Engelbrecht of True the Vote Testifying at Confirmation Hearing for AG Nominee Lynch
Should be interesting. … Continue reading
Category Archives: Department of Justice
“Texas Matters: Could Texas Be ‘Bailed In’ The VRA?”
TPR reports. … Continue reading
“Loretta Lynch on Voting Rights, Terror Trials and the Press”
Mike Sacks for BLT. … Continue reading
“The Supreme Court’s Gerrymandering Conundrum: Did Alabama legislators redraw district lines to hurt Democrats or to disenfranchise black voters?”
I have written this new piece for Slate. It begins: As Democrats struggled last week to salvage control of the Senate, they pushed to get as many black voters to the polls as possible, especially in the South. It’s no wonder: … Continue reading
“Justice Department To Monitor Tuesday’s Elections In 18 States”
Chris Geidner reports for BuzzFeed. … Continue reading
“What’s Ahead in Texas Voter ID Battle”
Tim Eaton for the Austin-American Statesman: Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott won the most recent round in the fight to require voters to show valid photo identification to cast ballots, but a potentially much bigger fight looms beyond Tuesday. Abbott’s … Continue reading
“Devising a Standard for Section 3: Post-Shelby County Voting Rights Litigation”
Roseann Romano, adding to a growing list of important student notes on bail-in, for the Iowa Law Review: In response to the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which dismantled the modern voting rights enforcement regime by declaring … Continue reading
President Obama Talks Voting Rights and Fraud With Jeffrey Toobin
A part of this fascinating New Yorker piece: The subject of voting rights has largely been thrust upon Obama by a conservative judiciary. “You look at something like the Voting Rights Act, which was uncontroversial from a legal point of … Continue reading
AG Holder on Texas and Voter ID
Of course, this was from this morning. … Continue reading
“Rethinking District of Columbia Venue in Voting Rights Preclearance Actions”
Michael Solimine has written this Essay for the Georgetown Law Journal. Here is the beginning: In Shelby County v. Holder the Supreme Court held that the preclearance provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) was unconstitutional as presently constituted. Section 5 of the … Continue reading
“Remarks by Attorney General Eric Holder at the Congressional Black Caucus Panel Discussion on Voting Rights”
A snippet: As you’re discussing, through the unrelenting efforts of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division – under the leadership of Acting Assistant Attorney General Molly Moran, from whom you’ll be hearing this afternoon – my colleagues and I are … Continue reading
“Issa accuses Holder spokesman of attempting to ‘conspire’ with Democrats on IRS documents”
WaPo: Attorney General Eric Holder’s communications director is being accused of calling the House Oversight Committee Republican staff and asking for help spinning a story. The twist? The GOP staff alleges that Holder’s spokesman thought he was talking to the … Continue reading
“Texas Voter ID Trial Begins”
Bloomberg reports. … Continue reading
“Testimony Begins in Trial Over Texas Voter ID Law”
The Texas Tribune reports. … Continue reading
More on Texas’s Argument DOJ Too Partisan to Enforce Voting Rights Act
In an earlier post, I noted this filing of the state of Texas in the voter id case (particularly pages 13-23), raising an affirmative defense to DOJ’s claims that Texas’s voter id law violates section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and … Continue reading
Texas’s Unusual Defense in Voter ID Case: DOJ is Too Partisan
A reader alerted me to this filing of the state of Texas in the voter id case (particularly pages 13-23), raising an affirmative defense to DOJ’s claims that Texas’s voter id law violates section 2 of the Voting Rights Act … Continue reading
“North Carolina Becomes Latest Casualty of Supreme Court Voting Rights Act Decision”
Ari Berman writes for The Nation. … Continue reading
“U.S. judge declines to stop North Carolina’s election law changes”
Reuters reports. … Continue reading
“Judge Backs New Limits On North Carolina Voting”
Richard Fausset reports for the NYT. My earlier analysis is here. … Continue reading
“Eric Holder goes to the mat for voting rights”
Zachary Roth reports for MSNBC. … Continue reading
“U.S. Attorney General Holder to Rick Scott: We’re watching you”
Tampa Bay Times: “U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder sent a scathing letter to Gov. Rick Scott over voting changes in Florida and issued a warning that the Justice Department is “carefully monitoring” the state.” … Continue reading
Molly Moran to Be Acting Head of DOJ Civil Rights Division
HuffPo: The staff of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division gathered this morning in their fifth floor conference room — J. Edgar Hoover’s former office — for an “all hands” meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder, who announced that his current … Continue reading
“Eric Holder Takes Voting Rights Battle to Ohio, Wisconsin”
WSJ reports. … Continue reading
“Voter ID’s last stand: let’s finally declare laws what they are – racist on purpose”
Ana Marie Cox Guardian column. … Continue reading
“Obama admin to join voting rights cases in Ohio and Wisconsin”
MSNBC: “It’s not clear from Holder’s comments whether the Justice Department intends simply to file amicus briefs in support of the laws’ challengers, or whether it plans to intervene as a new plaintiff—and assign government lawyers to the cases—as it did … Continue reading
AG Holder Says DOJ Likely to File Voting Suits Against Ohio and Wisconsin
Kind of a surprise buried in this ABC News report: In addition, Holder took Republicans to task for efforts to, among other things, enact voter ID laws in some states. He called such moves “political efforts” aimed at making it … Continue reading
“Attorney General Holder Suggests New Proposal to Boost Voting Access for American Indians and Alaska Natives”
DOJ press release. … Continue reading
Another Guilty Plea in a Straw Donors Case
This one in Ohio. … Continue reading
“Texas Ordered to Disclose Legislative Docs in Voting Case”
Legal Times reports. … Continue reading
“House Republicans Look For Justice Department Role in IRS Controversy”
Legal Times reports. … Continue reading
Politifact Rates as “Half-True” the President’s Statement that The U.S. Justice Department has “taken on more than 100 voting rights cases since 2009″
Here. … Continue reading
“Eric Holder declines Ted Cruz’s request for special prosecutor in IRS case”
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
DOJ Shifts Voting Section Priorities after Shelby County Guts Section 5
From DOJ’s budget submission to Congress (p. 44): Because of the Shelby County case, the Voting Section’s work will necessarily shift to greater affirmative efforts to detect and investigate voting practices that violate federal law, to more affirmative litigation to … Continue reading
Philly Inquirer Goes Deep into Senate Opposition Fight Against Debo Adegbile
Here. … Continue reading
“Obama Civil Rights Nominee Knew He Was Doomed But Wanted Debate, Harry Reid Says”
HuffPo: During a Thursday sitdown with reporters, Reid said that Adegbile, a respected civil rights lawyer who previously led the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, met privately with Reid and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) for nearly … Continue reading
Why Did Democrats Bring Up Adegbile for Vote without Accurate Whip Count?
Updated NYT account: But it was the votes of seven Democratic senators to reject Mr. Adegbile that doomed the nomination despite what White House officials described as a sustained closed-door effort by Mr. Obama and his top aides to save … Continue reading
“Harkin: DOJ Civil Rights Nominee Would Have Been Confirmed If He Was White”
HuffPo reports. I have no doubt about that. … Continue reading
Andrew Cohen Ably Makes the Race Case in the Adegbile Debacle
Here. … Continue reading
“One Hour After Opposing Top Voting Rights Lawyer, Senator Fundraises Off Voting Rights”
Think Progress. … Continue reading
Lithwick on Adegbile
Must-read. The only thing I think missing from this is the relevance of Mr. Adegbile’s race in all of this—that may be just as significant as the “cop-killing” meme. ANOTHER GREAT READ from Jesse Wegman. … Continue reading
NYT on the Adegbile Vote
Here. … Continue reading
Breaking: Debo Adegbile Nomination Fails in the Senate
The Adegbile defeat to be DOJ civil rights head shows you how scared Ds are of losing the Senate. And how powerful the Abu-Jamal cop-killer narrative might be against them. … Continue reading
Debo Adegbile Nomination to DOJ Civil Rights Post May Be in Trouble
WaPo: Once considered the world’s best-known death row inmate, Abu-Jamal has written books from his prison cell, had his cause championed by prominent civil rights advocates including Cornel West and Desmond Tutu, and had a street in Paris named in … Continue reading
DOJ Changes Its Page Describing Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act
On February 17 I noted that the DOJ page on Section 5 gave no indication that Shelby County had been decided and that section 5 was no longer being enforced against previously covered jurisdictions. The page has now been updated, … Continue reading
“Prominent Defenders for Nominee to Head Civil Right Division”
NLJ on Debo Adegbile. … Continue reading
New Investigation of DOJ Civil Rights Division Coming?
Ryan Reilly: “Omnibus requires #DOJ IG to spend $1 million on independent review of Civil Rights Division. http://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20140113/CPRT-113-HPRT-RU00-h3547-hamdt2samdt_xml.pdf …“ … Continue reading
“Record Could Hinder Confirmation Of Civil Rights Nominee”
Carrie Johnson on the Debo Adegbile nomination. … Continue reading
Three Orders in Texas Redistricting Cases
One grant of atty’s fees; one denying interim attorney’s fees; and one concerning legislative.privilege in the ongoing litigation. … Continue reading
“Civil Rights Division Nominee Praised, Questioned in Senate”
BLT reports on Debo Adegbile confirmation hearing today in the Senate. … Continue reading
Debo Adegbile Confirmation Hearing Wednesday
Notice. … Continue reading