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).

Wisconsin Voter ID Ruling Derided by Election Law Expert as "Disingenuous"

Update: Counting on Wisconsin citizens to not stay current as Republican judges and Scott Walker play with their voting rights, stopping Wisconsin voters from voting is a bone fide movement of the Republican Party.

"For reasons I’ve flagged here, implementing voter id in Wisconsin at the last minute is likely to cause electoral chaos—a point which should be compelling regardless of where you stand on the actual merits of WI implementing its voter id law in an organized way," notes Rick Hasen's latest.
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Rick Hasen is a rigorous election law scholar whom most Americans perhaps find boring.

But after the release of the opinions [five-to-five] of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit denying the motion to restore the status quo of the injunction (or blocking) of Wisconsin's Voter ID law, Hasen let lose with a word not normally associated with a federal appellate court: Disingenuous.

Check Hasen's piece out.

The truth of the matter is the formal structures of our democracy are imperiled, along with the substantive functioning.

See also In Wisconsin, a Push for Voter ID Law, But Not Voter IDs. (Fischer, PRWatch)

The Judiciary no longer should be accorded any more respect than a corrupt Chicago alder from the 1960s.

The only problem is that hacks like Judge Rudolph Randa and the goons on the Seventh Circuit rule with the force of law.

Photo Voter ID for the Wisconsin November Election—A Voter System Usability Test

Updated - February 21, 2012 is the only day in Wisconsin history when a new statutory condition—a new qualification—had to be satisfied to cast a vote without an amendment to the Wisconsin Constitution.

This statutory condition, a new qualification, is likely one of the grounds on which the Wisconsin Supreme Court will strike down Wisconsin's photo voter ID law, Act 23, as unconstitutional.

Scott Walker knew he and the Republican Party legislators enacted an unconstitutional law that stopped qualified, registered Wisconsin voters from voting.

Scott Walker knows in a heavy voter turn-out election, Act 23 (had it not been enjoined by state courts, and likely a federal judge as well) would obstruct and suppress potentially 100,000s of voters.

This knowledge does not weigh on Walker because stopping Wisconsin voters from voting is precisely the point of Act 23, and the GOP's other voter obstruction laws passed since they took control of the legislature and executive branch.

Put aside. for the moment, the facts demonstrated in federal and state court that blacks, Latinos, the elderly, homeless, homeless veterans, and college students for example would face barriers and burdens imposed by the Republican Party's Act 23.

The February 21, 2012 Spring Primary Election Day—when no statewide races were on the ballots and turn-out was in the single digits—provided a usability test for photo voter ID.

I worked as an election inspector on the voter rolls books on February 21, 2012, at Fire Station #2 (Fitchburg, Wisconsin (Wards 1-4; District one)).

I can tell you that the time imposed on the system, assuming Act 23 or a new photo voter ID act is in effect, would on the November 2014 General Election Day cause huge lines, massive delays, and sow confusion at the polling place: All GOP objectives.

Assume a photo voter ID law is in place in November 2014, as Walker says he'll attempt to enact after the expected judicial knockdown of Act 23, in this heavy turn-out election the waiting times would become unbearable to many.

In this scenario, Wisconsin GAB regulations [which would be slightly revised for a new law] would require each voter at the polls to state his name and address, sign his or her name on the voting rolls, and present a GOP-approved photo voter ID to poll worker (election inspector).

The poll worker in turn would examine the ID against the restrictive list of acceptable IDs; check the name on the ID against the voting roll; examine the photo for resemblance to the voter; and then physically hand the ID to the second poll worker who repeats the process.

The variables of the extra time for the single voter may not seem like much, but this variable (the time increases) are multiplied the longer the line and the higher the turn-out on Election Day.

Throw in time increase factors built into the Wisconsin voting system by Republicans since 2011 such as eliminating weekend early voting, multiple shortening of early-voting periods, new residency rules, elimination of third-person attesting to residency, and so on and the result is less Wisconsin people will have voted.

This is the Republican objective.

In June 2012, many polling places experienced near-presidential level turn-out on the Recall General Election day. Had the photo voter ID rules been in effect, the long lines, and over-an-hour waits for voters registering at the polls on Election Day that already existed that day would have been catastrophically increased, assuming the objective of constitutionally qualified voters casting their preference on Election Day.