Iowa Republicans Want Signature Match as New Qualification to Vote

State Republican parties now backed by Donald Trump are
giddy about possibilities of voter suppression. See NYT:
"In a reality-based world, people bringing wild claims
of widespread lawbreaking should carry
the burden of proof. With voter fraud, it’s
the opposite — fact-averse Republicans have for years been
hawking the idea of large-scale voter fraud and then daring
others to do the real work of proving them wrong."

Republicans in Iowa do not want you at the polls.

Comes a report by William Petroski of the Des Moines Register on an innovative way to suppress the vote of the black and brown, disabled and young, introduced last week in the Iowa legislature, (House Study Bill 93, the "Election Integrity Act").

Iowa Republicans and only Republicans want a signature match as a condition to cast a vote.

The idea is this layer of qualification to vote will help weed out undesirables from the polls.

Iowa currently has a strong, affirmative Constitutional right to vote, (Article II - Suffrage, Iowa Constitution).

Iowa's neighbor, Wisconsin' may be looking to its neighbor to its southwest as Scott Walker and Wisconsin Republicans do not think of voter suppression ideas themselves.

Coming to Wisconsin?

From Petroski:

House Study Bill 93, labeled the 'Election Integrity Act,' has been proposed by Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, a Republican.

Pate said his plan will modernize Iowa’s elections technology by establishing electronic poll books in every Iowa precinct.  In addition, the bill calls for establishing a voter ID system with signature verification, absentee ballot verification and post-election audits.

Every registered voter who does not already own a driver’s license, non-driver’s ID, military ID, veterans ID, or passport, will receive a Voter ID card in the mail, automatically, Pate said. This will apply to newly registered voters as well.

Republicans will use any tool to keep non-Republicans from voting, all for the purported objectives of electoral integrity and defense against voter fraud.

Wisc Republicans Confuse Voter ID Path the Week Before Voting

As soon as ya free em, they'll start wanting free stuff

Voting rights activists should alert U.S. District Judge James Peterson fast about a new development in One Wisconsin Institute v. Thomsen.

If you're black or brown and don't have an ID, leave. That's the message the Scott Walker adminstration is delivering to minorities with help from local and state bureaucrats.

After being forced to provide a path, (under challenge in federal court), for citizens to obtain free IDs for voting, the Walker adminstration is trying to stop any side benefits of using the ID for identification purposes, (Marley, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel).

The new move, proposed by the Republican-led DMV, is intended to demean, frustrate and delegitimize minorities, the elderly, the disabled, and college-age adults.

'I just won't vote, too much hassle,' is the sentiment Republicans wish to induce in enough people to swing close elections. It's a tactical voter suppression scheme of a larger social engineering project.

The newly proposed Republican games come as U.S. District Judge James Peterson is hearing a major voting rights case and deciding whether this Republican-led state is sufficiently publicizing the path to obtaining new IDs and for those citizens rejected by the DMV, the ID Petition Process, (IDPP).

The case is One Wisconsin Institute v. Thomsen, (U.S. District Court of the Western District of Wisconsin (Case 15-cv-324)).

Wrote Judge Peterson: "IT IS ORDERED that, by September 22, 2016, defendants shall provide a thorough report to the court of the State’s efforts to inform the general public that receipts valid for voting are available to those who enter the IDPP, [ID Petition Process]."

Confusing Wisconsin citizens by publicizing a newly proposed scheme that would confuse the means to obtain IDs and limit the uses of IDs the week before voting begins surly is not what Peterson had in mind in his order mandating the state of Wisconsin inform the general public about the IDPP so no citizen is disenfranchised.

Voting rights activists should alert U.S. District Judge James Peterson fast about this new development in One Wisconsin Institute v. Thomsen.

Wisc DoJ Files Emergency Appeal to Permit Obstruction Laws for November Election

Wisconsin Republicans defend fig leafs, "efforts to disenfranchise voters likely to vote for the political party that does not control the state government," (Judge Richard Posner, Frank v. Walker; On Suggestion of Rehearing En Banc, Oct. 10, 2014), (Brad Friedman, (Mal Contends)

"Wisconsin’s voter ID law is part of 2011 Wis. Act 23, enacted the year after Wisconsin Republicans won the governorship and majorities in both houses of the legislature. Act 23 was the first of eight laws enacted over the next four years that transformed Wisconsin’s election system," writes Judge James D. Peterson in his sweeping July 29, 2016 opinion, (p. 2, One Wisconsin Now, Inc. v. Thomsen).

The Wisconsin election system transformation enacted by Wisconsin Republicans, and only Republicans, working to protect their elected offices by disenfranchising voters, is being attacked by voting rights workers and allied forces in federal court litigating for the foundational rights of Wisconsin citizens.

Two cases, Frank v. Walker and One Wisconsin Now. Inc. v. Thomsen, are being litigated at a torrential pace, comprising the most voluminous and grave Constitutional policymaking on voting rights Wisconsin has even seen, as the Sept 22 start date of Nov. Presidential Election voting approaches. As election law expert, Rick Hasen, noted about a 2014 flurry of Wisconsin litigation, "You don’t impose new requirements in the weeks before an election without adequate preparation which runs the serious risk of disenfranchising voters," referring the Purcell Principle.

Wisconsin's 2014 and 2012 general elections were heavily litigated but not like this year.

The Republican-enacted appellate unit at the Wisc Dept. of Justice—working torridly as its offices to defend voter obstruction laws—has developed into a legal war room for Republican voting obstruction efforts, (Mal Contends).

The latest news is the Wisconsin Dept of Justice's Emergency Appeal in One Wisconsin Now, Inc. v. Thomsen regarding what an Aug 12 DoJ press release calls "election logistics."

[Note: A judicial injunction is a court order. In the two Wisconsin voting rights cases, injunction may order a revision to, or a halting of enforcement of a law, or order the implementation of actions by officials regarding a law. A motion to stay is a request to halt proceedings and orders of a case. A motion to vacate is a request to revise, or overturn, (or lift) a judgement of a court.]

Here's is a link to the DoJ Aug 12 press release, and the DoJ Aug 12 Motion to Stay Judge Peterson's Aug 11 order denying a different DoJ motion to stay Peterson's July 29 injunction and his order and judgement.

For an excellent history of Wisconsin's voting war, see Ernest Canning's latest.
---
As noted at Mal in 2014, Ohio State Prof. Ned Foley raised critical Due Process Clause questions presented by the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit's stay of Judge Lynn Adelman's April 2014 injunction (April 29, 2014) of Wisconsin's Photo Voter ID law.

The Seventh Circuit's panel's changed the rules on Sept. 12 after 1,000s of residents had already cast their absentee ballots raising "severe due process claims," Foley offered after being reached by phone then.

Writes Foley in his article: "The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment has been properly interpreted to bar changes in the rules for counting ballots after they have been cast."

Here's the link to Foley's piece (brought to wide attention by Rick Hasen) that brought to the fore Due Process Clause concerns in 2014.

Now in 2016 we are 31 days out from the Sept 22 start of the Election Day balloting-mailing process, Sept 22 being the 47-day mark from Election Day mandated by Wisconsin statute, at which "official absentee ballot to each elector who has requested a ballot by mail" will be sent a ballot by Wisconsin election officials.

Wisconsin Women Fight for Right to Vote at Supreme Court

The Wisconsin Republican Party's new banner - 
Corrupt, centralized, authoritarian, statist and
bigoted regime

"(A)s a matter of law under the Wisconsin Constitution, sacrificing a qualified elector's right to vote is not a reasonable exercise of the government's prerogative to regulate elections. ... Where does the Wisconsin Constitution say that the government, we, the people, created can simply cast aside the inherent suffrage right of any qualified elector on the wish and promise—even the guarantee—that doing so serves to prevent some unqualified individuals from voting?"

It doesn't. In fact, it unequivocally says the opposite. The right to vote belongs to all Wisconsin citizens who are qualified electors, not just the fortunate majority for whom Act 23 poses little obstacle at the polls."
- Judge Richard Niess. Decision and Order Granting Summary Declaratory Judgment and Permanent Injunction of Wisconsin Voter ID law on March 12, 2012
---
Even as Ohio, Wisconsin, and other GOP-controlled states advance bills to make voting more difficult, the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin and allies head to the Wisconsin Supreme Court to fight for the right to vote against a voter obstruction law, Act 23 or the Photo Voter ID.

"We are confident that we have a strong case based on clear language in the state constitution, and we are proud that because of the injunctions, no citizen was disenfranchised by the voter law in five elections in 2012 and 2012," said Melanie G. Raney, president of the League.

The Wisconsin Constitution, Article III, Section 1 reads:  "Every United States citizen age 18 or older who is a resident of an election district in this state is a qualified elector of that district," an expansive guarantee to vote that has been under attack since Governor Scott Walker and the Republicans assumed control of the executive and legislative branches of Wisconsin government in 2011.

Wisconsin's Voter ID law remains enjoined by Wisconsin state courts. The state cases to be heard are League of Women Voters of Wisconsin v. Walker and Milwaukee Branch of the NAACP v. Walker.

Arguments as scheduled to be heard in the ornate Supreme Court room in the Madison state capitol at 9:45 A.M.; February 25. Court room doors open at 9:00 A.M.

WisconsinEye is tentatively scheduled to live stream the arguments on its website online, and on Charter Cable Channel 995 and Time Warner Channel 363.

A holding that Wisconsin's Voter ID law—that effectively denies the franchise to vote for many Wisconsin is constitutional were it not enjoined—would be a spectacular ruling that would bring outrage from the legal and civil rights communities now under political and legal assault.

The League case features a circuit court opinion that Act 23 is unconstitutional on its face, a ruling overturned by a state appellate panel in an opinion written by Judge Brian Blanchard. Voting advocates see this as no bad harbinger.

"(I)n a lengthy footnote, Judge Blanchard distinguished the (League facial challenge) case from another challenge to the law, filed by the NAACP and the immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera, that provides more extensive evidence that a voter ID requirement would "severely burden a significant number of qualified voters but is not reasonably necessitated or designed to deter fraud or otherwise effect an important government interest," notes Brendan Fisher at PRWatch.

Blanchard's opinion has been roundly criticized and likely will not figure into the legal resolution of the case, though Republicans often cite the opinion.

An increasingly partisan and Republican Legislative Reference Bureau improperly notes the League appellate opinion in added partisan spin in a half-baked annotation of the Wisconsin government's online state constitution's Suffrage section.

Even the published text of Wisconsin's Constitution is not safe from the Republicans' efforts to sanitize public documents of perceived anti-GOP bias. In this instance, the plain language of Wisconsin's expansive Suffrage (voting) guarantees.

The state cases are being heard as two federal cases are under deliberation in federal court.

A post-trial brief requesting a federal injunction has been filed after the trial of two consolidated cases arguing violations of the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act.

So even if a radical anti-voting ruling by the Wisconsin Supreme Court were to occur, it is likely that a federal injunction will be granted after the November 2013 federal trial that was a judicial rout of anti-voting forces.

"The credible evidence convincingly proved that Act 23 will impose harsh and widespread burdens on voters. Virtually all of the factual testimony - of Plaintiffs, other voters, non-parties who provide assistance to voters, as well as Defendants and state employees called adversely by  Plaintiffs - went essentially unchallenged by Defendants. All this evidence compels one conclusion:  Act 23 violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act ("VRA"), 42 U.S.C. 1973, and the Fourteenth and Twenty -Fourth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, and must be enjoined."

Frank v. Walker Post-trial brief challenging Wisconsin Voter ID Law. Act 23—passed with unanimous GOP support, unanimous Democratic opposition and unanimous opposition from civil rights and voting rights citizen groups.

In federal court last November, the ACLU and pro-voting attorneys were legal masters. The ACLU website describes the stakes:

"The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit charging that Wisconsin’s voter ID law is unconstitutional and will deprive citizens of their most fundamental constitutional right – the right to vote. Voter ID laws are the most common type of voter suppression legislation moving through state legislatures across the country as part of a nationwide attack on the right to vote."

Wisconsin 2014 Election Dates Geared to GOP as GOP Wages War on Voting

Big government is pretty big when it obstructs your right to even vote

College students will get an extra wrench thrown in the 2014 election as Scott Walker looks for that extra advantage that will get Walker the majority of the general election vote.

Add up all the GOP voter suppression efforts, and the GOP hopes this equals a victory in a close race.

Election dates in 2014 are being circulated now by municipal election clerks around the state.

The Fall Election Primary is being held August 12, instead of the traditional September, as most college students will not be moved in on August 12 for the Fall Semester, and therefore cannot register and vote, which will suppress the total college vote in the November 4 general elections. This is courtesy of the GOP which passed a law in 2011 moving the Fall primary date.

Every little bit of voter obstruction helps.

The GOP also passed legislation in 2011 that makes residency requirements 28 days, instead of 10 days.

This year the GOP wants to attack early voting, and force cities, towns and villages to stop all early voting on weekends and nights in an effort to obstruct voter registration and voting drives in Wisconsin cities.

The 2014 election dates are:

February 18 - Spring Election Primary

April 1 - Spring General Election

August 12 - Fall Election Primary

November 4 - Fall General Election

And the crown jewel of the GOP voter obstruction, Photo Voter ID, remains enjoined as violative of the Wisconsin Constitution, and faces a potentially landmark challenge in federal court as well.

Voting Rights Act Fix Stalled by GOP

I had a report of Rep. James Sensenbrenner meeting with a representative of the NAACP last month in an effort to fix the Voting Rights Act (VRA) that had been eviscerated by the Supreme Court's Shelby County v. Holder decision.

A new report by Emily Wilkins in the Dallas Morning News says an initiative by the Congressional Black Caucus is stalled by the GOP leadership.

So, why the silence from Sensenbrenner who styles himself (falsely) a champion of the VRA?

Because when it comes to a choice between GOP voter obstruction and voting rights, Sensenbrenner takes the voter obstruction every time.

Go ahead Sensenbrenner, prove me wrong and wage war with the House leadership over the VRA.

Target: Black People and Brown Hispanics in Campaigns 2014-16

Neo-NAZI Group Acts in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin
Gathering of Hispanics and Latinos in 2009

The Southern Strategy on steroids, with red meat thrown to the white working class, and dog whistles to the most extreme idiots in our union

As a lifetime civil right worker, I do wish this above headline were some kine of sick hyperbole.

It's not. Republican racial bigotry was awful this last campaign, but you have not seen anything yet.

It's the coming Republican electoral strategy to deny black people the sacred right to vote, and inflame racial tensions like we have never seen before in this country, and that is saying a lot.

It's only been six days since the infamous Shelby County v. Holder, (Voting Rights Act decision.)

As Jamelle Bouie notes: Just look at what's already happened since the [Voting Rights Act] decision was announced--the GOP is launching voter-suppression drives in six of the nine freshly liberated (southern) states," as Mike Tomasky points out.

Racism is a necessary Republican strategy for the GOP to hang on to power, it is believed by Sean Trende, a GOP strategist and pollster, and as Tomasky further points out, GOP racism is only going to get uglier.

Sean Trende, the conservative movement’s heavily asterisked answer to Nate Silver (that is to say, Silver got everything right, and Trende got everything wrong), came out with an analysis this week, headlined “Does GOP Have to Pass Immigration Reform?,” showing that by golly no, it doesn’t. You can jump over there yourself and study all his charts and graphs, but the long and short of it is something like this. Black turnout and Democratic support have both been unusually high in the last two elections, which is true; Democrats have been steadily losing white voters, which is also true; if you move black turnout back down to 2004-ish levels and bump up GOP margins among whites (by what strikes me as a wildly optimistic amount), you reach White Valhalla. Somehow or another, under Trende’s 'racial polarization scenario,' it’ll be 2044 before the Democrats again capture 270 electoral votes. Thus is the heat of Schlafly’s rhetoric cooled [GOP does not need Latino votes, it just needs to build up the white vote] and given fresh substance via the dispassionate tools of statistics.

Concludes Tomasky:

And here’s the worst part of this story. If the House Republicans kill immigration reform, and Republican parties across the South double down to keep blacks from voting, then they really will need to jack up the white vote—and especially the old white vote—in a huge way to be competitive in 2016 and beyond. Well, they’re not going to do that by mailing out Lawrence Welk CDs. They’re going to run heavily divisive and racialized campaigns, worse than we’ve ever seen out of Nixon or anyone. Their only hope of victory will be to make a prophet of (Sean Trende) who advocates a more racially polarized national race for the GOP—that is, reduce the Democrats’ share of the white vote to something in the mid - to - low-30 percent range. That probably can’t happen, but there’s only one way it might. Run the most racially inflamed campaign imaginable.

Republicans running the most racially inflamed campaign imaginable? I can imagine.

I can also imagine violence appealing to the most unhinged, racist elements of American society. [See above right.]

And violence is a predictable consequence of racially inflamed campaigns.

Even John McCain admirably put the breaks on racist appeals when his staff began to believe things were getting out of control in 2008.

The Republican campaign will be centered in the South and Appalachia, and becoming loosed on white people the nation-over reaching rural Wisconsin, anywhere white people live.

Hate will beget violence and bombings. It's an old story.

If the Republicans run the most racially inflamed campaign imaginable, there will be blood.

I ask again why then would Sean Trende consider such a despicable course of action? What does he believe the consequences would be?

The words of Ralph Mcgill will once again prove prophetic 56 years after the 1957 bombing of a synagogue by "rabid, mad-dog minds" called to action once again, deranged in 1957 by the desegregation decision:

For too many years now we have seen the Confederate flag and the emotions of that great war become the property of men not fit to tie the shoes of those who fought it. Some of these have been merely childish and immature. Others have perverted and commercialized the flag by making the Stars and Bars, and the Confederacy itself, a symbol of hate and bombings.

For a long time now it has been needful for all Americans to stand up and be counted on the side of law and the due process of law - even when to do so goes against personal beliefs and emotions. It is late. But there is yet time.

Due process of law, equal protection. Republicans are out to destroy these foundations of America.

One thing Trende underestimates is that a racial polarization campaign will run into a determined group of allies who will work against racism—a blowback that only those without a sense of history could overlook.

The young, the tens of millions of Americans dedicated to equality, blacks and the browns are going to mobilize into a coalition like Trende has never seen.

Trende does offer over a passing notice to "white" Americans dedicated to equality: "Now, there is a theoretical maximum for Republicans among whites; sooner or later you run into Madison, Wis., and Ann Arbor, Mich." (p.3)

Yes, you do.

There are many living in highly educated cities who find Trende's idea of a racialized campaign to be repulsive. Americans will stand up and be counted.

Let's hope for more work in 2014-16 like that of Sen. John McCain's who pointedly countered racist views by audience members towards Sen. Obama in October 2008. See video below.

GOP Justices Gut Voting Rights Act in Partisan Decision

Have civil rights workers fought and died for nothing?

In an explosive, partisan decision today, the five Republican justices on the U.S. Supreme Court have struck down the section [section four] of the Voting Rights Act setting formulae used to determine which state and local governments must comply with mandatory standards enforced by the U.S. Dept of Justice.

Four justices dissented in Shelby County v. Holder, et al [linked to full text of opinions], which challenges the 2006 Congressional reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Since 1965, the Dept of Justice has had to grant preclearance, prior approval, of state and local governments with a proven record of discrimination and voter obstruction.

This legislation protected the voting rights of millions of American citizens against discrimination and voter obstruction.

No more.

The decision in Shelby County v. Holder offers the opportunity of the U.S. Congress to enact new voting rights legislation.

This is of course a ludicrous status quo as the Republican Party-committed members of the Court know that the Republican Party has made voter obstruction a nationwide project with the objective to suppress the vote of minorities, the young, and other voters who refuse to vote Republican in elections.

No GOP Congress would ever allow civil rights legislation to be passed today.

The four justices in dissent paint an appalling picture of today's decision that elevates partisan politics over the sacred right of Congress to enforce the Constitutional Amendments which protect the liberties and rights of citizens against government oppression.

The five rightwing justices have demonstrated again that the U.S. Supreme Court is corrupt and dominated by a partisan five-to-four majority.

Writes Justice Ginsberg in dissent (p.32), with whom Justice Breyer, Justice Sotomayor and Justice Kagan join:

In the Court's view, the very success of [Section Five] of the Voting Rights Act demands its dormancy. Congress was of another mind. Recognizing that large progress has been made, Congress determined, based on a voluminous record, that the scourge of discrimination was not yet extirpated. The question this case presents is who decides whether, as currently operative, [Section Five] remains justifiable, this Court, or a Congress charged with the obligation to enforce the post-Civil War Amendments 'by appropriate legislation.'

Justice Scalia Trolls at Public Forum

The Voting Rights Act was signed into law in 1965
 by President Lyndon B. Johnson,
a Democrat, who had earlier signed
the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia continued his public comments that appear intended to annoy, rather than enlighten civil rights activists and legal audiences.

The Wall Street Journal reports on Scalia's latest comments, redolent of segregationist-era, southern governors.

Echoing comments he made at oral arguments in Shelby County v. Holder (February 2013) challenging the 2006 reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, Scalia called the Act's reauthorizations an "embedded" form of "racial preferment" that Congress and Presidency would vote to maintain unless Scalia and the Court step in.

Preferment is defined by Webster's Dictionary as: An "advancement or promotion in dignity, office, or station."

Scalia, as is his habit, ignores the mountain of evidence that contradicts his la la land.

"Based on 21 hearings, over 90 witnesses, and a fifteen-thousand-page record, in 2006 Congress determined that discrimination against voters of color remains concentrated in covered states, and overwhelmingly renewed Section 5," notes Spencer Overton.

Though many believe that Scalia will vote to overturn the crown jewel of civil rights laws, a rightwing ideologue, Scalia will nevertheless sometimes vote—after making the outlines of arguments not supporting his voiced conclusions—unpredictably.

Don't be surprised if Scalia votes to uphold the Act after having duly offended and shocked civil rights activists, many of whom were killed and beaten after the Movement's direct challenge to the segregation of the American south, where most of jurisdictions covered by the Act are located.

A decision is expected in June.

Another GOP effort to stop voters

Too many blacks and other non-desirables
are voting, says GOP --- today!

Update: On June 25, 2103, the United States Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, in an act of partisan insanity that stains the Supreme Court as corrupt and willing to do almost anything to help the Republican Party in its pursuit of power, (Shelby v. Holder, Cornell).

Justice Ginsburg, with whom Justice Breyer, Justice Sotomayor, and Justice Kagan join, dissenting:

In the Court’s view, the very success of §5 of the Voting Rights Act demands its dormancy. Congress was of another mind. Recognizing that large progress has been made, Congress determined, based on a voluminous record, that the scourge of discrimination was not yet extirpated. The question this case presents is who decides whether, as currently operative, §5 remains justifiable, 1 this Court, or a Congress charged with the obligation to enforce the post-Civil War Amendments “by appropriate legislation.” With overwhelming support in both Houses, Congress concluded that, for two prime reasons, §5 should continue in force, unabated. First, continuance would facilitate completion of the impressive gains thus far made; and second, continuance would guard against backsliding. Those assessments were well within Congress’ province to make and should elicit this Court’s unstinting approbation.
1 The Court purports to declare unconstitutional only the coverage formula set out in §4(b). See ante, at 24. But without that formula, §5 is immobilized. ...
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Wisconsin is not alone in the Republican Party's project to halt voters from voting.

Across the nation the Republican Party has introduced some 180 bills just since 2011 intended to stop Americans from voting the last eight years in states where the GOP has gerrymandered control.

As the Brennan Center notes, "In 2011 and 2012, 19 states passed more than two-dozen measures that would have effectively made it harder to vote, the biggest rollback in voting rights since the Jim Crow era. These measures included voter ID laws, early-voting cutbacks, and curbs on community-based voter registration drives ... ."

The GOP and Tea Party implausibly claim non-existant voter fraud necessitates their obstruction schemes.

As has been increasingly noted now by legal observers, the Voting Rights Act also gives the federal courts the power to add to the jurisdictions now covered by Section Five mandating federal DoJ preclearance.

The motivation behind the GOP effort to invalidate the Voting Rights Act (VRA) is clear: On the state level, enact as many schemes as possible to stop voters; on the federal level in the Courts take the teeth out of the very federal law that stops the Republican Party from enacting such state voter-obstruction schemes.

"This upcoming legal battle unfolds against the backdrop of the recent struggle over voting rights — and in the wake of a clear demonstration of the vital need for strong laws to protect democracy," write Wendy R. Weiser and Diana Kasdan.

Democracy would sure be easier for the Republican Party without those pesky American voters.

In Wisconsin, Mike Tighe has a piece from westcentral Wisconsin on Scott Walker and the Wisconsin GOP's latest effort attempt to keep people from the polls.

And it's not just voting, the atavistic states rights movement is making a comeback in states controlled by the Republican Party, in part because of that autocratic effort of President Obama to expand Medicaid and provide healthcare to millions of more Americans.

Such tyranny.

As for the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder, Justice Scalia's asinine comments about racial entitltlements" aside, Myrna Pérez predicts a possible deference to Congress in the Shelby County case on the Voting Rights Act.

Notes Pérez:

Although it is true several of the Justices expressed skepticism [in oral arguments] that the coverage formula targeted all of the worst offenders of the VRA, similar concerns cropped up during the oral argument four years ago in NAMUDNO (Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder (NAMUDNO)) [2009]. Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose vote might be determinative, asked approximately the same number of questions to supporters of the Voting Rights Act in NAMUDNO as he did on Wednesday. And the tone of the questioning in NAMUDNO was similarly, if not more, hostile to the VRA. ...

Ultimately, the question comes down to one of deference to Congress. The 15th Amendment of the Constitution makes clear that it is Congress’ job to determine where racial discrimination deeply infects our electoral processes, not Shelby County’s or the Court’s. It is certainly the Court’s job to evaluate whether Congress did its job appropriately, but the Constitution does not require that Congress have been perfect in its determination, and importantly, Congress devised workable mechanisms through the VRA’s bail-out and bail-in provisions to account for instances in which Congress’ determination was off base, or no longer applicable. The compelling evidentiary record of modern-day need, made even more pronounced by the recent wave of restrictive voting laws that appeared heavily in covered states, and the broad authority given to Congress by the Constitution to prevent racial discrimination in voting, make upholding the coverage formula an easy case for the Court.