Civil & Human Rights

New York Times: Voter ID is the real fraud

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What I’ve been explaining to you for years! The New York Times editorializes today, Voter ID Is the Real Fraud:

For the first time since the Supreme Court junked a core provision of the Voting Rights Act in June, a federal court has used the strongest surviving part of the act [Section 2] to strike down a state’s voter-identification law, and, in the process, has set out a detailed road map for upcoming challenges to similar laws around the country.

Voting-RightsSupporters of these laws insist they are necessary to prevent fraud at the polls, though such fraud is basically nonexistent. The real point is to deter from the polls significant numbers of Democratic voters, particularly minorities and the poor.

That was the heart of the reasoning by Judge Lynn Adelman of Federal District Court in Milwaukee, who issued an extraordinarily thorough 90-page ruling on Tuesday invalidating Wisconsin’s voter-ID law as a harmful solution in search of an imaginary problem. The law was passed by a Republican-controlled statehouse in 2011 and required that a prospective voter present a government-issued photo ID, like a driver’s license or passport.

“Virtually no voter impersonation occurs in Wisconsin, and it is exceedingly unlikely that voter impersonation will become a problem in Wisconsin in the foreseeable future,” the judge wrote.

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Tim Carpenter

PDA National Director Tim Carpenter Dies: Progressives Push ‘Forward’

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Tim Carpenter
Tim Carpenter speaking at Progressive Central, outside the DNC in Charlotte, 2012.

The New Progressive Era lost a giant with the passing of Tim Carpenter on Monday, following a protracted battle with cancer.

As co-founder and National Director of Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), Tim was a force of nature. His energy and determination were contagious. He lit the room with his larger-than-life personality and his jolly smile. Tim was my friend, my mentor, and my comrade in the fight for economic and social justice in the United States and the world. Along with 1000s of PDA members nationwide, I will miss him.

I first met Tim in February 2011. It was a dark time in Arizona. Democrats were downtrodden following the 2010 “shellacking” the Teapublicans gave us in the midterm election. Arizona Republicans had won control of  our entire state government. Tucson was reeling from the recent shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords at a north side Safeway. And the Arizona Democratic Party was controlled by the No Labels Republican-Lite faction.

At the inaugural meeting of PDA Tucson,Tim’s fiery speech about progressive values and the way forward gave us hope.

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Voter ID ‘unconstitutional’ in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania

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Rick Hasen at Electionlawblog breaks down the Voter ID case in Wisconsin, which included a Section 2 Voting Rights Act enforcement claim. Breaking News: Federal District Court Strikes Wisconsin Voter ID in ACLU Case:
gavel

Here are my initial thoughts on Frank v. Walker, in which a federal district court held that Wisconsin’s voter id law both violates the Constitution and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act:

1. This is about the best possible opinion that opponents of voter identification laws could have hoped for. It is heavy on both facts and on law.  It is thoughtful and well written. It finds that a voter id law serves neither an anti-fraud purposes (because “virtually no voter impersonation occurs in Wisconsin and it is exceedingly unlikely that voter impersonation will become a problem in Wisconsin in the foreseeable future”) nor voter confidence purposes. It finds that it burdens lots of voters (up to 300,000) voters. It finds these burdens fall especially on Black and Latino voters and that the reason is does is poverty, which is itself the result of prior legal discrimination.It enjoins enforcement of the law for everyone, and expresses considerable doubt that the Wisconsin legislature could amend the law to make it constitutional.  It is about as strong a statement as one might imagine as to the problems the voter id law.

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Migtants

Migration Policy Institute Report Clears the Way for Evolution of Deportation Policy

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MigtantsFrom the National Day Laborer Organizing Network…

Today, the Migration Policy Institute issued a new report, The Deportation Dilemma, that helps shed light on unprecedented deportations and criminal prosecution of immigrants.   In recent weeks, as the President hit the inauspicious milestone of 2 million deportations, there has been considerable confusion about the characteristic of deportations.  Former acting ICE director John Sandweg’s comments that “run of the mill immigrants” aren’t getting deported has been belied by hunger strikers on the White House lawn and called into question given explosive allegations that he doctored an Inspector General report to cover up misrepresentations about deportation policy made to Congress.

The MPI report attempts to shed light on this debate through detailed data analysis, and its findings open the opportunity for executive action to strengthen discretion and reduce the harm of outdated existing laws.

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For DREAMers, Fred DuVal for Governor

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DREAmactThe Arizona Republic today takes a look at the gubernatorial candidates’ position on Governor Jan Brewer’s 2012 executive order banning an Arizona driver’s license to the children of undocumented immigrants aka the DREAMers, in response to President Barack Obama’s deferred-action program, which allows undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children to get work permits and remain in the country for up to two years without fear of deportation.

Thousands of U.S. citizens and legal immigrants have also been inconvenienced by the unforeseen consequences of Gov. Brewer’s 2012 executive order  aimed at keeping young undocumented immigrants from getting drivers licenses. ‘Dreamer’ license ban affects citizens.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in Arizona Dream Act Coalition, et al. v. Janice Brewer, et al., the case challenging Brewer’s executive order in December. Brewer can’t defend her denial of driver’s licenses to Dreamers. A decision is pending.

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