Voting Rights Are Foundation of Democracy; Not "Partisan Advantage' Game

The "Genius of Wisconsin" by Helen Farnsworth Mears,
displayed in the third Wisconsin State Capitol rotunda

Disregarding history; avoiding facts; ignoring the law and the Constitution; and heedless of the deeds of Republican officials, three years ago Professor Mordecai Lee tried peddling the false equivalence analysis on the Republican war on voters after Scott Walker signed the unconstitutional voter ID into law.

Since the civil rights movement era, "every argument about enfranchisement or disenfranchisement has really been about partisan advantage," said Lee on the Rachel Maddow Show.

Lee's is a ludicrous position and is one that is taken up editorially in dailies across Wisconsin (ostensibly against Act 23), emphatically so in the Wisconsin State Journal (May 4).

In-person voter fraud doesn't exist—as opposed to what Republicans endlessly assert, or in Paul Ryan's oily racist-dog-whistle style voices surprise about high "urban" turn-out in elections—but let's not call this propaganda, is the State Journal's editorial position.

Stop wasting money defending the in-person voter ID law, the State Journal says, but recognize as well that "(w)ithout a doubt, partisan advantage in the looming fall election and beyond is the main motivator on both sides of the political divide."

No, partisan advantage is not the main motivator on both (whatever that means) sides of the political divide.

It comes as apparent news to the editors of the Wisconsin State Journal, but the civil rights movement is not about securing partisan advantage. The Voting Rights Act is not about partisan advantage.

The right to vote in the United States is a human and civil right through which all Americans work to secure their conception of a better world, that the heart of the civil rights movement means defending fellow Americans in their effort through any political party or association to live their lives and work to change society as they see fit.

The logical inheritor (the civil rights movement and the right to work in pursuit of individual objectives) of the classical liberal roots of America are under attack by the Republican Party, and too few acknowledge this total war on the very fabric of American democracy.

That the perpetrators of this war against the civil rights movement are the Republican and Tea Party does not imply that all must be guilty of seeking partisan or factional advantage.

This is a fundamental, if not intentional, misunderstanding of the civil rights movement.

Wisconsin, and Madison in particular, have an intimate connection with the civil rights movement, dating back to the Civil War, so one would expect a greater appreciation of voting rights from the editors of our state's second largest daily newspaper.

I would respectfully recommend that every Wisconsinite read Desegregation and Civil Rights (Wisconsin State Historical Society) and Historical Society's work on the 1964 Freedom Summer Project. Those who seek to discuss the voting ID issue in a civil rights context, in print or otherwise, should understand this history.

Or, if reading history is too much to ask today, here's a video clip that captures what the civil rights movement worked to accomplish. And it is not a "partisan advantage."

Andrew Goodman standing at the foot of a staircase, age 19, wearing a dark shirt. Andrew Goodman
was a civil rights activist and volunteer for the Freedom Summer project. He, along with
James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, was murdered in the summer of 1964.

Attorney General Van Hollen—Corrupt and Clueless

"Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen announced today that the Department of Justice will appeal the decision issued yesterday in NAACP v. Walker, et al., Dane County Case No. 11-CV-5492. Yesterday afternoon, the Honorable David T. Flanagan issued his decision invalidating and permanently enjoining Wisconsin’s Voter ID law."

So reads the news from Van Hollen's office. No great surprise.

Van Hollen persists in appealing a decision based on the Wisconsin constitution's expansive declaration of voters' rights by stating that a 2008 federal case in Indiana—in which no social scientific evidence was entered into the record—was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

"And similar election integrity reforms have been upheld as constitutional by the United States Supreme Court [in CRAWFORD et al. v. MARION COUNTY ELECTION BOARD et al]," reads Van Hollen's statement.

Judge Flanagan addresses Van Hollen's nonsense stating:

The people of Wisconsin may choose to assure to themselves rights under their own constitution that differ or exceed those guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution, State v. Doe, 78 Wis 2d 161, 172 (1977). The question of what is permitted and what is protected by the Wisconsin Constitution is the issue before this court and that issue was not before the U.S. Supreme Court in the Crawford case.

Van Hollen knows this fact. And the phenomenon, "integrity," does not manifest itself often in Van Hollen's Department of Justice.

War on Voting

Van Hollen would have Wisconsin's rights diminished if our rights exceed those guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.

That he persists in his efforts to suppress non-Republican voters is simply more evidence of his corruption, echoing Van Hollen's 2008 efforts at voter suppression in which Van Hollen's similarly ridiculous effort was tossed out of court and into the GOP history's bin, the black hole.

In the 2008 case, (J B Van Hollen vs. Government Accountability Board (GAB) et al) Van Hollen tried to create a new Wisconsin constitutional standard to vote by fiat: A perfect match of the spelling of voters' names in state bureaucracies.

Several former judges serving on the GAB Board would have failed Van Hollen's new constitutional standard in 2008, and this GOP effort drew wide ridicule.

"Nothing in state or federal law requires that there be a data match as a prerequisite for a citizen's right to vote," Judge Maryann Sumi said in dismissing Van Hollen's lawsuit that tried to use the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) as a voter suppression tool.

But our corrupt attorney general will not give up his Party's project of diminishing and denying the rights of Wisconsin citizens.

Wisconsin GOP Voter Obstruction Act 23 Permanently Halted by Judge

David T Flanagan; 1999 - Current

Ruling is a political body blow to the nation-wide Republican effort to stop voters from casting non-Republican votes

Judge David Flanagan has permanently and immediately halted enforcement and implementation of the Republicans' voter ID-obstruction act in Milwaukee Branch of the NAACP et al v. Walker (Case 11CV5492).

The 20-page Order and judgement are posted at Madison.com.

Another permanent injunction of the anti-voter act is in effect in League of Women Voters of Wisconsin v. Walker (Case 11CV4669).

Citing the presented evidentiary record and a host of empirical data in the tradition of the housing discrimination and civil rights segregation cases of the 50s-60-70s, Flanagan writes as a sub-heading the doctrine:

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has not deferred to the legislature on questions of voter qualification

The effect of this recognized prominence of the right to voter is that temporary majorities in the Wisconsin legislature cannot obstruct citizens from voting, per the Wisconsin Constitution, without first changing the Wisconsin constitution.

Flangan's decision comes as two federal cases continue, and likely point to the failure of the Republicans' voter obstruction project in Wisconsin. [See Frank et al v. Walker, (Case 11cv1128), U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, and Jones et al v. Deininger et al (Case 2:12-cv-00185), U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.]

Similar obstruction projects continue in other states where Republicans hold political power in the legislature and governor's office.

Citing a long line of case law, Flangan notes the right to vote is "inherent ... fundamental .... sacred." (State ex rel. McGrael v. Phelps, 144 Wis. 1 128 N.W. 1041, 1046)

Flangan writes:

Act 23 addresses a problem which is very limited, if it indeed exists. It does not appear to recognise or to account for the difficulty its demands impose upon indigent and elderly citizens who are eligible under the constitution to vote. It offers no flexibility, no alternative to prevent the exclusion of a constitutionally qualified voter. Given the sacred, fundemental interest at issue, it is clear that Act 23, while perhaps addressing a legitimate concern, is not sufficiently narrow to avoid needless and significant impairment of the right to vote. The enactment steps beyond the proper authority of the legislature and is in violation of the Wisconsin Constitution, Article III, Section 1.