Happy Thursday,
For the four years that Donald Trump was president, the Department of Justice (DoJ) did little to enforce America’s federal voting rights laws – though it’s the federal agency with the most power to do so. The department’s voting section, which is well-staffed with some of the best voting rights attorneys in the country, got involved in almost no cases. And when they did get involved in major cases in Texas and Ohio, the department chose to defend voting restrictions.
“It just seems like there’s nobody home, which is tragic,” William Yeomans, a former DoJ official, told me back in June.
That’s set to change in a big way.
Last month, Joe Biden nominated Vanita Gupta and Kristen Clarke, two longtime civil rights lawyers, to top positions at the justice department.
Gupta, who previously led the civil rights division, is Biden’s pick to be the associate attorney general, the number three official at the department.
Clarke is Biden’s pick to lead the civil rights division, and would be the first Black woman to hold that role if she is confirmed. Over the last four years, she has been one of the people most raising alarm that DoJ wasn’t doing enough to enforce voting rights.
Reminder–> This Justice Dept. hasn’t brought a SINGLE case under the Voting Rights Act despite the era of widespread voter suppression that we face across the country.
— Kristen Clarke (@KristenClarkeJD) August 19, 2019
I am not aware of a single Voting Rights Act case brought by this administration under AG Jeff Sessions.
Secy Wilbur Ross’ claim that a citizenship question on the #2020Census is needed to help with VRA enforcement is as false as it is laughable.https://t.co/jcp5gGjFh7
— Kristen Clarke (@KristenClarkeJD) March 29, 2018
New priorities
Civil rights activists and former department officials this week said they expected more aggressive enforcement on policing and voting rights, among other issues (in a sign of how quickly priorities are changing, DoJ withdrew a case challenging affirmative action policies at Yale on Wednesday). There are probably a stack of cases that have been pending in the pipeline that could be near ready to file, Bryan Sells, a former justice department attorney, told me last week.
“You’re going to have someone in that office that really wants to make sure that the division to use the powers it has to enforce the voting rights laws,” said Ezra Rosenberg, co-director of the Voting Rights Project at the Lawyers’ Committee.
Cautious optimism
But don’t expect a quick change and a new flurry of cases. The justice department picks its cases carefully, and unlike outside civil rights groups that often file groundbreaking cases, the department is much more conservative. The lawyers at the justice department are also facing a federal judiciary that is much more conservative than it was four years ago after Donald Trump appointed an unprecedented number of judges. That could also affect the calculus in choosing what cases to bring. Much of the voting section’s work has traditionally been reviewing cases submitted under section five of the Voting Rights Act – a provision that was gutted by the US supreme court in 2013.
Still, advocates say it will be refreshing to once again have an ally in the justice department.
“It’s going to be really important and energizing and exciting to be able to be in conversation and discussion with people who understand the department’s role in civil rights enforcement,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “But it’s also going to be exciting, and as a matter of resources, to have the department actually do civil rights enforcement.”
Also worth watching …
I was struck by a story in the Advocate that highlighted a library board in Lafayette, Louisiana, that rejected a $2,700 grant for voting rights programming over concerns some of the speakers were too “far left”. The board apparently wanted the library to find someone to present the other side of the issue.
Thirty-one counties in Florida agreed to provide Spanish-language election materials, including ballots and lawsuits as part of a settlement in a federal lawsuit. In 2018, civil rights groups sued 32 counties in the state, arguing they were failing to comply with a provision of the Voting Rights Act that guarantees access to the ballot for non-English speakers. The groups filed the lawsuit after a surge in Puerto Rican immigrants to Florida following Hurricane Maria. The one county that didn’t settle was Charlotte county in south-west Florida.
Arkansas Republicans are advancing a measure that would eliminate a part of the state’s voter ID law that allows people to vote without ID if they sign an affidavit. These affidavit provisions are often included in voter ID laws as a safeguard to prevent people from being disenfranchised.
Missouri Republicans are also advancing a new voter ID measure, citing “questions”about the 2020 election.
Wisconsin election officials are seeing the sky high turnout from last year’s election carry over to 2021 contests that are typically lower profile. On election official in Madison said they’ve already sent out 20,000 absentee ballots so far.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
