Voting Rights Appear Doomed; Our Country Remains Ours', If We Want It

Voting Rights Act of 1965: "To enforce the
fifteenth amendment of the Constitution of the
United States, and for other purposes."

Madison, Wisconsin — The United States Supreme Court demonstrated anew the institution is a naked political force intent on ending protections for Americans' foundational right to cast their vote.

The Roberts Court did well for itself this week in Brnovich v Democratic National Committee.

Voting rights, our voting rights, fared poorly, as the Court makes clear that legal claims that our rights are violated, per the Voting Right Act protections, will be met with great skepticism, even judicial hostility.

Rights? Liberties, you say, in federal court? Ha.

Chief Justice John Roberts is a veteran political operative.

No doubt this Summer he is all smiles after a milestone of his political campaign, eight years after five Republican justices on the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated critical sections of the Voting Right Act in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder in 2013, and other cases contriving the end of racism has arrived in America, Ricci v. DeStefano (07-1428 & 08-328).

Let's not forget how we arrived here.

Identity politics in all of its madness bequeathed to us this ridiculous Court, a legislative-executive branch creating law made-up by nine people, or in Brnovich, six.

After the Democratic National Committee rigged the 2016 Primary, Hillary Clinton won the nomination as the most unpopular nominee in recent history. You see, Democrats would rather virtue-signal than win.

That's three nominees to the high court delivered to a White House lunatic, including Ruth Bader Ginsberg who made the idiotic decision to stay on the Court, as liberals celebrated her "obstinacy as a sign of female empowerment," as noted by Shant Mesrobian.

The evisceration of the Voting Rights Act by our country's supreme branch of government towering over the other two branches, now forces field and policy work despised by the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party three main constituencies are corporate largess, law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

All three interests make exorbitant claims their interest alone should predominate over the American government.

Now, a branch of government, the judiciary, that declares itself supreme in its holdings nullifies even the ratification rights of the peons whose liberty interests lurks in the shadows of the powers that be.

Happy Independence Day 2021.

Wisconsin Republicans Coexist with Peninsula Paradise

Yoda has advice for white Wisconsinites voting Republican

Water and racist politics get around in the Wisconsin Peninsula

Updated - Nobody visiting Wisconsin likes cow shite in their beer and rightfully so.

But in their water, that's okay with a bare majority of folks who live here.

Consider the people living in Wisconsin's peninsula jutting out into Lake Michigan, offering a political culture approximating the Badger State as a whole.

Two overwhelmingly white, sparsely populated counties—Door and Kewaunee—comprise the beautiful peninsula with a combined voting population of some 28,000 people in the 2016 presidential election, (Wisconsin Elections Commission, County by County Report - President of the United States Recount).

And no matter how clear the value of fresh, safe water may appear with the massive Lake Michigan staring these folks in the face every day, there is roughly 50 percent of the voting population of the peninsula that will vote anti-water Republican and Scott Walker-and-Jesus-loves-polluters, (Wisconsin Elections Commission) as the state abandons water protection under Republicans' anti-water agenda.

Political strategists looking for an effective counter to the white, rural and small-town Republican lock look at water politics with hope. But right now at this moment, despite huge organizing successes for clean and safe water citizen groups, electorally, polluting the water past safety and decency plays okay.

A reader today can visit the Kewaunee County webpage and read about the stunning natural resources, a new Revamped Tourism website, alongside of new Well Water Testing Presentations by Dr. Mark Borchardt, and Dr. Maureen Muldoon on the danger of cow feces in your drinking and bath water from Republican-supported factory farms, how to test for fecal contamination in your water, and how water wells work in different geological regions. Kind of sciencey so Republicans are not too thrilled with the presentations.

To be Republican in Wisconisn is as well to cast your lot consonant with the constant racist appeals to white Wisconsin that goes back decades. [In 1983 for example, Wisconsin supplied a full three of the 90 House votes against the establishment of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day: racists Reps Tom Petri, (R-Fond du Lac), Toby Roth, (R-Green Bay), and James Sensenbrenner (R-Whitefish Bay) (Gov Track), (Mal Contends)].

Racist politics are no problem as in no deal breaker. Northeastern and east-central Wisconsin remain white, racist and proud, for example.

Donald Trump could call for a final solution to the black and brown problem, and roughly 14,000 of the 28,000-voting gentle peninsula folk would go along.

This with, broadly speaking, heightened consciousness of the value of water and of Latino workers in the polluting factory dairy operations. Yep, Latino folks have a 'role to play' in Wisconsin, but this role has nothing to do with their humanity.

Two residents of the Wisconsin peninsula offer an analysis of Republican politics and the nascent destruction of safe water in northeastern Wisconsin: Don Freix, small business owner in Door County in the Door County Daily News, and Nancy Utesch, small farmer in Kewaunee County in the Capital Times. Both pieces are worth reading repeatedly.

Writes Utesch:

The Department of Natural Resources' recent low-key roll-out of help for Kewaunee County residents dealing with contamination so great that they cannot drink nor should they bathe in their water highlights the DNR’s continued failures, lack of integrity, and continued lack of urgency in responding to Kewaunee’s health and water crisis.

Lack of urgency, as in come to Wisconsin' peninsula but don't drink the water but at least there are plenty of white people and pretty leaves in the Fall.

James Sensenbrenner Remains One of Six in Congress Who Opposed Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Wisconsin U.S. House roll call vote in 1983 on establishment
of Martin Luther King, Jr. as a legal public holiday, (GovTrack)

Updated - The birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. is celebrated as a national holiday on the third Monday of January every year.

President Reagan signed the Rev. King Holiday bill (H.R. 3706 (1983)), into law on November 2, 1983. Only three people have a national holiday observed in their honor (Congress.Gov), (White House).

[Note: No links are made here to the The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change website, (funded by by J.P. Morgan Chase Co.), or The Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr. because these groups see fit to copyright and privatize speeches, images and photos of King, profiting from a leader of the American civil rights movement.]

Getting Martin Luther King's birthday through congress as a legal national holiday was a difficult legislative process.

Wisconsin Republicans' Shameful Performance

If you are from Wisconsin, the Congressional record reveals familiar Republican names who were loyal members of the opposition to King: Reps Tom Petri, (R-Fond du Lac), Toby Roth, (R-Green Bay), and James Sensenbrenner (R-Whitefish Bay) (Gov Track).

These three Wisconsin congressmen represented overwhelming white districts in east-central and northeastern Wisconsin, and suburban Milwaukee. Petri, Roth and Sensenbrenner were among 90 House members who joined segregationists and white supremacists in opposing the King holiday in an August 2, 1983 vote that sent H.R. 3706 (1983) to the United States Senate (Gov Track) (Congress.Gov), (New York Times).

The years-long battle featured a fierce debate in 1979 in which the "strongest opposition came from lawmakers in the Deep South, such as Senator Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina, and Senator Strom Thurmond, Republican of South Carolina, who ran for president in 1948 on a segregationist platform," (Stack, New York Times). Still the deep south had nothing on the rural north with respect to racism. Reps. Petri, Roth and Sensenbrenner all played to their white rural and suburban constituencies.

Racism Lives

Six serving members of Congress— Senators Charles Grassley (R-Iowa); Richard Shelby (R-Alabama); John McCain (R-Arizona); Orrin Hatch (R-Utah); and United States Representatives Hal Rogers (R-Kentucky) and James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin)—remain what is left of the congressional opposition who worked against Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (Mal Contends), (Washington Post). All six were reelected in 2016, and all six represent very white and very safe Republican jurisdictions today.

If you live in Arkansas, Alabama, or Mississippi today you can jointly observe Robert E. Lee Day, to give some balance to this most-uppity of black men (Little, National Geographic).

Bill introduced by Rep. Katie Hall [D-IN1, 1981-1984] on July 29, 1983, H.R. 3706 (98th):
A bill to amend title 5, United States Code, to make the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.,
a legal public holiday. 98th Congress, Aug 2, 1983, (Congress.Gov)

It is more important than ever to observe Martin Luther King's birthday as a moment to celebrate the abolitionist and civil-rights movements that remain today a promise still unfulfilled.

RNC Coordination with Election Officials in Voter Supression Is Hit

Just a matter of time before municipal and state election bureaucrats are implicated in Republican-enacted voter obstruction schemes.

For now the light is on poll observers.

A logical line of investigation leads to Republican Party-named election officials as anecdotal evidence of suppression is complied.

Rachel Maddow offers a summary of recent developments.

Wisconsin Dems Urge DoJ to Assist in Overseeing Wisconsin’s Elections

Wild guess. I'm betting no Wisconsin Republican will join the Democratic Party's Wisconsin congressional delegation in calling for protecting the liberty of voters.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Mark Pocan (D-WI), along with Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Reps. Ron Kind (D-WI) and Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI), sent a letter to the Department of Justice requesting assistance in overseeing Wisconsin’s monitoring of the election, including providing poll-monitoring services in the state. The request was spurred by Wisconsin’s contentious and discriminatory Voter ID Law and a political environment that has become increasingly intimidating for voters.

“We have continued to see how Wisconsin’s voter ID law puts the franchise of many Wisconsinites, particularly people of color, in real jeopardy,” the Members of Congress write.

“Given the flawed efforts thus far by state officials to properly implement this law, with proof of demonstrably false information having been disseminated to voters just days before the election, we fear that irreparable harm may result—particularly to voters of color, who disproportionately bear the brunt of these policies and any Election Day intimidation efforts. We ask the Department to provide any resources or assistance it can in order to help our state navigate these unsettling circumstances.”

The full text of the letter is below and a signed copy can be found here.

Dear Attorney General Lynch,

As you are aware, Wisconsin, which we represent, is among 14 states that have adopted new voter restrictions in advance of the November 8th election. The state’s 2011 voter identification law, one of the strictest in the country, has been repeatedly challenged in federal court due to its discriminatory effects on vulnerable populations’ voting rights. Due to the law’s contentious nature and poor implementation, coupled with a political environment that is becoming increasingly intimidating, we are requesting the Department of Justice’s assistance in overseeing the state’s monitoring of the election, including by providing poll-monitoring services in Wisconsin.

In 2014, a U.S. district court noted that more than 300,000 Wisconsinites lacked the newly requisite form of identification, and that this population disproportionately included persons of color. Judge Lynn Adelman further observed that state officials “could not point to a single instance of known voter impersonation occurring in Wisconsin at any time in the recent past,” casting serious doubt on the official rationale for the policy.

A second federal court determined earlier this summer that even the “safety net” built into the law to help voters who have trouble obtaining ID was a “wretched failure” that “disenfranchised citizens” who are “overwhelmingly African American and Latino.”

Deeming the provision unconstitutional, Judge James Peterson mandated changes in practice and public education to ensure that that process better serves all Wisconsinites with documentation challenges in obtaining identification so they can vote. Concurring with Judge Adelman, Judge Peterson also expressed “misgivings about whether the law actually promotes confidence and integrity,” and observed that prior to 2011, “Wisconsin had an exemplary election system that produced high levels of voter participation without significant irregularities.”

Unfortunately, since that court order in late July, we have continued to see how Wisconsin’s voter ID law puts the franchise of many Wisconsinites, particularly people of color, in real jeopardy. Over the last month, press reports have revealed that on numerous occasions, Wisconsin Department of Motor Vehicle employees provided erroneous and incomplete information to potential voters who are unable to obtain IDs due to a lack of required documentation (like a birth certificate), despite their eligibility for alternative credentials.

These revelations led Judge Peterson to remark on October 12, “I'm very disappointed to see that the state really did nothing in response to my order,” noting that voters are “at the mercy of the DMV, and its staff wasn't trained well enough to guide people through it.” We are deeply troubled by the prospect of such misinformation contributing to voter disenfranchisement in this election. While further scrutiny by the federal court has prompted state officials to institute additional training and public education efforts at the DMV, there is entirely too much at stake in the limited time left before the election to let this continue without additional oversight.

In addition to misinformation, we are also concerned about potential voter intimidation at the polling places, particularly in light of recent, high-profile rhetoric that alleges “election rigging.” National figures have suggested that there is widespread voter fraud in our country and have encouraged private citizens to monitor the voting behaviors of certain communities for potential misconduct.

Given the flawed efforts thus far by state officials to properly implement this law, with proof of demonstrably false information having been disseminated to voters just days before the election, we fear that irreparable harm may result—particularly to voters of color, who disproportionately bear the brunt of these policies and any Election Day intimidation efforts.

We ask the Department to provide any resources or assistance it can in order to help our state navigate these unsettling circumstances. For example, the Department has historically provided poll monitors on Election Day to help ensure that all eligible voters will be permitted to register and exercise their fundamental right to participate in our democracy. We therefore urge the Department of Justice to utilize any available election monitoring resources to ensure voters in Wisconsin are able to safely access the polls.

The right to elect our public representatives is unrivaled in its importance to a fully functioning democracy. 

With few days remaining until the election, it is imperative that we do everything in our power to limit the amount of harm caused to our state’s voters.

Thank you for your consideration of this request and for the Department of Justice’s ongoing efforts to ensure the fairness of all elections in our country.
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Wisconsin's Sensenbrenner and Five Serving in Congress Voted Against MLK Day

Six serving in Congress who voted against MLK Day

The Rachel Maddow Show featured a segment last night that reported the six serving members of Congress who voted against commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. with a national holiday.

Two have repudiated their votes; one, Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-White People), poses today as a voting rights advocate while defending states' Photo Voter ID laws restricting voting mostly against racial minorities.

The laws will likely be heard at the U.S. Supreme Court in this term or the next.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner is still hostile to civil rights

Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court is reaching out to rule on another Civil Rights achievement, the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

In Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project, Inc., the Court is expected to gut the Act.

Segregated communities and discriminatory landlords look to the Court to GOP applause.

"The Fair Housing Act, prohibits discrimination by direct providers of housing, such as landlords and real estate companies as well as other entities, such as municipalities, banks or other lending institutions and homeowners insurance companies whose discriminatory practices make housing unavailable to persons...," - United States Dept of Justice, Civil Rights Division page.

Prohibiting discrimination, what a nightmare for the Republican Party.

Senseless on Sensenbrenner, Liberal Pundits Maintain Myth

Voting Rights Act and Senseless Commentary
on The Rachel Maddow Show (01/14/15)

Update: 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.

As Republicans continue their war against voting rights, Steve Kornacki (guest host of The Rachel Maddow Show last night) decided that the proper course of action is to further the myth that Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-White People in Wisconsin) is a voting rights champion.

Kornacki points out that the so-called legislative fix after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Amendment in Shelby County (Alabama) v. Holder (2013) is dead for the next two years because the current House Judiciary Committee Chair, Bob Goodlatte (R-White People in Virginia), said there is no need for a fix.

Shocker.

The Republican Party's attempt to obstruct as many black, brown, college-age and other non-GOP voting people as possible is a years-long project that Goodlatte, RNC Chair Reince Priebus and other Republicans never had any intention of killing, much less negating by resurrecting the Voting Rights Act after the five Republicans on the Supreme Court gutted the Act.

The problem is Kornacki (and other liberal-progressives and even the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights) knows this and yet pretends otherwise, alluding often to Diana Marrero's 2009 piece in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in which Sensenbrenner declares himself a champion of voting rights, and post-Shelby, at events in which Sensenbrenner declares he is committed to restoring the Voting Rights Act, passing legislation making the Voting Rights Act, "impervious to another challenge that will be filed by the usual suspects." 

We don't need suspects, we know the perpetrators: Republicans.

Why should Kornacki and any thinking American regard Sensenbrenner as a fraud, and (get this) a GOP politician who is lying about a civil rights issue?

It's called evidence.

In Sensenbrenner's home state, Wisconsin, Scott Walker and Republicans quickly passed a restrictive Photo Voter ID law on a party-line vote in 2011 that would obstruct 100,000s, a fact supported by a mountain of evidence at trial in Ruthelle Frank v. Scott Walker, struck down in April 2014.

What did Sensenbrenner have to say about Wisconsin's Photo Voter ID law? He called this voter obstruction measure "common sense." 

How about a proposed Constitutional Amendment affirmatively declaring that Americans have a Constitutional right to vote? Sensenbrenner refuses to support this mega Voting Rights Act (VRA) -- the Mark Pocan-Keith Ellison proposed Right-to-Vote constitutional amendment.

How about Texas' onerous Photo Voter ID law that is worse than Wisconsin's? 

Here's what Sensenbrenner had to say in August 2013 on the U.S. DoJ legal action against Texas, just a few months after Shelby County: "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." (emphasis added)

Assuming Kornacki and his writers have Google, Sensenbrenner's deplorable record is easy to research.

In fact, Kornacki could have looked at the online MSNBC site for knockdowns on Sensenbrenner's alleged commitment to voting rights, specifically Sensenbrenner's comments at a townhall-style meeting in March 2014 before an all white audience in Rubicon, Wisconsin (Roth, MSNBC).

After co-authoring a so-called fix, H.R. 3899, to the Voting Rights Act, Sensenbrenner said the following: "I hope the president vetoes the bill [H.R. 3899] ... 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."

The problem with H.R. 3899 is that states' Voter ID laws would be specifically protected, and the proposed formula contains language that 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."

Four voting rights violations are fine.

Consider as well, desperate liberals and crowing Republicans point to Sensenbrenner's tenure when he was the House Judiciary Committee Chair and the VRA was reauthorized as evidence that Sensenbrenner sees the light on voting rights.

If Kornacki and other liberal writers are serious about taking Sensenbrenner's words at face value, Kornacki might well consider reading Judge Richard Posner's On Suggestion of Rehearing en banc (October 2014) on the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit's upholding Wisconsin Photo Voter Id law five-to-five (a ruling enjoined weeks later by the U.S. Supreme Court, pending granting of cert, denial of review or Court judgment), recalling that this is the same Wisconsin law Sensenbrenner called "common sense."

Writes Posner:

The data imply that a number of conservative states try to make it difficult for people who are outside the mainstream, whether because of poverty or race or problems with the English language, or who are unlikely to have a driver’s license or feel comfortable dealing with officialdom, to vote, and that liberal states try to make it easy for such people to vote because if they do vote they are likely to vote for Democratic candidates. Were matters as simple as this there would no compelling reason for judicial intervention; it would be politics as usual. But actually there’s an asymmetry. There is evidence both that voter impersonation fraud is extremely rare and that photo ID requirements for voting, especially of the strict variety found in Wisconsin, are likely to discourage voting. This implies that the net effect of such requirements is to impede voting by people easily discouraged from voting, most of whom probably lean Democratic. (p.18)

After GOP judges on the Seventh Circuit reinstated Wisconsin's Voter ID law last year after voting had already begun, Sensenbrenner said precisely nothing against this affront to voting rights.

Finally, Kornacki may wish to give Gary May's Bending Toward Justice - The Voting Rights Act and the Transformation of American Democracy (Gary May, Basic Books, 2013) a read and consider why the murders, the castrations, the maiming and the beatings of civil right activists demand that Kornacki not be so cavalier about Sensenbrenner and the Republicans' project to destroy the accomplishments of the civil rights movement.

Vis: George W. Bush did one hell of a job of conjuring LBJ in the White House, and as noted by 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 Chair Sensenbrenner was going to defy Bush and Rove on the Voting Rights Act reauthorization of 2006? Right.

Kornacki and others betray the martyrs of the civil rights movement in refusing condemnation of Sensenbrenner for playing games with human and civil rights.

Kornacki's work last night is a disgrace, and TRMS owes a follow-up on this fraud of man whom Wisconsin knows better as Senselessbrenner.

Civil Rights Org Calls for Voting Rights Bill

Civil rights activists held a press conference by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights this morning, calling for a Committee hearing, debate, markup and passing of the Voting Rights Act Amendment (VRAA), HR 3899.

The VRAA is meant to repair the damage wrought by the five Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court in Shelby v. Holder.

No voting rights activist likes the bill. They pretend to like to the bill.

No speaker today dared mention the anti-voting rights provisions in the Voting Rights Act Amendment.

HR 3899, among other provisions, contains language that would protect states' photo voter ID laws, a clause inserted by its chief sponsor Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-White People) who refers to his home state's (Wisconsin) photo voter ID law as "common sense."

Wisconsin's voter ID law was struck down last month by a federal judge who found that up to 300,000 voters lacked voter ID; Latinos and African Americans would are unfairly burdened by the law and prevented from voting, that voter fraud does not exist in Wisconsin and that the law is in violation of the Voting Rights Act and the U.S. Constitution.

This is Sensenbrenner's conception of a "common sense" law.

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 (VRAA), he will lose an awful lot of the African-American support that he has." (Roth, TRMS)

So we have the so-called fix to the VRA protecting state voter obstruction laws that the VRA was originally enacted in 1965 to stop, and the co-author of the bill, Sensenbrenner, who is a demonstrated phony voting rights advocate.

Progressive congressional supporters say they can amend the bill though they are afraid to publically express their opposition to the anti-voting provisions in the bill because this would offend Republicans who would then not allow the bill to be debated, amended or would vote against it, while Republicans continue their work against voting rights.

If this legislative strategy does not appear to make any sense, this is because the strategy is dumb, dumb, dumb.

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.
---
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.