Wisconsin Ethics Commission, a titular election watchdog, member, Robert Kinney has resigned in disgust.
Reports Jason Stein: "Kinney said that in a private session the commission has already declined to take action on a complaint that he believed merited it."
"If financial or ethical improprieties are leveled, or allegations of quid pro quo corruption are made, they must be thoroughly and timely investigated, and, if warranted, aggressively prosecuted. Sadly, it appears we have created a system which almost guarantees that this will not occur," Kinney said in a statement Monday (Stein, MJS), (Capitol Newspapers).
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Too many in American political culture fail to recognize that President-elect Donald Trump does not believe in the foundational liberty of voting rights.
We can expect a devastating assault on the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice in the Trump adminstration.
As noted at the United State Department of Justice, the Civil Rights Division was enacted in to uphold civil rights against municipal and state incursions on individual liberty:
The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, created in 1957 by the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, works to uphold the civil and constitutional rights of all Americans, particularly some of the most vulnerable members of our society. The Division enforces federal statutes prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, disability, religion, familial status and national origin.
Time to get to rid of that liberal know-it-all stuff.
Via the Election Law site:
Sam Bagenstos for The American Prospect:
Voting Rights. After the Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County decision cutting the heart from the Voting Rights Act, states formerly covered by the statute’s preclearance requirement initiated a wave of new vote-suppression measures. Other states also adopted voting restrictions in advance of the 2016 election. The Civil Rights Division responded with an aggressive program of lawsuits that limited the worst abuses, even if these lawsuits were not always successful.Trimming the voting rolls, an achievable objective when democracy is weak.
I expect the efforts to attack voter suppression to end in the Trump administration and the division instead to bring new lawsuits that will themselves be designed to suppress the vote. A provision of the National Voter Registration Act (commonly known as the Motor Voter law) requires states to maintain up-to-date voting rolls. Many conservative commentators—including leading right-wing voices on voting issues like Adams and von Spakovsky—believe that the voting rolls in many jurisdictions fail to comply with that provision because they contain people who died, moved out of the jurisdiction, or otherwise are not eligible voters. I expect the Trump Civil Rights Division to bring suits under that provision in places with large minority, youth, or other Democratic-leaning populations. The goal of these lawsuits will be to trim the voting rolls.
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