Voter Suppression

January 18, 2022February 4, 2022

Elie Mystal: The “Chief Architect” Of The Assault On Voting Rights Is Chief Justice John Roberts

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The Nation’s Justice Correspondent, Elie Mystal, dropped a major bombshell on MSNBC’s American Voices (01/16/22), when he slammed U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts as the “chief architect” of the assault on voting rights. Unlike many mainstream media pundits who engage in incendiary rhetoric just for ratings, Elie Mystal backed up his bombshell assertion with very good examples that would make any reasonable person either agree with him, or at the very least, find his assertion quite plausible. The fact that Elie Mystal’s bombshell claims pass the plausibility test, should compel Chief Justice Roberts to address them, for the sake of the Supreme Court’s integrity.

Elie Mystal specifically said: “The chief architect of this assault on our voting rights is not Mitch McConnell, it’s not ot David Duke, it’s not whatever boogey man you think is hiding under the closet. The chief architect is Chief Justice John Roberts. It is he who has been an enemy of voting rights and racial equality from his very first job out of law school, which was to oppose the 1982 amendments to the Voting Rights Act. It is John Roberts who authored Shelby County v Holder in 2013 which eviscerated section 5 of Voting Rights Act which is basically why we are here right now, it is John Roberts who authored Rucho in 2020 which swung wide the doors towards gerrymandering, and it is John Roberts who provided the crucial 5th vote in last year’s Brnovich decision which eviscerated section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. This is all being done by Federalist Society conservatives that have been put on the Supreme Court, and until we stop them, until we do something about the court–you want to pass your Freedom to Vote Act, I think that’s a great bill, we should pass it, I think we should have passed HR1, but always remember that John Roberts and his conservative cronies are waiting at the Supreme Court level to strike down whatever laws we put forward. As long as you let Republicans control the Supreme Court, you cannot have a fair and equal just society.”

It’s worth pointing out here too, that Elie Mystal is not only decrying Chief Justice Roberts’ questionable history on voting rights, but crucially, also making the point that minorities are doomed going forward, with him at the helm of the Supreme Court. This naturally raises the question as to whether Chief Justice Roberts is the right person to lead the high court.

Bottom line folks, these are questions that the mainstream media needs to take up with Chief Justice Roberts. At a time when voting rights are a red hot topic, and minorities are increasingly concerned about Republicans infringing upon their right to vote, the public deserves to know whether the Roberts Supreme Court will be a neutral arbiter in the fight for voting rights, as it should be.

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January 16, 2022January 16, 2022

Sen Cassidy Says SCOTUS Decision Gutting Voting Rights Act Justifies Restrictive State Election Laws

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Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) appeared on CNN’s State of The Union show (01/16/22) to put forward the Republican position on the push for a federal voting rights legislation(John Lewis Voting Rights Act), and also discuss the related question as to whether the U.S. Senate should change its filibuster rules to allow for the passage of the said voting rights law via a simple majority vote. When asked by host Jake Tapper why Republicans are now opposed to keeping key provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act(VRA) intact, when as recently as a decade ago they were all for it, Sen Cassidy gave a strange response which appeared to suggest that because the Roberts Supreme Court gutted key provisions of the VRA in Shelby County v Holder(2013), there is no need to be concerned about discriminatory state election laws–that this is not 1965 anymore, things have changed.

Yours Truly, and I suspect a lot of other viewers too, found Senator Cassidy’s Response quite strange because while liberals agree that this is not 1965, and that progress has been made on the civil rights front, we need to restore key aspects of the 1965 Voting Rights Act because Trump’s GOP is taking us back to 1965. In other words, Senator Cassidy, and by extension the Roberts Supreme Court, are totally wrong in their assessment that simply because this is not 1965, Republican states are no longer capable of crafting discriminatory election laws. The facts on the ground clearly show that after the 2020 election, relying on former President Trump’s “big lie“, many Republican-controlled states have hurriedly enacted election laws that reasonable people agree, disenfranchise voters of color.

Senator Cassidy specifically said on CNNSOTU(video @ 2:20 onwards): “The Supreme Court decided[paused for effect], the Supreme Court decided that the conditions in 1965 are different than the conditions now. Imagine that. We’ve had an African-American elected President of the United States, we’ve had an African-American elected to the Vice Presidency, an African-American elected to the[U.S.]Senate in South Carolina. Now, if anyone can’t see that circumstances have changed, they’re just not believing their lying eye…There’s more to do, absolutely, we need safeguards, but to argue we are still the same as we were in 1965 is to deny facts that are clearly before us.”

There’s no other way any reasonable person presented with Senator Cassidy’s response(including his pause for effect), would arrive at any other conclusion other than, because the Roberts Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013 citing changed conditions, the voter suppression laws currently popping up in red states are justified. Think about that, the new Republican rationale for voter suppression, as articulated by Senator Cassidy, is that it’s not a big deal because if it was, the Roberts Supreme Court would never have gutted key provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act–a sad state of affairs indeed.

Bottom line folks, Dems must use every tool at their disposal to get holdout Senators Kyrsten Sinema(D-AZ) and Joe Manchin(D-WV) to agree to a filibuster carveout for a federal voting rights legislation before the 2022 midterms because if they don’t, all the gains we’ve witnessed thus far as a result of the 1965 Voting Rights Act will be lost, and the Roberts Supreme Court will not lift a finger to assist. Simply put, it’s now or never for a federal voting rights law that restores key provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

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November 20, 2021December 4, 2021

Extreme Gerrymandering In Ohio Called Out

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CNN’s Reality Check w/John Avlon did a segment(11/19/21) featuring an extreme gerrymandering case currently playing out in Ohio. Back in 2018, Ohio voters overwhelmingly backed(75%) an amendment to the state’s constitution that would ensure redistricting was carried out in a bipartisan fashion. Ohio’s congressional district maps were to be drawn by a bipartisan 7-member redistricting commission. The idea behind a bipartisan redistricting commission was quite simple–to create competitive district maps which would in turn reduce political polarization. Basically, politicians will shy away from radical ideas/conduct if they know they can be easily beaten at the polls.

Well, it turns out Ohio Republicans have since reneged on their support for a bipartisan redistricting commission, and are now using the Republican-led state legislature to come up with an extremely gerrymandered map, one that will give them a 13-2 advantage in congressional seats(86%R-14%D), even though Trump’s 2020 win in Ohio was only 53%-45%. No reasonable person would ever conclude that Ohio is an 86R-14D state, yet this is exactly what the new congressional map being pushed by state Republicans attempts to achieve–a total fraud and willful disenfranchisement of Democratic-leaning voters.

Even more repugnant is the way the Republican-led Ohio state legislature ended up being responsible for drawing the congressional maps. According to John Avlon, Republican members of the bipartisan redistricting commission simply refused to show up for duty, thereby crippling the commission because it was unable to convene meetings. With the bipartisan commission deliberately crippled, the redistricting job fell back to the partisan Ohio legislature, which drew the extremely gerrymandered map–a sad state of affairs indeed.

John Avlon said: “Ohio Republicans just decided to disregard the state constitution and the will of the voters. A seven-member redistricting commission had a month to work on a fair map, but Republican members refused to participate, and so the commission couldn’t convene. The power to draw the lines fell back to the Republican-controlled state assembly, who proceeded to do exactly what the constitutional amendment forbade. They cracked and packed minority communities, dividing counties and cities for their own partisan advantage. For example, Hamilton County, home to Cincinnati, which voted for[President] Biden by a 16-point margin, will be divided into 3 congressional districts, with Black voters offset by White Republicans.”

This is just the latest example of how state Republicans are actively disenfranchising Democratic-leaning/minority voters while Democrats in Washington are still dithering over abolishing the filibuster, and coming up with a federal voting rights law. A federal voting rights law is the only solution to the rampant GOP gerrymandering.

Bottom line folks, time is of the essence. Democrats need to abolish the filibuster immediately and pass a federal voting rights law. The two Senate holdouts, Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, must be confronted with this troubling Ohio gerrymandering case, and be forced to explain why a filibuster carve out for a federal voting legislation is not the appropriate way to go, given the dire circumstances.

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September 26, 2021December 4, 2021

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo:”Texas Is Being Run From Maralago”

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Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo appeared on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show (09/24/2021), where she blasted elected Republicans in Texas for giving in to former President Trump’s baseless demands for an audit into the state’s 2020 election results. The decision by the Texas Secretary of State’s office to conduct an audit into the election results of Collin, Dallas, Harris and Tarrant counties, came literally a few hours after Trump’s demand, which led a visibly upset Judge Hidalgo to tell host Maddow that Texas was “being run from Maralago.”

Judge Hidalgo told Maddow:“We have to remember we had incredibly successful elections here in Harris County in 2020. We had innovations that led to record turnouts from both parties, the highest in 30 years, I mean it was beautiful, and since then, no evidence has come out that would in any way cause the need for this kind of audit. All we’ve seen is [former]President Trump exhorting the state, or [Governor]Abbott, to have this audit…The reality of it is Texas is being run from Maralago, and that is dangerous, and it’s not appropriate…it’s extremely concerning.”

Judge Hidalgo added that time had come for politicians in Washington to get off the sidelines, and actively join the fight against voter suppression in the states, telling host Maddow, “We need the federal government to act, I mean, this has gone too far… This should be another call to action. We’ve got the writing on the wall. We’ve got to get off our chairs and get moving on all this.”

Bottom line folks, as Judge Hidalgo correctly pointed out, time has come for some decisive action to be taken against these naked efforts by Republicans at the state level, to restrict the voting rights of minorities. Democrats in Washington cannot just sit on the sidelines, and watch their counterparts in Republican-led states like Texas, go to war against GOP’s efforts to restrict minority voting rights. Simply put, time has come for Democrats in Washington to finally do away with the filibuster, and institute a national voting standard geared towards making it easier for people to vote, as opposed to GOP’s scheme of limiting access to the ballot box. As Judge Hidalgo correctly put it, congressional Democrats need to “get off their chairs and get moving” on a comprehensive federal voting rights law.

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June 9, 2021June 16, 2021

Texas AG Paxton Admits Trump Won Texas Only Because Of Blocked Mail-In Ballots

In one of the most stunning confessions, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton admitted that had he not used his office to block the roughly 2.5 million mail-in ballot requests from going out in Harris County(home to Houston), former President Trump would have lost Texas in the 2020 elections.

Trump won Texas by roughly 620,000 votes in 2020. Given the fact that the populous Harris County is already a Democratic stronghold, plus the fact that mail-in ballots skewed heavily in favor of Democrats nationwide(afraid of contracting covid at polling stations), any reasonable person would conclude that then candidate Joe Biden, would have erased Trump’s 620,000 margin just from the 2.5 million mail-in ballots in Harris County. Even if the Harris County mail-in ballots somehow failed to totally wipe out Trump’s lead, mail-ins from other heavily populated Democratic counties like Bexar(San Antonio) and Travis(Austin), would certainly have done the trick.

AG Paxton said on Bannon’s War Room podcast:“That’s why we filed these 12 lawsuits. We had them in Houston, we had them in San Antonio, we had them in Austin, we had them in the counties where you have the most liberal judges[top elected county executives like Lina Hidalgo]and it was a concerted effort nationally, with lots of money going into it, and just knowing that we had 12 lawsuits that we had to win, and if we lost one of them, like if we lost Harris County, Trump won by 620,000 votes in Texas, Harris County mail-in ballots that they wanted to send out were 2.5 million, those were all illegal, and we were able to stop every one of them. Had we not done that…Donald Trump would have lost the election.”

There’s no other way to interpret this other than, had Texas AG Paxton’s lawsuits failed in blocking mail-in ballot requests in the heavily populated, Democratic-leaning Texas counties like Harris(home to Houston), Bexar(San Antonio) and Travis(Austin), Trump would have lost Texas to Joe Biden in 2020. Just the 2.5 million mail-in ballot requests from Harris County alone, would have been enough to erase Trump’s 620,000 margin.

It’s important to address AG Paxton’s contention that the said mail-in ballots were “all illegal”, in it’s proper context. The 2020 elections happened in the midst of a global covid-19 pandemic. Millions of Americans, including Texans, were justifiably terrified of contracting covid as a result of physically voting in crowded polling stations. To address these legitimate fears of contracting covid, county executives in populous Texas counties like Harris, Bexar, and Travis, provided their residents with the mail-in voting option, a safe option that would allow them to vote without physically standing in line at crowded polling stations.

This safe and convenient method of voting resulted in record voter participation in the Lone Star state. Even though sending out mail-in ballot requests to all eligible county voters is not expressly spelled out in Texas law, there was nothing nefarious County Judge Lina Hidalgo (Harris) and her peers engaged in with the mail-in ballots, as AG Paxton represented in his lawsuits, and on the War Room podcast. These were simply county executives trying to make it safer and convenient for their residents to vote in the midst of a global pandemic.

The fact that AG Paxton and other Texas Republicans are terrified by the prospect of record numbers of Texans voting as a result of mail-in ballots, should tell you everything you need to know about the state of the current Texas Republican Party. It should also explain to you why a lot of the right wing vitriol on social media, is directed at County Judge Lina Hidalgo. Texas Republicans know that if Judge Hidalgo succeeds in her efforts to make it easier for people to vote via mail in her populous Harris County, Democrats will not only take over the Governor’s mansion in Austin, but also potentially sweep statewide seats as early as 2022.

Bottom line folks, Texas GOP’s new voter suppression bill that targets Harris County should come as no surprise to anyone, and neither should the right wing vitriol directed at Judge Hidalgo. Texas Republicans know that if Harris County votes in record numbers, as Judge Hidalgo is determined to see happen, the “reliably red” Texas is no more!!

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May 20, 2021June 16, 2021

Trump-Tied Dark Money Group Brags About Drafting Voter Suppression Laws

*Heritage Action’s Executive Director Jessica Anderson addressing a group meeting*

A leaked video obtained by Mother Jones, shows the shocking extent to which a Trump-tied dark money group, Heritage Action For America, is secretly engineering the recent spate of voter suppression laws in Republican-led states. This bombshell revelation, even though not quite surprising, should be a call to action for voting rights activists nationwide, and a reminder to Congressional Democrats, of the dire need for passage of HR1-For The People Act.

In the leaked video, Jessica Anderson, a former Trump administration official and now Executive Director of Heritage Action For America, can be heard talking to a group of donors in Tucson Arizona in late April, and admitting to conduct that leaves absolutely no doubt to any reasonable person, that her group is engineering the voter suppression laws currently springing up in Republican states across the country. She is essentially bragging to the donors about how Heritage Action is drafting voter suppression laws currently being enacted by Republican-led state legislatures.

She can be heard telling the donors, “Iowa is the first state we[Heritage Action] got to work in, and we did it quickly, and we did it quietly. Honestly, nobody noticed.”(see video at 1:05). No reasonable person presented with Jessica Anderson’s “nobody noticed” remarks, can ever conclude that Heritage Action went into Iowa with a mission other than sneaking through a voter suppression law.

Other alarming statements by Jessica Anderson to the GOP donors include;

“At the end of the day, the bill that Governor[Brian] Kemp signed, and the Georgia legislature marshalled through had eight key provisions that Heritage recommended.” (see video at 1:11)

“We are working with these state legislators to make sure they have all of the information they need to draft the bills. In some cases we actually draft them for them, or we have a sentinel on our behalf, give them the model legislation so it has that grassroots, from the bottom up, type of vibe.” (see video at 1:32). This is by far, the most damning part of Jessica Anderson’s presentation. She basically admits that Heritage Action is writing voter suppression laws for the states, and faking their grassroots appeal.

It also bears pointing out that this same Trump-tied dark money group, is also in the forefront of lobbying Congressional Republicans into blocking the HR1-For The People Act, currently being pushed by Congressional Democrats, which among other things, seeks to vastly expand voting rights for all Americans.

Bottom line folks, it appears Heritage Action is the vehicle Trump Republicans are using to push their voter suppression laws targeting minority voters. Voting rights activists in Texas and other emerging purple states, where the voting rights battle is already red hot, must come up with effective strategies to confront Heritage Action and other such right wing anti-democracy groups. Yours Truly is not an attorney, but is reasonable enough to know that some of the statements Jessica Anderson made to the GOP donors, can be very useful in federal lawsuits against these Republican voter suppression laws.

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June 12, 2020June 4, 2021

Handy List Of Iowa GOP State Senators Mad About Record Voter Participation Due To Mail-In Voting

Iowa witnessed record voter participation in its June 3rd primary elections as a result of a provision that allowed the secretary of state to mail absentee ballots to all registered voters due to the covid-19 pandemic. The noble goal of this provision was to save Iowa voters from going into crowded polling centers which would have increased their chances of contracting the virus. Given the ease and convenience of voting by mail, Iowans voted in record numbers, much to the delight of democracy lovers. Well, it turns out republicans were not happy with the record voter participation. They quickly moved in the Iowa state legislature to prevent universal voting by mail in the November elections–a clear cut effort at voter suppression.

On 6/10/2020 a bill that prohibits Iowa’s secretary of state from mailing absentee ballots to all registered voters for the November general elections passed the Iowa state senate by a vote of 30-19. Needless to say, all the 30 state senators who voted for this voter suppression bill were republicans. Because this is one of the most brazen acts of official voter suppression to date, we have no choice but to name and shame these 30 GOP state senators using our famous “handy list”.

Here’s a handy list of the 30 shameful Iowa GOP state senators who are mad that mail-in voting allowed record voter participation in the June primary elections, and are on a mission to prevent that from happening again this November.

Bottom line folks, there’s no longer any doubt that the unpopular policies of the republican party are increasingly turning it into a marginal/regional party. Republican party leaders have long realized that their only chance of clinging to power is to make sure as few people as possible vote, especially minorities who traditionally vote against them. Where, as here, we witness such a brazen attempt at voter suppression by elected officials, we have no otherwise but to loudly call them out.

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November 23, 2018

GOP Set To Reward Gerrymandering Mastermind With Federal Judgeship

Thomas Alvin Farr–Nominee for Federal Judge for the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of North Carolina

In case you missed it earlier this week, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow reported on a plan by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell(R-KY) and his fellow GOP Senators to reward a North Carolina Republican lawyer, Thomas Alvin Farr, with a lifetime federal judgeship. According to Maddow, the Senate vote is scheduled for Monday after Thanksgiving(Nov 26). The full Maddow segment is available here but the relevant clip is below.

As Maddow correctly pointed out, Thomas Farr is the author of the racially gerrymandered North Carolina electoral map that a federal appeals court struck down for “targeting African Americans with almost surgical precision.”

Thomas Farr’s racially gerrymandered electoral map was struck down by a federal appeals court

It is because of Thomas Farr’s racially gerrymandered maps that electoral travesties like the one below are commonplace in North Carolina. In other words, no matter how well Democrats perform in elections, the GOP is assured control of the North Carolina legislature.

The effects of Thomas Farr’s gerrymandering in North Carolina

So while Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is out there preaching bipartisanship now that the Democrats have taken over the House, behind the scenes and away from the limelight he is sticking true to form, packing the federal courts with radical right-wing judges with total disregard to the wishes of Senate Democrats.

Bottom line now that Democrats control the House, Senate Democrats must force concessions on some of these judicial nominees. Senate Democrats must make it absolutely clear to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Senate Republicans that rewarding Thomas farr with a lifetime federal judgeship despite his well-chronicled history of racial gerrymandering will make it impossible for bipartisan cooperation on other issues of importance. Simply put, Senate Dems must confront Sen Mitch McConnell on his phony call for bipartisanship right after the November elections.

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