Despite a Supreme Court ruling that gutted a key part of the Voting Rights Act, Attorney General Eric Holder wants a court to use another section of the 1965 law to require Texas to get the federal government's approval before changing its voting laws. Without a doubt, the DOJ is now an arm of the DNC and pivotal to Obama’s long-term Progressive agenda!!
Texas Public Radio (NPR) - by Tailgunner Joe: In the war over the right to vote in the U.S., the Justice Department's choice of Texas as the battleground for its first legal action following the Supreme Court's weakening of the Voting Rights Act has a feeling of inevitability.
Texas, as its natives are always boasting, is exceptional. And that's certainly true in this sense: It has the largest Hispanic population of all the states previously required to get the federal government's approval before changing voting practices.
And Latinos are not only one of the fastest-growing groups in the U.S. but one whose political allegiance tilts heavily toward Democrats. Indeed, as we've reported here at (federally funded) NPR, if Texas goes from being a red to a blue state in coming decades, it will be largely due to the growing numbers of Latino voters.
However… Latinos might just surprise the Democrats and America in general in the long term. Latinos tend to be Catholic and their basic value system tends to be more in line with the GOP or conservative thinking than with the Dems, especially with the Progressives who now control the Democrat party. After the dust settles on immigration, many Latinos may find that the GOP or even a future more socially and fiscally conservative party suits them better in the long run. One must only listen to New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez’s story to realize that. What is the old saying about not counting your chickens before they are hatched…
Some of the highlights of Susana’s speech was when she talked about how she carried, and can shoot a .357 magnum, when she worked as a security guard for her parent’s business… a business that “they built” on hard work. And then she talked about going to lunch with her husband and some Republicans before deciding to throw her hat in the ring to run for office, where they talked issues not parties… After the meeting she said, “We got in the car and I looked over at Chuck and I said, "I’ll be damned. We are Republicans.” She is now the first Hispanic female Governor in the United States… a Republican. See her full RNC Convention speech HERE: New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez addresses the 2012 Republican National Convention
But for now, our eyes need to be on 2014 mid-term elections!! AM~
The Lone Star State, which caught the Justice Department's attention with a voter ID law that the federal government stopped from going into effect in 2012, was quick on the draw after the Supreme Court's ruling last month, which largely defanged the 1965 law.
After the ruling, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said the state would move forward ASAP with its redistricting plans.
Given all that, why not make Texas the first state to be challenged by the Justice Department under what remains of its enforcement powers under the Voting Rights Act?
A month ago, Attorney General Eric Holder foreshadowed the lawsuit, which he announced Thursday at the National Urban League conference in Philadelphia.
Just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court released its Shelby County v. Holder opinion, Holder said the administration would use "every legal tool that remains available to us."
The Justice Department is now asking a federal court in Texas to require the state to get pre-clearance for changes to voting laws under a section of the Voting Rights Act that wasn't at issue in the Supreme Court ruling.
And while Texas is up first, states like North Carolina, Florida and Louisiana just had the equivalent of a shot fired across their bows.
Rick Hasen, one of the nation's leading election law experts and a professor of law and political science at the University of California School of Law, Irvine, called the Justice Department move a "big deal" in a post on his "Election Law Blog."
It means that DOJ is going to move aggressively to try to restore what it can of the preclearance regime the Supreme Court effectively gutted in its Shelby County decision. Covering Texas would be a big deal, but it is nowhere near what existed before Shelby County. If the three-judge court goes along, the issue could well end up back before the Supreme Court, perhaps even this coming term, to possibly kill what remains of preclearance.
The Justice Department now invites the possibility of another Supreme Court voting-rights decision, which could go against it, Hasen suggests. But the Supreme Court didn't leave the administration a lot of options.
So it sued Texas, a move which also pits the Democratic Obama administration against the keystone of red-state America, the home to some of the nation's best-known conservative politicians, like once and perhaps future presidential candidate Gov. Rick Perry.
Perry issued a statement accusing the Justice Department of attempting an "end run" around the Supreme Court.
On Thursday Abbott, who's running for governor, tweeted: "I'll fight #Obama's effort to control our elections & I'll fight against cheating at ballot box." The "cheating" remark was an allusion to new voter ID restrictions the state plans to implement that previously would have needed the feds to sign off on.
Perry's and Abbott's reactions should galvanize Republicans; the Obama administration's actions will do the same to the Democratic base.
The federal lawsuit clearly gives the administration fresh ammunition to argue that Democrats, not Republicans, seek Latino political empowerment.
In its legal filings, the Justice Department joined the Texas House of Representatives' Mexican American Legislative Caucus among other parties in the lawsuit. That's not to say Justice Department officials weren't operating from what they viewed as pure motives. But the practical political benefits couldn't be ignored.
Administration critics saw the legal action as little more than a cynical political power play.
J. Christian Adams, a conservative who worked in the Justice Department's voting-rights section, took this view. He wrote:
This announcement is all about the midterm elections. Obama wants the House back, and the Justice Department is again being turned into a political weapon using the cloak of civil rights. This has become the new civil rights model. Because Democratic interests are so perfectly aligned with the civil rights establishment — in no small measure because of extreme bloc voting by American blacks — the DOJ is now an arm of the DNC.
Related:
GOP attorney says ruling on Voting Rights Act should require AZ redistricting
Federal judge rails against Louisiana Legislature, says will allow Baton Rouge voting rights case
North Carolina GOP eyes changes in state voter ID laws
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