charged Individuals With Vote Fraud In The Past Decade." The press release directs people to a website with the RNLA's "evidence."
But the grand total of alleged voter fraud cases listed on RNLA's website is—drumroll please—311.
For perspective, the total number of votes cast in the 2004 presidential election alone was 122,295,345. In 2008, that number was 131,313,820.
- Meet the latest victim of Wisconsin's new voter ID law: Jennifer "Rita" Platt.
Platt and her boyfriend don't have forms of identification accepted at the polls, so they recently drove about 45 minutes to a Department of Motor Vehicles office in Hudson to each get an ID.
They encountered two problems.
The DMV office's computer system was down, which meant they couldn't get an ID processed. And they were told they didn't have the proper identification to get a state ID card or a Wisconsin driver's license, Platt said.
"They said I didn't have a certified birth certificate or a current passport," said Platt, who said she had asked the DMV what was needed before heading to Hudson.
She had brought an expired Iowa driver's license, her Social Security card and a pay stub from the St. Croix Falls school district, where she works as a librarian, believing those items would satisfy the DMV's requirements, she said.
Platt, of Osceola, said she is going to have to find her certified birth certificate or request a new one, take unpaid time off from work and again make the trip to the DMV.
Platt's Republican state represenative, Rep. Erik Severson, was unmoved by her plight, because "We don't have any idea...how many people are voting illegally." With a driver's license, Social Security card, and pay stub, Platt is certainly suspect. But she's fighting back, agreeing to be a plaintiff in a case the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is bringing.
- NAACP isn't alone; the ACLU is also suing the state of Wisconsin, arguing that:
[T]he law "imposes a severe and undue burden on the fundamental right to vote under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution; violates the Twenty-Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution as an unconstitutional poll tax; and violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in arbitrarily refusing to accept certain identification documents."
They further argue that the law would force would-be voters to "choose between surrendering their driving privileges to obtain a free Wisconsin state ID card, paying a fee for a Wisconsin driver’s license, or losing their right to vote." This amounts essentially to an "unconstitutional poll tax," they argue, forcing some voters to pay to vote in having to buy a new driver's license.
Jon Sherman, Staff Attorney, ACLU Voting Rights Project, wrote about the case and one of their key plaintiffs here at Daily Kos.
- Rep. Erik Severson, take note. Your new law, the one that is designed to stop illegal voting that doesn't occur, is going to cost the state of Wisconsin dearly, and not just in court fees. The state is having to spend $436,000 just in an advertising campaign to tell voters about the new requirements. That's not a lot of money, but Wisconsin is supposed to be in a budget crisis. There's half a million they could have saved if they hadn't passed this law.
- Moving away from Wisconsin, here's what's up in Pennsylvania.
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Republicans continued Monday to press legislation to require Pennsylvanians to show photo identification before they vote, despite resistance from Democrats who say it is intended to suppress turnout of poor and black voters and Republicans acknowledging they lack proof of voter fraud. [...]
Senate State Government Committee Chairman Charles McIlhinney said he has seen no proof that people are casting illegal ballots, but he also said he's seen no proof that tightening the requirements would deny anyone the right to vote. He called the requirement a "security check."
Sound familiar?
- Turning to Florida, the Brennan Center for Justice reports on a suit brought by the League of Women Voters of Florida, Rock the Vote, and the Florida Public Interest Research Group Education Fund ("PIRG"), "challenging Florida’s onerous new restrictions on community-based voter registration drives."
The restrictions challenged in the suit were enacted by Florida legislators earlier this year as part of H.B. 1355, a broad package of election law changes. They include extremely burdensome administrative requirements, unreasonably tight deadlines for submission of completed forms, and heavy penalties for even the slightest delay or mistake. These restrictions are so unnecessarily harsh that they have forced the League of Women Voters and Rock the Vote, among other groups, to shut down their voter registration programs in Florida.
Editor's note: WOV will be on hiatus next week. I'm taking a vacation!