Civil & Human Rights

Democrats’ 50 state voting rights project

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday Dems
fire back in voting wars:

Last week, operatives tied to the Democratic Legislative Campaign
Committee launched what they call a 50-state initiative to promote
voting reforms that would make it easier to cast a ballot. [See Voting Rights Project.] The effort is
being run by American Values First, an outside group organized under
Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code and run by Michael
Sargeant, the DLCC’s executive director. Democrats will push legislation
similar to a Colorado measure signed into law earlier this year that
requires all elections to be conducted by mail.

Legislators in at least seven other states will propose bills that
would tweak election laws in other ways. In some states controlled by
Democrats, the measures have a good chance to pass. In other states with
divided control or that operate under Republican control, Democrats
plan to use the measures as political cudgels, painting the GOP as
opposed to basic voting rights.

The man who would kill comprehensive immigration reform

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Steve Benen reports Key House Republican looks to kill immigration reform:

GoodlatteHouse Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) rejected comprehensive reform in February, but left himself some wiggle room ever since.

That is, until yesterday.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) didn't breed much optimism on Monday about
his plans for comprehensive immigration reform, telling a town hall
crowd that the House would act, but not on a "special pathway to
citizenship" that Democrats support. […]

Goodlatte said he sympathized with young undocumented immigrants who
wanted to gain legal status so they can work and attend college more
easily. But he said he would not support moving forward before other
border security and enforcement mechanisms were in place. He said he
also opposes allowing a special pathway to citizenship for other
undocumented immigrants — such as Dreamers' parents — that he feared
may encourage more unauthorized immigration.

‘North Carolina’s new voter suppression law shows why the Voting Rights Act is still necessary’

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Professor Richard L.
Hasen is Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Political Science at the
University of California, Irvine. Hasen is a nationally recognized
expert in election law and campaign finance regulation, and is co-author
of a leading casebook on election law. He is editor of the Election Law Blog.

Hasen writes at Slate today that "North Carolina’s new voter suppression law shows why the Voting Rights Act is still necessary." Supreme Error:

Usually it takes years to judge when the Supreme Court gets something very wrong. Think of Justice Kennedy’s opinion for the court in the 2010 campaign-finance case, Citizens United,
freeing corporations to spend money on elections. He wrote that the
“appearance of [corporate] influence or access will not cause the
electorate to lose faith in our democracy,” a point that remains hotly
debated even as the amount of money in federal elections skyrockets.

But the conservative justices’ decision this past June in Shelby County v. Holder, striking down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, has already unleashed in North Carolina the most restrictive voting law we’ve seen since the 1965 enactment of the VRA. Texas is restoring its voter ID law
which had been blocked (pursuant to the VRA) by the federal government.
And more is to come in other states dominated by Republican
legislatures.

The VoteRiders Voter ID Clinics Project

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I participated in a discussion the other day about the GOP war on voting, and one of the issues that came up was voter ID. There is quite literally no need for voter ID at the polls — impersonation of a voter at the polls is virtually non-existent — but the conservative media entertainment complex has won the propaganda war on this issue with the simple message that "you have to show ID for just about everything else." (Your right to vote is a constitutional right, it is not on par with commercial transactions).

My recommendation was that having lost the propaganda war on this issue, while continuing to litigate this issue in court, political parties, civil rights advocacy organizations, voting rights advocacy organizations, the League of Women Voters, etc. should begin a program now to help individuals who lack the proper documents they need to obtain a state-sanctioned voter ID to get the documents they need to vote. Time is of the essence.

Rick Hasen posts at his electionlawblog.com about VoteRiders:

I’ve been hearing from a lot of people asking me for suggestions on
what to do to counter some of the new strict voting rules that are being
enacted into law in North Carolina, Texas, and elsewhere.  I’ve been
sending folks to check out VoteRiders and their Voter ID clinics.

Litigation against some of these harsh voting laws is likely to be
only partially successful; efforts like VoteRiders’ are going to be
necessary in a lot of places.

The GOP war on voting in North Carolina

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Washington Post editorial board, which in no way can be mistaken for liberal, condemned North Carolina's "draconian" new voter suppression law today in a damning editorial opinion. North Carolina law takes war on voting rights to a new low:

IN THE wake of the Supreme Court’s
Shelby v. Holder
 decision, which gutted significant portions
of the Voting Rights Act, it’s difficult to say which of the many
recently passed voter-suppression bills constitutes the greatest threat
to that most sacred of American freedoms: the right to vote. The contest
has several leading contenders, but the winner just might be North
Carolina’s especially draconian bill, signed into law on Monday.

The bill includes the usual provisions that have come to
characterize the quiet assault on the franchise: a shortened
early-voting period, the elimination of the state’s successful same-day
registration program and, of course, a strict photo identification
requirement despite any evidence of voter fraud in the state.

What makes this law unique is how much further it goes. It includes no fewer than 12 extra provisions
that prohibit such things as counties extending polling hours by one
hour in the event of unusual circumstances (such as, say, long lines);
provisional voting should someone, say, mistakenly go to the wrong
precinct; and pre-registration for 16- and 17-year-olds, who could
previously register to vote before they turned 18.