Monday, March 18, 2013

Justice Department’s inspector general report: Is the Voting Rights section too politically biased and polarized to enforce the Voting Rights Act? - Slate Magazine

A long-awaited report from the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General issued last week sheds considerable light on the battles within the department’s voting section during the Bush and Obama administrations. The picture is not pretty. It is a tale of dysfunction and party polarization that could unfairly derail the nomination of the next secretary of labor and could even provide ammunition to Justice Antonin Scalia’s incendiary charge, made during the Supreme Court’s hearing on the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act last month, that the civil rights law is a kind of “racial entitlement.” The sordid business raises serious questions about whether the whole model for the federal enforcement of voting rights should be reworked.

The record of political bias in the Justice Department’s voting section during President George W. Bush’s administration is well-known. (The department’s voting section is charged with enforcing the Voting Rights Act and other federal voting laws.) We know from earlier reports that election officials, including Monica Goodling, went on a hiring binge to hire conservative attorneys to work in the section and, in the words of Bush appointee Bradley Schlozman, to “gerrymander all those crazy libs right out of the section.” We know that senior Justice Department officials in the Bush era, including Hans von Spakovsky, overruled the recommendations of career civil-service attorneys in the section to approve Georgia’s controversial voter identification law. And we know that the Justice Department during the Bush era made decisions widely perceived to help Republicans, such as approving Texas’s mid-decade re-redistricting of its congressional seats to create more safe Republican seats, an effort partially overturned by the Supreme Court after finding it violated the Voting Rights Act.

But less well-known are the charges by conservatives that the voting rights section under the Obama administration has been just as biased in its hiring and decision-making—including charges that the Justice Department wrongfully dropped a case of voter intimidation against members of the New Black Panthers Party during the 2008 election because the perpetrators were African-American; that the department handled Freedom of Information Act requests from liberals more quickly and efficiently than those from conservatives; and that conservatives were disfavored in hiring and promotion by the new bosses, including the head of the civil rights division, Thomas Perez, who President Obama nominated Monday to serve as the next secretary of labor.

Justice Department’s inspector general report: Is the Voting Rights section too politically biased and polarized to enforce the Voting Rights Act? - Slate Magazine

102-Year-Old Florida Voter Criticizes Scalia Over 'Racial Entitlement' Comment | TPM LiveWire

Desiline Victor, the 102-year-old Florida woman whom President Obama singled out in his State of the Union Address for waiting hours in line to vote last November, sent a letter to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia criticizing his characterization of the Voting Rights act as a "racial entitlement," the Huffington Post reported.

"Justice Scalia, the Voting Rights Act is not a racial entitlement," Victor wrote in her March 12 letter. "It is an important protection that helps all Americans exercise their right to vote. It was put in place because, sadly, there are people in this country who don’t want everyone to have an equal voice at the ballot box."

HuffPo has the full letter.

102-Year-Old Florida Voter Criticizes Scalia Over 'Racial Entitlement' Comment | TPM LiveWire

Scalia And Sotomayor Clash In Proof-Of-Citizenship Voting Case | TPMDC

Justices Antonin Scalia and Sonia Sotomayor clashed Monday during Supreme Court oral arguments about whether states may require residents to submit proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. The outcome of the case is uncertain as the justices appeared narrowly divided.

The case involves an Arizona law adopted in 2004 that requires proof of citizenship prior to registering to vote (Prop 200). Challengers argue that it should be struck down because it violates a 1993 federal law (the National Voter Registration Act) requiring states to accept a registration form that lets most voters register to vote when renewing their drivers licenses or applying for social services, simply by attesting under oath that they are citizens.

Much as they did weeks ago during arguments over the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act, the two justices on Monday each led the charge on opposite sides of the case — Scalia for less federal involvement in states’ ability to set their voting laws, and Sotomayor for broad national authority to protect peoples’ right to vote.

Sotomayor’s opening volley began immediately after Arizona Attorney General Thomas C. Horne stepped up to defend his state’s law. She fired off a series of questions, which she would continue asking in different flavors throughout his argument, about inconsistencies between Arizona’s Prop 200 and the NVRA.

“Many people don’t have the documents that Arizona requires,” Sotomayor said, asking Horne why he thinks Congress would have required states to accept a voter registration form if states can then turn around and require additional information like a passport or birth certificate.

“Why isn’t that just creating another form?” she demanded. Arizona, she said, may object to the fact that proof of citizenship isn’t required, but “that’s what Congress decided.”

“I have a huge difficulty — great difficulty” with Arizona’s view that proof of citizenship would not be a burdensome addition to the NVRA form, Sotomayor said. She argued that voter registration efforts would be damaged by such a requirement, which is exactly what Congress intended to prevent. “I have a real big disconnect with this.”

Scalia set his marker early in the argument, openly lamenting that Arizona did not launch a more sweeping challenge to the validity of the NVRA, arguing that Congress may not prohibit states from seeing proof of the eligibility of a voter prior to registering him or her.

“Why didn’t you challenge the form?” Scalia asked Arizona’s attorney general. “That’s my problem with this. … Why didn’t you do that?”

When Horne responded that that was the decision of his predecessor, not him, Scalia followed up, “Why didn’t he do that?” The audience in the courtroom laughed. Scalia again pressed Horne on whether his predecessor should have asked to include proof of citizenship in the NVRA form. “Is this the kind of thing you should have had?”

The conservative jurist wasn’t convinced requiring people to attest under oath was sufficient.

“So it’s under oath — big deal,” Scalia said, arguing that voters willing to violate voting laws may also be willing to violate perjury laws. He posited that only “a very low number” of voters would be harmed by a requirement to submit proof of citizenship.

Sotomayor and Scalia’s strong, opposing views gave way to one of the lighter moments of the proceedings. Sotomayor remarked that “one of my colleagues” doesn’t believe in using legislative history in jurisprudence. When Scalia motioned to himself, the audience broke into laughter. “Did he point to himself? she asked. When she finished speaking, Scalia retorted, “If I believed in legislative history I would find that very persuasive.” More laughter.

Sotomayor received a strong assist from fellow Obama appointee, Justice Elena Kagan, who said Prop 200 “essentially creates new requirements, and a new form.” Scalia was backed by several pointed questions from Justice Samuel Alito to the challengers’ lawyers.

Horne said Arizona is abiding by the form but believes that it’s “not exclusive” in that it does not preclude states from taking additional steps to verify a person’s eligibility to vote. The lawyer for the challengers, Patricia A. Miller, retorted that it would be “an utterly pointless form” if states could supplement it with added burdens. Sri Srinivasan, Deputy U.S. Solicitor General, also argued on behalf of the challengers against Arizona.

SAHIL KAPUR

Sahil Kapur is a congressional reporter for TPM. He previously covered politics and public policy for numerous publications including The Guardian and The Huffington Post. He can be reached at sahil [at] talkingpointsmemo.com.