Sensenbrenner Still Scamming Wisconsin on Photo Voter ID Obstruction

Update: Seventh Circuit panel sends back Frank v. Walker (No. 15-3532) to Judge Lynn Adelman of the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Wisconsin. Report Patrick Marley and Jason Stein:

Madison attorney Lester Pines said Tuesday's ruling could lead to a victory for a small subset of voters.

'The 7th Circuit has found that the district court has to allow for the presentation of evidence about the hurdles that some people have to obtaining photo ID that actually keep people from voting,' said Pines, who is not involved in this case but represented the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin in a separate challenge against the law in state court. (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)

Another Wisconsin voting rights case, One Wisconsin Institute, et al v. Nichol, et al (U.S. District Court of the Western District of Wisconsin (Case 15-cv-324)) is expected to go trial in May or June 2106.

See also Lueders, The Progressive, on Republican efforts to keep away the wrong people from the polls.
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U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) is continuing his charade he is a champion of the Voting Rights Act eviscerated by the then Republican-led U.S. Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder in 2103.

Sensenbrenner's bill to restore the Voting Rights Act is a ruse, and the latest to apparently fall for the con is The Capital Times' Dave Zweifel. Not good, but Zweifel is in good company.

Sensenbrenner penned a New York Times op-ed piece on March 31, 2016 saying he is appalled by Shelby County and acclaiming himself a voting rights champion, the later lie fed since as early as 2009 to Diana Marrero of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

Let's look closer at the 2015-16 Voting Rights Amendment Act authored by Sensenbrenner, and his history.

The Voting Rights Amendment Act specifically protects the Republican Party's most important voter obstruction weapon—the restrictive photo voter ID law used by Republican-led states to obstruct the wrong kind of voters from casting their preference at the ballot bin/machine.

Reads Sensenbrenner's 2015-16 bill in the Congressional summary:

Excludes from the list of violations triggering jurisdiction retention authority any voting qualification or prerequisite which results in a denial or abridgement of the right to vote that is based on the imposition of a requirement that an individual provide a photo identification as a condition of receiving a ballot for voting in a federal, state, or local election. (emphasis added)

Photo Voter ID has been exposed for what it is, a scheme to obstruct people from the polls who are likely to not vote Republican. See Judge Richard Posner's extraordinary 2014 "On Suggestion of Rehearing En Banc" in the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on Wisconsin photo voter ID bill; (Posner, Frank v. Walker), (Mal Contends), (Brad Friedman) ( Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times).

Judge Richard Posner's extraordinary
2014 On Suggestion of Rehearing En Banc, (p. 17).
Suggestion failed five to five, green-lighting
Wisconsin's photo voter ID law after the U.S.
Supreme Court failed to grant cert. Since 2014,
strict photo ID laws have spread even more.

So why would a Congressman who says he cares about voting rights protect state voter obstruction? Because that congressman, James Sensenbrenner, is a liar.

Civil rights activists, including the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, have supported Sensenbrenner's iterations of his bill in the past, hoping, I am told by a civil rights activist, the photo voter ID language would be amended out.

Sure, that's going to happen under Republican House leadership.

Said Sensenbrenner in 2014 in a townhall meeting in Rubicon, Wisconsin in his district: "The good part about the Voting Rights Act modernization is that I got a provision in there that basically gets Eric Holder out of going after photo ID laws," the 18-term Badger State congressman claims on the undercover video, (National Review), (James O'Keefe).

Sensenbrenner's posturing in the New York Times that he is risking his his lilly-white and segregated congressional seat is ludicrous.

Sensenbrenner's also said in 2104, "I hope the president vetoes the bill. ...  If the president vetoes—well, let me rephrase that – if the president vetoes this bill, he will lose an awful lot of the African-American support that he has," (Roth, MSNBC), (James O'Keefe).

Why would a champion of the Voting Rights Act want the U.S. DoJ to not retain any jurisdiction over states' voter obstruction?

Sensenbrenner Defends Texas and Wisconsin's Voter Obstruction

If Sensenbrenner's duplicity were not sufficiently clear, consider as well Sensenbrenner's outspoken support for two of the nation's most restrictive photo voter ID laws in Texas and Wisconsin.

Sensenbrenner, one of the few serving in Congress who opposed the federal holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, had this to say about Texas' vile photo voter ID law in 2103:

"I regret that the Department of Justice announced its intent to file a lawsuit against Texas’ Voter ID law citing Section 2 to the Voting Rights Act. The Texas legislature passed Voter ID, and Governor Perry signed this legislation into law in 2011. Voter ID laws are an essential element in protecting the integrity of our electoral process and do not have a discriminatory intent or effect," (Mal Contends).

As noted in these pages, there are of course serious efforts to protect voting: The Pocan-Ellison Right to Vote Amendment. Sensenbrenner supporting this mega-voting rights guarantee, and going against his Party's voter obstruction project is as likely as Sarah Palin winning a Nobel Prize in physics.

Sensenbrenner said Republican voter obstruction efforts such as Wisconsin's, are "common-sense efforts to ensure the identity and citizenship of voters," (July 2012) (Mal Contends).

More Sensenbrenner Mendacity

There's more Sensenbrenner lies and hypocrisies of course, too many to list.

For example as noted here, Sensenbrenner's Wisconsin colleague in the House, Mark Pocan (D-Madison), specifically called out Republicans in Wisconsin and other states for obstructing voters in 2103.

Sensenbrenner should join Pocan.

Pocan has introduced a Constitutional amendment that would guarantee citizens' right to vote, protecting Americans against the ever-changing voter obstruction efforts now plaguing our nation, and committed by one political party—the Republican Party.

Pocan's amendment would also change the balance of power -- by altering the legal calculus for showing voters' rights are violated -- in favor of voters. As Pocan said, "There is no explicit right to vote in the Constitution. If we had an explicit right to vote, any state that passes a law that makes it harder to vote would have to prove that they’re not harming someone’s ability to vote rather than the opposite. Right now a person has to prove that they’ve been harmed by a state law. And it really changes the burden of proof on those states that pass these laws that really make it harder for people to vote," (Mal Contends).

Sensenbrenner refuses to join Pocan, both in condemning voter obstruction at the state level, and in refusing to support Pocan's proposed Right-to-Vote constitutional amendment.

Instead, Sensenbrenner toes the GOP line on state Republican voter obstruction efforts, to repeat, calling the obstruction, "common-sense efforts to ensure the identity and citizenship of voters," (July 2012).

What Sensenbrenner is pursuing is a cynical inside/out con game in which Sensenbrenner takes no political risks in appearing to seek to repair the eviscerated Voting Rights Act, while supporting Republican voter obstruction efforts on the state level.

One hopes this anti-American effort to obstruct the vote is stopped in its tracks, and Sensenbrenner's deplorable hypocrisy is revealed.

As for Shelby, the Supreme Court will reverse this clearly untenable decision, explaining in part why the Republican Senate is working so ferociously against Supreme Court nominee, Judge Merrick B. Garland, (White House).

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.

Wisconsin AG Van Hollen Vows to Seek Stay of Decision Halting Voter ID

Update: Worth noting is that state voter ID laws meant to obstruct voters (in a sick irony) would be specifically protected by H.R. 3899, the Voting Rights Act Amendment (VRAA), introduced by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-White People). The Voting Rights Act was first enacted in 1965 to "enforce the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and for other purposes."

The Fifteenth Amendment reads in part, the "right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

Progressive Democrats, such as Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Madison) are hoping against hope that Speaker John Boehner will suddenly become amiable to amendments to take out the language of the VRAA that makes HR 3899 a steaming pile of very toxic and fetid waste. See this bizarre March 27, 2014 letter by House Democrats that in part reads "some of us believe the bill should be enacted in its current form, and some of us prefer to see it amended" in an appeal to John Boehner. This is the same John Boehner who said during the 2012 campaign that he hopes Latinos and Blacks do not show up and vote. (Reeve, August 27, 2012; Yahoo News) at a Christian Science Monitor luncheon.

Meanwhile, Sensenbrenner was caught on camera in February saying, "I hope the president vetoes the bill. If the president vetoes—well, let me rephrase that – if the president vetoes this bill, he will lose an awful lot of the African-American support that he has." (Roth. TRMS)

Anybody really doubt where Republicans like Sensenbrenner and Boehner stand on voting rights?

What if this anti-voter VRAA actually passes Congress? Did House Democrats consider this scenario?

Dumb, dumb, dumb.
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Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has learned a lot from Scott Walker in service to the Republican Party while ripping off the Wisconsin people.

Make up statements and don't back them up with facts.

For some three years during Walker's tenure Van Hollen has been using the attorney general's office in service to the Republican Party, and Van Hollen typically throws out fact-free lines for reporters' consumption.

Now, Van Hollen's office says Federal Judge Lynn Adelman's decision barring enforcement of Act 23 is "flawed," and the Wisconsin DoJ with Walker's blessing will seek a stay, vacating the permanent injunction. (Hall, Wisconsin State Journal)

What's flawed about the Adelman's decision? Van Hollen won't say.

But Van Hollen and Walker, with Rep. James Sensenbrenner's help, keep up their GOP-crafted-law-is-common sense and "constitutional" lines of malarkey.

Writes Adelman:

The evidence at trial established that virtually no voter impersonation occurs in Wisconsin. The defendants could not point to a single instance of known voter impersonation occurring in Wisconsin at any time in the recent past. ...

Some have suggested that voter fraud might be more widespread than the low number of prosecutions indicates because the laws that prohibit voter fraud are under enforced. However, the defendants do not suggest that there is any underenforcement of such laws in Wisconsin. And the evidence at trial indicates that such laws are vigorously enforced (citations omitted by me).

What do Walker and Van Hollen and the Republicans say to this? Nothing.

Local conservative, William R. Wineke, has something to say today, Republicans should listen. Writes Wineke at Channel 3000 (WISC TV):

Ever since Republicans took control of state governments around the country in 2010, they have thrown conservative principles out the window.

They keep passing laws to limit abortions and keep trying to pass laws that would outlaw some forms of birth control and force women who become pregnant from rapes or incest to bear their rapists’ children.

They use the power of state governments to interfere with the rights of local governments. Want to pass a minimum wage law for Milwaukee? Let’s strip the right of municipalities to do that.

But the voting rights thing is the big one. We all know why our state wants voter ID It’s because the governor and legislators who gained power through the ballot box want to make sure no one can take that power away from them through the ballot box.

That may be good politics, but it sure isn’t conservative.

No, it's not. Stopping Americans from voting is unAmerican.

Trying to stop Americans from voting is typical Van Hollen, and is a Republican mission. Recall Van Hollen's corrupt use of office in 2008, for example.

Van Hollen tried to use the Help America Vote Act to suppress Democratically leaning voters to stave off a landslide defeat for the McCain-Palin ticket of which he served as co-chair, an effort thrown out of court never to see light again.

In 2008, WisPolitics uncovered an audio recording revealing Van Hollen promising action on alleged "voter fraud" during an address at the Republican National Convention held in St. Paul, Minnesota, after multiple conversations with Reince Priebus, then Wisconsin GOP party chairman.

The fact that there is no voter fraud is of no concern in GOP land.

Said Wisconsin candidate for attorney general, Ismael Ozanne in April about Van Hollen's 2008 scheme: "The ethical concern is serving as campaign chair and then taking official actions as attorney general that are intended to benefit the campaign in question, and not reflecting the law and the best interests of the people of Wisconsin.  If AG Van Hollen thought it was necessary in his official capacity to participate in legal action involving the campaign, he should have either stepped down from any role in the campaign or recused himself from the legal action."

Van Hollen, Walker and the Republicans should spend their time trying to help Americans vote, not attempting to prevent Americans from voting.

Proposed Fix to Voting Rights Act Is Worse than Court-gutted Corpse

James Sensenbrenner exposed as phony
on voting rights by James O'Keefe. See
three-minute, 19-second mark.

Update: Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Madison), a co-sponsor is hoping against hope that Speaker John Boehner will suddenly become amiable to amendments to take out the language of the Voting Rights Act Amendment that makes HR 3899 a steaming pile of very toxic and fetid waste. See this bizarre March 27, 2014 letter by House Democrats including Pocan that in part reads "some of us believe the bill should be enacted in its current form, and some of us prefer to see it amended" in an appeal to John Boehner. This is the same John Boehner who said during the 2012 campaign that he hopes Latinos and Blacks do not show up and vote. (Reeve, August 27, 2012; Yahoo News) at a Christian Science Monitor luncheon.
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Five Republicans Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year in a case that became instantly infamous: Shelby County v. Holder.

The five-four majority gutted sections four and five of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), destroying one method of the VRA's protecting people's right to vote against hostile state efforts to obstruct and deprive the vote.

As Justice Ginsberg writes in dissent: The majority decided the Voting Rights Act had worked so well the "conditions" (Roberts) of racism are a remnant of long-ago: "Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet."

John Roberts has for years declared racism is over.

Sensenbrenner has been in negotiations with major civil rights groups and champions of civil rights for months, finally releasing his draft of the Voting Rights Act Amendment, Section Four formula, H. R. 3899 in January, cosponsored by Rep Conyers.

HR 3899 actually enshrines and protects voter obstruction laws such as Wisconsin and Texas' Photo Voter ID laws.

Thankfully, the official statement (January 2014) of the NAACP's Lorraine C. Miller, Interim President and CEO, pissed on HR 3899: "The NAACP appreciates that the U.S. Congress has made a bipartisan effort to update the Voting Rights Act, however we have serious concerns about the ability of some provisions in this bill to protect ALL voters from discrimination at the polls."

As the nation's oldest and largest grassroots civil rights organization we have the responsibility to ensure that any proposed legislation is in the best interest of our members, our community and our country. Participation in our democracy should be unfettered and all votes should be properly counted. From the exceptions for voter ID laws to decreased preclearance coverage to increased reliance on costly litigation, there are essential revisions and amendments to this bill that must take place to ensure ALL voters have fair and equitable access to the ballot box."

Sensenbrenner has called Wisconsin's Voter ID law, Act 23, "common sense," and decried the DoJ effort to challenge Texas under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Sensenbrenner's proposed law's new Section Four formula also protects states with its "five strikes" formula that would allow a state five different Court-determined acts of voting rights discrimination before placing the state under preclearance.

In so many words, Sensenbrenner—with the aid of Rep. Conyers and others who should know better (but apparently do not)—drafted a law that actually codifies voting right violations as fine under the Voting Rights Act as long as the a given state confines obstruction laws to four or less in a 15-year time span.

Sensenbrenner is a voting rights phony, a fake, and liberal writers from Ari Berman to Rick Hasan to Steve Benen have been aiding Sensenbrenner in this enterprise since Shelby last June.

In February in Wisconsin Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-White People) decided his fake support for voting rights perpetuated by a friendly media would take too much a toll on his racist buddies in the GOP.

Sensenbrenner was caught on camera saying, "I hope the president vetoes the bill. If the president vetoes—well, let me rephrase that – if the president vetoes this bill, he will lose an awful lot of the African-American support that he has." (Roth. TRMS) See O'Keefe's video below:

In Wisconsin, we don't call this guy Senselessbrenner for nothing.

And here we don't say: Don't trust Sensenbrenner on voting rights for nothing.

Sensenbrenner is exposed as an utter phony on voting rights (not that more evidence was needed), calculating and disingenuous on the video below (O'Keefe's reading of the Act though mostly factually incorrect is also on his own video) :

So, we cannot trust Sensenbrenner.

Sensenbrenner's Voting Rights Act Amendment legislation is worse than the status quo post-Shelby, aka now, so why are progressives in Congress, major civil rights organizations and progressive writers still behind the Voting Rights Act Amendments and still lauding Sensenbrenner?

For no good reason. Maybe they think they Obama can sign this obscene piece of legislation, call it what Sensenbrenner calls it, and declare victory to Black and Brown folks targeted by the GOP, hoping ethic minorities are as dumb as Sensenbrenner thinks they are.

Anyone advocating support for Sensenbrenner's Voting Rights Act Amendment legislation is taking a position that is untenable.

There is a real Voting Rights initiative: The Pocan-Ellison Right to Vote Amendment to the Constitution "to provide all Americans the affirmative right to vote and empower Congress to protect this right," which of course Sensenbrenner and his Party will not get behind.

What are Democrats and civil rights champions thinking?

They hope against hope that Republicans will change course and get behind voting rights legislation after years of obstructing the vote?

I have an inquiry into these matters into Rep. Mark Pocan's (D-Madison) office, and will include the response in an update.

New Voting Rights Amendment Act Is Worse Than Nothing

Updated-Rick Hasen wants progressives to get agitated for the Voting Rights Amendment Act (VRAA).

(W)here are the public demonstrations to pass this desperately needed fix? Outside the minority community, which is pushing hard for the VRAA, where is the agitation? The voting rights issue seems to have fallen off the radar screen, even though the Roberts court's reasoning in the Shelby County case is just as indefensible as its reasoning in Citizens United and McCutcheon in the campaign finance arena.

Here's why the lack of political action for the Voting Rights Amendment Act (VRAA).

The VRAA sucks.

The VRAA actually enshrines one of the major state voter obstruction laws that Republicans use to obstruct minority voters, among other voters: Voter ID statutes. Moreoever, passage of the VRAA would torpedo many of the legal federal challenges to the GOP voter ID laws.

Nice way to mark 50th anniversary celebration of the Civil Rights Act. Maybe we'll have better luck next year with the 50th anniversary celebration of the Voting Rights Act.

Anniversaries and sentiment are needed, but the Republican Party is forever busy with new schemes, a phenomenon that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was intended to address.

"About one month after the Shelby decision, Republicans in North Carolina pushed through a package of extreme voting restrictions, including ending same-day registration, shortening early voting by a week, requiring photo ID, and ending a program that encourages high schoolers to sign up to vote when they turn 18," writes Dana Liebelson.

The Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2014 reads: Section 3(c) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (42 U.S.C. 1973a(c)) is amended by striking ‘‘violations of the fourteenth or fifteenth amendment’’ and inserting ‘‘violations of the 14th or 15th Amendment; violations of this Act (other than a violation of section 2(a) which is based on the imposition of a requirement that an individual provide a photo identification as a condition of receiving a ballot for voting in an election for Federal, State, or local office) ... ."

Hasen wants people to hit the streets for this crap?

 Derick T. Dingle writes, "Legal scholars found the voter ID provision as a gaping hole in the law (HR 3899), avoiding one of the major voter suppression issues of the day."

Hasen writes, "It's about time for Congress to pass some new laws protecting voting rights, and it's high time – right now – for us to dare the supreme court to strike even more of them down."

Maybe if we double-dare the U.S. Supreme Court it will back down from ever disenfranchising Americans again because the five GOP justices really care what the American people think, and they cherish civil rights.

Voter ID Laws Are GOP Weapons Protected in the Voting Rights Act Amendment

Stop voting and quit trying to pass your
selves off as real Americans, says GOP.
Get the message.

Update: North Carolina NAACP Blasts VRA Amendment - "A preliminary examination of the proposed provisions of this legislation convinces us that it falls woefully short of what is needed to protect all people from race-based efforts to curtail the voting potential of people of color."

From Talking Points Memo comes a link to a study on GOP Voter Obstruction that, to borrow from the late Stephen Jay Gould, establishes the fact of Repulbican Party voter obstruction "so overwhelmingly supported by the evidence that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent."

Notes Tova Andrea Wang:

Important new empirical research published in December in the journal Perspectives on Politics by Keith G. Bentele and Erin E. Obrien at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, however, shines a bright light on just how crass this effort has been and how clear the motives of the Republican state lawmakers have been in proposing and passing laws that would deny eligible citizens the right to vote.

See Jim Crow 2.0? Why States Consider and Adopt Restrictive Voter Access Policies by
Keith G. Bentelea and Erin E. O'Briena.

This suggests that the new Voting Rights Act Amendment ought not protect states' restrictive voter ID laws, as the proposed Amendment does now, sneaked into the act by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-White People).

Rational policy making from Washington is rare, fraudulent action by Sensenbrenner is common.

Abstract - from Bentelea and O'Briena:

Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in state legislation likely to reduce access for some voters, including photo identification and proof of citizenship requirements, registration restrictions, absentee ballot voting restrictions, and reductions in early voting. Political operatives often ascribe malicious motives when their opponents either endorse or oppose such legislation. In an effort to bring empirical clarity and epistemological standards to what has been a deeply-charged, partisan, and frequently anecdotal debate, we use multiple specialized regression approaches to examine factors associated with both the proposal and adoption of restrictive voter access legislation from 2006–2011. Our results indicate that proposal and passage are highly partisan, strategic, and racialized affairs. These findings are consistent with a scenario in which the targeted demobilization of minority voters and African Americans is a central driver of recent legislative developments. We discuss the implications of these results for current partisan and legal debates regarding voter restrictions and our understanding of the conditions incentivizing modern suppression efforts. Further, we situate these policies within developments in social welfare and criminal justice policy that collectively reduce electoral access among the socially marginalized.

After the GOP retook the Wisconsin legislature in 2010, one of the Party’s first bills introduced in 2011 is the photo ID bill that would "mean folks without driver’s licenses – disproportionately poor, minority, or elderly, would not be able to vote." (Neil Heinen, WISC TV)

Wisconsin is not alone, and voter obstruction laws have only increased since Wisconsin's voter obstruction operative, Reince Priebus, took over as the RNC National Chair in 2011.

Voting Rights Amendment Act Should Be Renamed the Voter ID Obstruction Protection Act

Update III: GOP Rep. Sensenbrenner (R-White People) is also one of only six serving in Congress today who opposed the federal holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. What a hypocrite.

Update II:The exemption for voter ID laws was written to win the support of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and other Republicans. The legislation strengthens Section 3 of the VRA, which has been described as the Act’s “secret weapon.” Under Section 3, jurisdictions not covered by Section 4 could be 'bailed-in' to federal supervision, but plaintiffs had to show evidence of intentional voting discrimination, which is very difficult to do in court. Under the new Section 3 proposal, any violation of the VRA or federal voting rights law – whether intentional or not – can be grounds for a bail-in, which will make it far easier to cover new states. One major caveat, again, is that court objections to voter ID laws cannot be used as grounds for “bail-in”under Section 3.) - Sharon McClosky in The Progressive Pulse.

The legislation strengthens Section 3 of the VRA, which has been described as the Act’s “secret weapon.” Under Section 3, jurisdictions not covered by Section 4 could be “bailed-in” to federal supervision, but plaintiffs had to show evidence of intentional voting discrimination, which is very difficult to do in court. Under the new Section 3 proposal, any violation of the VRA or federal voting rights law – whether intentional or not – can be grounds for a bail-in, which will make it far easier to cover new states. (One major caveat, again, is that court objections to voter ID laws cannot be used as grounds for “bail-in” under Section 3.)

This exemption for voter ID laws was written to win the support of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and other Republicans. - See more at: http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2014/01/16/bipartisan-proposal-to-amend-the-voting-rights-act/#sthash.FYh5tURQ.dpuf

This exemption for voter ID laws was written to win the support of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and other Republicans. - See more at: http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2014/01/16/bipartisan-proposal-to-amend-the-voting-rights-act/#sthash.FYh5tURQ.dpuf

Update: That the idiot caucus in the GOP hates the bill is no cause for support for this codification of the GOP's voter ID obstruction project, a project that has yielded results.

The return of the Voting Rights Act? Try the championing of state Voter ID laws, the go-to voter obstructionist tool of the Republican party.
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Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2014: Section 3(c) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (42 U.S.C. 1973a(c)) is amended by striking ‘‘violations of the fourteenth or fifteenth amendment’’ and inserting ‘‘violations of the 14th or 15th Amendment; violations of this Act (other than a violation of section 2(a) which is based on the imposition of a requirement that an individual provide a photo identification as a condition of receiving a ballot for voting in an election for Federal, State, or local office) ... ."

The Voting Rights Amendment Act (H.R.3899) should be renamed the Voter ID Obstruction Protection Act, which is why Rep. Sensenbrenner when he introduced the bill January 15, he made sure to note the legislation includes "provisions that continue to permit states to enact reasonable photo identification laws" in an act that would pit Sections of the Act against in each other.

From Sensenbrenner's website:

Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2014
Section by Section Description of VRA Draft Legislation
Section 2.
Violations Triggering Authority Of Court To Retain Jurisdiction
--
Provides that a court can “bail-in” a State or political subdivision based on a discriminatory result by amending Section 3(c) of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) to include violations of Section 2 of the VRA and violations of any Federal voting rights law that prohibits voting discrimination against racial and language minorities.It carves out from the new standard Section 2(a) cases that are based on a photo identification on requirement

Well, at least Sensenbrenner did not say "common sense" measures to obstruct voters this time, a tiresome phrase used by Scott Walker too often for my taste.

H.R.3899 is a terrible bill.

This is because HR 3899 crafts language of the section 4 formula of the Voting Rights
Act (VRA) narrowly, specifying as Ari Berman points out that only states "with five violations of federal law to their voting changes over the past fifteen years will have to submit future election changes for federal approval."

Resurrecting Section 5 with an extraordinarily weak formula in Section Four is tantamount to getting raped five times before getting treatment, support and help from law enforcement, a terrible joke of the VRA, though the D.C. commetariat quietly applauds this bipartisan exercise in codifying state photo voter ID laws.

Should this bill be passed, one of Wisconsin's two federal consolidated challenges to the GOP-crafted Wisconsin Act 23, the photo voter id law is imperiled if the Voting Rights Amendment Act (H.R.3899) (2014) were to become law. The trial is now under submission to Judge William M. Conley, Western District of Wisconsin.

Maybe the Wisconsin case will make past the five GOP justices on the U.S. supreme court when it gets there.

Judge William M. Conley, who heard Frank v. Walker, (Case 11cv1128) and
League of United Latin American Citizens of Wisconsin v. Deininger (Case 2:12-cv-00185) in Wisconsin in a consolidated trial in November 2013 is taking the cases under submission (research, consideration and an intellectual enterprise to arrive at an order and opinion) that will involve a massive judicial undertaking.
 
In the Wisconsin League case, which is the first case to use Section 2 since Shelby County v. Holder, civil rights plaintiffs argues "The evidence conclusively demonstrates that the burdens of Act 23 fall disproportionately on voters of color. Two different expert studies introduced at trial, using two different sound methodologies, confirm Act 23’s substantial racially disproportionate impacts. As plaintiffs’ expert Leland Beatty concluded, 'Wisconsin minority voters are at a substantial disadvantage under Wisconsin’s voter ID law, and ... the effect of that law imprints an unavoidable disparate impact on minority election participation.'"

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in the League case may not find relief from the new Voting Rights Amendment Act (H.R.3899) which in the words of Sensenbrenner, "includes strong, nationwide anti-discrimination protections and continues to permit states to enact reasonable voter-ID laws."
  
Rep. John Conyers (D-Michican) and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vermount) demonstrate again why politicians fail to understand that when 100,000s of citizens are obstructed from voting, and their new legislation does nothing to prevent this, they may have been living the high life a bit too long.

"Our sole focus throughout this entire process was to ensure that no American would be denied his or her constitutional right to vote because of discrimination on the basis of race or color," Patirck Leahy said in a statement, cited by Steve Benen and many others across the nation, all of whom ignore the plain language of HR 3899 enshrining state Photo Voter ID laws: "other than a violation of section 2(a) which is based on the imposition of a requirement that an individual provide a photo identification as a condition of receiving a ballot for voting in an election for Federal, State, or local office."

As Derick T. Dingle writes, "Legal scholars found the voter ID provision as a gaping hole in the law (HR 3899), avoiding one of the major voter suppression issues of the day."

On the up side, the League challenge is an "as-applied" challenge as opposed to the "facial" challenge in the Crawford vs. Marion County Board of Elections, as noted by Earnest A. Canning in the Brad Blog.

The problem is Section 2 is not much help to the Wisconsin case if the Voting Rights Amendment Act (H.R.3899) permits state photo voter ID laws, the favorite voter obstruction tool of the Republicans, as the case winds its way through a hostile GOP-heavy, federal judiciary.

The other federal Wisconsin challenge to the GOP voter obstruction Act makes Constitutional Equal Protection, Twenty-Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment arguments, irrespective of the Voting Rights Act.

Under Scott Walker, "Wisconsin has long been recognized as the Selma of the North and this case illustrates just why the Midwestern state bears this harrowing distinction,” said James Eichner, Managing Director for Programs, Advancement Project. “Wisconsin’s discriminatory voter ID law is virtually indistinguishable from Jim Crow laws of earlier eras which required poll taxes, property requirements, literacy tests and other contrived, racist measures designed to prevent African Americans from voting."

Walker is getting some company from Democratic congressmen. 

Oppose Voting Rights Amendment Act; It's a Sham

Update: Don't worry Republicans, state voter obstruction laws are safe.

Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2014: Section 3(c) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (42 U.S.C. 1973a(c)) is amended by striking ‘‘violations of the fourteenth or fifteenth amendment’’ and inserting ‘‘violations of the 14th or 15th Amendment; violations of this Act (other than a violation of section 2(a) which is based on the imposition of a requirement that an individual provide a photo identification as a condition of receiving a ballot for voting in an election for Federal, State, or local office) ... ."
Translated, GOP state photo voter ID laws have been carved out as an exception by the Republicans, and just because the GOP obstructs voters there is no reason for this be considered a violation of the new and fetid VRA.

The Voting Rights Amendment Act, H.R.3899, is a con unprecedented in the modern fight for the right to vote.

The bill would allow for state GOP-crafted voter obstruction laws to pass muster under the Act, language which drew the NAACP's guarded statement that the "NAACP appreciates that the U.S. Congress has made a bipartisan effort to update the Voting Rights Act, however we have serious concerns about the ability of some provisions in this bill to protect ALL voters from discrimination at the polls."

This bill should be opposed, and a real act with teeth that codifies that voting is a federal fundamental right should be passed.

Such as an act exists; it's call the Pocan-Ellison Right to Vote Amendment. Republicans hate it because it protects the right to vote against GOP efforts to obstruct it.

Ari Berman writes: "Voting rights supporters will argue, justifiably, that the new Section 4 formula does not apply to enough states and wrongly treats voter ID laws differently than other discriminatory voting changes. Despite these flaws, the legislation represents a significant improvement over the disastrous post-Shelby status quo, which has seen states like North Carolina and Texas rush to pass or implement blatantly discriminatory voting restrictions after being freed from federal oversight." 

Berman's argument is that state voter obstruction laws are still legal, voter obstruction will occur, and we should still welcome this sham.

Talk about lowering the bar.

Call your congressional representative and register your opposition today. Our congressman here in southcentral Wisconsin, Mark Pocan, can be reached at Rep. Pocan.

Other representatives can be reached through the House of Representatives home page.

In the face of the Republican War on Voting, do some Democrats really believe the GOP has surrendered and suddenly morphed into voting rights champions?

Don't Trust James Sensenbrenner on Voting Right Act

James Sensenbrenner - Protector of
Republican Voter Obstruction

Update II: Sensenbrenner is also one of only six serving in Congress today who opposed the federal holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. What a hypocrite.


Update: Pennsylvania Judge Strikes Down GOP's New Voter ID Law, the injunction and opinion is at Applewhite et al v. Pennsylvania.

American democracy—Freedom and the right to vote, the light of the world

No kids, in America the Republican Party is hostile to these rights. For the GOP voting is a privilege reserved for those who vote the correct way, and the GOP continues its assault against the fundamental right of our democracy.

Now, the Republican Party is trying to codify and enshrine its state-level voter obstruction project that it says is perfectly in keeping with its 'fix' to the Voting Rights Act.

The national press is maintaining the pretension that Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-White People) cares about fixing the Voting Rights Act eviscerated by Sensenbrenner's GOP colleagues on the U.S. Supreme Court last year in Shelby County v. Holder.

Several liberal writers think it's the only shot at getting a weak repair to the Voting Rights Act through Congress. This effort is a crock.

The Republican voter obstruction project has as one of its primary tools: GOP-crafted state voter ID laws enacted with unanimous GOP support and unanimous opposition from civil rights groups and the Democratic Party.

Voter ID laws make it more difficult to vote for disaffected veterans, minorities, colleges students and other demographics not aware of their duty to vote Republican.

Such state voter obstruction laws are the policy rationale behind the Voting Rights Act (1965) and its reauthorizations.

But Sensenbrenner loves voter obstruction, Voter ID laws, slashing early voting, gerrymandering, and other GOP tricks to keep people from voting.

Steve Benen, writing for MSNBC, is one of the writers who likes to pretend Sensenbrenner is a champion of voting rights, while noting this new 'fix' of the Voting Rights Act is a bill that Sensenbrenner acclaims "includes strong, nationwide anti-discrimination protections and continues to permit states to enact reasonable voter-ID laws. Therefore, it prevents racial-discrimination and gives states the ability to address voter fraud."

That there is virtually no in-person voter fraud is, in the minds of Benen and Sensenbrenner, of no consequence.

As for Voter ID laws, what's "reasonable" in Sensenbrenner's mind? Texas and Wisconsin's restrictive Voter ID laws are.

Here's what Sensenbrenner had to say about Texas in August last year: "I regret that the Department of Justice announced its intent to file a lawsuit against Texas’ Voter ID law citing Section 2 to the Voting Rights Act.  The Texas legislature passed Voter ID, and Governor Perry signed this legislation into law in 2011. Voter ID laws are an essential element in protecting the integrity of our electoral process and do not have a discriminatory intent or effect"

There are of course serious efforts to protect voting: The Pocan-Ellison Right to Vote Amendment.

Sensenbrenner supporting this mega voting rights guarantee, and going against his Party's voter obstruction project is as likely as Sarah Palin winning a Nobel Prize in physics.

We noted here last November that in 2005-06, Sensenbrenner was chair of the House Judiciary Committee so he likes to preen that he was the champion of the renewal of the various sections of the Voting Rights Act that passed 390-33 in the House and 98-0 in the Senate and, history should remember, was signed into law by President George W. Bush. What guts.

In fact, Bush did one hell of a job of conjuring LBJ in the White House, and as noted by Gary May and Joseph Morgan Kousser cajoled Congress into passing a 25-year reauthorization in the Republican-controlled Congress.

Writes May:

(D)uring his second term Bush found it necessary to court black voters. The president's slow response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, which hurt blacks disproportionally and revealed again the presence of widespread poverty in the South, damaged Bush's standing. In an attempt to recoup his political fortunes as congressional elections approached in 2006, Bush turned to the black community. On a trip to Memphis visited the Loraine Motel and stood on the balcony where Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968. He also agreed to address the NAACP's annual convention, which he had ignored for six years. There Bush was received coolly but won a standing ovation when he expressed his support for the Voting Rights Act, urging congress to enact it then, one year before it was due to expire. This was not simply rhetoric. Behind the scenes Bush's staff encouraged Republicans, who now controlled both houses of Congress, to extend the Act. And this time the Republican congressional leadership in both the House and Senate were receptive to such appeals because if you weren't a southerner, there was no political payoff for attacking the now-iconic Voting Right Act. (pp 273-274)

So, House Judiciary Committee Sensenbrenner was going to defy Bush and Rove on the Voting Rights Act reauthorization of 2006? Right.

And Sensenbrenner is now going to declare war on the GOP's war on voting? Right.

Obama May Issue Order Exposing Big Corporate Political Spenders in Citizens United Era

A executive order requiring that federal contractors disclose their electoral spending—by top officers and as corporations—is being reconsidered by the White House despite stiff opposition from the business lobby after it was first proposed last spring, according to civil rights attorneys working on the issue.

By Steven Rosenfeld

“There’s a lot of movement at the White House,” said Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen. “I just had a meeting at the White House counsel’s office, trying to encourage them to move forward with the executive order. They have the perfect window of opportunity to get the executive order done.”

“It’s simple—any company that is paid with taxpayer dollars should be required to disclose political contributions,” said Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., who has pushed for the White House to issue the order. “With public dollars come public responsibilities, and I hope President Obama will issue his executive order right away.”

The order, if issued, would likely be the only campaign finance initiative to emerge from Washington this year as nothing is expected from Congress. It would take effect after the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council adopts new disclosure rules. That could come as the 2012 election season moves beyond the primaries and it would offer a new way to see who is behind the newest independent groups spending millions on political attack ads.

“Most of the major corporate players are also government contractors,” Holman said. “So if we get this executive order approved, we will get a comprehensive picture of how corporations are spending money in elections.”

Spending on federal contracts was $541 billion in 2010, which was about 4 percent of the gross domestic product, according to the Congressional Research Service, and almost 15 percent of the federal budget. The top 100 contractors are some of America’s biggest firms, and include support services for the military overseas, weapons makers, computer companies, telecommunication firms and other service providers. Companies that could fall under the disclosure order employ about 22 percent of the domestic workforce, CRS said.

The proposed executive order emerged last April, where it swiftly drew condemnation from some of Washington’s biggest business lobbies, including the Professional Services Council, the Aerospace Industries Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Almost immediately, Republicans in the House and Senate began adding amendments to appropriations bills prohibiting federal agencies from collecting the political contribution information as part of the procurement process.

Rep. Eshoo led the Democrats' response by making floor speeches and introducing short amendments to spending bills requiring the contractor disclosure.

“I rise to call for transparency and disclosure in our system and throughout our government,” Eshoo said, in a typical speech. “In 2002, when we voted to pass the historic McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill, most Republicans voted no, saying we needed disclosure….They said we needed to put spending out in the open and let the voters assess it. Today, when the president proposes requiring contractors to disclose their spending and not to limit it, Republicans are up in arms. They say it will politicize the contracting process. But when contractors can spend money in elections, the contracting process is already politicized.”

In July 2011, Eshoo sent a letter, signed by 62 other House Democrats, urging President Obama to issue the executive order. That letter noted that a handful of states ban forms of political spending by contractors, citing Connecticut, New Jersey, West Virginia and Hawaii. It also noted that since 1994, the Securities and Exchange Commission has barred brokers and securities dealers and their PACs from making campaign contributions to bond-issuing officials. The SEC rule was upheld in court.

“Political expenditures are already well-known to those that make them and to the officials who benefit,” she concluded in the letter urging the administration to action.

However, the White House took no further action after last summer. Meanwhile, every time Eshoo offered a disclosure amendment it prompted a counter measure from House Republicans. The stalemate ended in December, when a compromise was reached. The GOP’s stated objections concerned disclosing political contributions before contracts were awarded—in the bidding stage. The House Republicans withdrew their objection once Eshoo and Democratic leaders agreed to limit disclosure to after federal contracts had been awarded.

The most recent spending bill to pass the House removed those barriers, Eshoo said last month. “Today's compromise omnibus spending bill leaves the president free to require disclosure from any company receiving taxpayer dollars,” she said, alluding to the new window for the White House to move ahead with an executive order.

“Now we have the perfect window to get it done,” Holman said. “The [Republicans' legislative] riders have been removed.”

Neither Eshoo’s office nor Public Citizen’s Holman have seen newer drafts of the executive order since it circulated in April. That initial draft would report contributions to third-party groups, including the super PACs that spent millions on television ads before the Iowa caucuses—supposedly independent of candidates.

Should the executive order be signed, it would not stop the deluge of campaign cash into all flavors of political committees. However, lawyers for the super PACs have sought to delay reporting their contributions and expenditures until after the earliest presidential primaries. Thus, if adopted, it would force additional transparency on some of this political season’s stealthiest operators and might give some pause before acting.

Holman hoped the White House would issue the order before the upcoming State of the Union address. In the meantime, he said the White House’s lawyers were “attentive, polite and noncommittal” during their most recent meeting.

“With the two-year anniversary of Citizens United upon us, President Obama should seize the opportunity to address voter frustration and anger by putting in place meaningful transparency and disclosure,” Eshoo said.