Texas Voter ID

In last year’s legislative session, Texas passed a law similar to laws in other states requiring a photo ID for voting, in an attempt to reduce voter fraud. I havewritten about some of the voter fraud that has actually happened, that could have been prevented with a photo ID. I am strongly in favor of free and fair elections and have worked toward that end, volunteering as a poll watcher several times.

Texas is, unfortunately, subject to the 1964 Voting Rights Act. Texas is required to get federal approval for any changes in voting law and redistricting. I was not a Texan then, but the purpose was to prevent certain southern states from being able to prevent legal voting because of racism. That was 48 years ago. It may be that there were incidents of racist voter prevention back then; the state was solidly Democrat at that time. But now, while certain little pockets of racism still exist (among rural, older, less educated citizens), racism is simply not tolerated publicly or privately anywhere I associate. So, in essence, I believe such an act is outdated, unnecessary, and illegally discriminatory against Texas and the other sovereign states listed in the Act.

Today, subjecting all voting law changes and redistricting to federal review means subjecting ourselves to the racist discrimination of Eric Holder’s (and Obama’s) Department of Justice. It’s no surprise that they would be against Voter ID; they were the ones who refused to prosecute the New Black Panthers for several incidents of voter intimidation and violence since 2008. Their logic? Blacks can’t be considered racist, so anything they do is legal. (Read J. Christian Adams’ book Injustice.)

The claim about the Texas Voter ID is that legally registered Hispanic voters are unduly burdened, because they are less likely to have a photo ID, particularly in rural areas.

I’m suspicious of that assessment. In order to live in a rural area, driving just to a grocery store is a significant distance. Legal voters, we are to believe, live in the middle of nowhere, with no access to public or private transportation, and have no need to cash a check, get a library card, use a credit card, or fly on a plane—ever. And we are to believe this creates such a huge burden for such large numbers of Hispanics that even offering free state photo IDs cannot and will not solve the issue.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has already filed a lawsuit to fight the ruling, so that it goes up to a higher level court. I admire Mr. Abbott and generally see him as fighting strongly for Texas interests. I hope he is doing that in this case. However, yesterday, Christian Adams made suggestions for an approach to the fight the DOJ. He says the point of attack should be the constitutionality of section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Adams believes that both that section of the law and the way it is applied is unconstitutional. He believes Texas didn’t go far enough in stressing that point when coming up against the redistricting question, and can only show it’s seriousness on the Voter ID law by attacking on the unconstitutionality of the law.

The use of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act to block Texas voter ID is, in fact, unconstitutional. The Voting Section used statistical exaggerations and misapplication of the law to justify the objection. Why wouldn’t Texas challenge the constitutionality of the action against Texas?

Adams also points out that other states (Florida and Arizona) have used the unconstitutionality argument in their defense, and the DOJ has essentially folded. So there is no danger of political repercussions based on fear of the DOJ. Adams adds,

Had Texas filed a lawsuit in April 2011 to have voter ID approved, and challenged the constitutionality of Section 5 in the complaint, voter ID would now be in place in Texas. Instead, it is unlikely to be effective even by November 2012—unless Texas challenges the constitutionality of Section 5. Then approval will come faster.

This is one of those times when Texas needs to remember that we are the only state in the US that was once a sovereign nation; we joined the United States on the promise that the Constitution would protect our freedoms. Texas needs to stand firm—now and always.

Christian Adams on Injustice

Last night I got to hear Christian Adams speak about his new book Injustice (which I talked about here). I know it’s getting more and more difficult to be surprised at anything this administration does. And yet it is still shocking to know things really are as bad (or worse) as we imagine. 

Christian Adams was a lawyer in the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, for a number of years, through the Bush years at least and until summer 2010. He said that what you expect from the Department of Justice is legal fairness, and with most of the DOJ that is true. But not with the Civil Rights Division—one of the most powerful agencies in Washington. All it deals with is race. It was founded in 1957 in response to racial discrimination. The DOJ Civil Rights Division has power over voting, economy, and culture, including a great amount of interference into state sovereignty. 

The first two chapters of his book tell the story of the case US vs. Ike Brown, about infested voter fraud in Mississippi. Ike Brown was the black chairman who ran elections in his county. People in the DOJ were against working on the case. One said, “I didn’t join the DOJ to bring cases against black people.” 

Ike Brown is an egregious example. When asked what would improve race relations in the country, his answer was, “More funerals of white people.” When poll watchers tried to put a stop to illegal ballots being put in the machine that counted valid votes, Brown said, “You’re not dealing with Mississippi law here; you’re dealing with Ike’s law.” There were some illegal ballots that were put in a bank vault for safe keeping, so they could look at fingerprints later—the bank was burned down overnight. [This got our attention in the audience, because a suspicious fire took out our county voting machines in 2010, just weeks before the election.] Officials tried to claim the bank must have burned its own building down. 

This is the kind of voter fraud the DOJ refuses to prosecute—because their goal is to allow black voter fraud and only prosecute white (or actually only GOP) perpetrators. 

It was only by luck that Fox News caught on video the New Black Panthers committing voter intimidation in Philadelphia in 2008. That was the exception. Endemic corruption is much more widespread than we see—especially in areas where officials have gotten away with it for some time. That case was filed immediately, and was essentially won when Eric Holder’s DOJ dismissed it.  

The Bush administration was willing to prosecute regardless of color of the perpetrators. But elections have consequences. Those who were previously fighting prosecutions during the last administration—from within the ACLU, SEIU, the organization that wants to return California to Mexico, and other radical organizations—are now working in the DOJ. They are unwilling to enforce voter law, and will only prosecute traditional civil rights cases. 

Adams explained a little about Sections 7 and 8 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 7 is known as the Motor Voter law—anyone going to get a driver’s license is given the opportunity to register to vote. But this law also required voter registration to be made available at any social service agency—any time anyone signed up for food stamps, welfare, or any other social service. Long-time radical Francis Fox Piven was behind this. 

There was a compromise in 1993, essentially saying, “If you’re going to do that, then only eligible voters can be registered.” So Section 8 is for voter roll cleanup. Currently John Fernandez at the DOJ says they aren’t interested in enforcing Section 8—“It has nothing to do with getting out Hispanic votes.” 

Christopher Coates, former DOJ Civil Rights Voting Chief (Adams’ boss at the time), recommended investigations of eight states where certain counties had more registered voters than population. Opening an investigation meant simply a phonecall to ask for an explanation. But this DOJ nixed those investigations. 

They are at least open about it. On the walls of these very civil servants in charge of enforcing voter election laws, they display Obama campaign posters. So what you can expect in 2012 is that pro-Obama cheaters will be free to break the law at will—whatever it takes to keep their radical-in-chief in office. The only way to prevent them from winning by fraud is by having a landslide election against Obama, with a margin so large it can’t be overcome by the usual fraudulent practices. 

The Texas legislature passed a voter ID bill this year; it goes into effect January 1^st. But Texas is forced to submit any changes in voting law to the federal government for approval. Sixteen states are so required. This is because of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965—a powerful intrusion into state sovereignty. It is based on the 15^th Amendment, to prevent denial of citizens to vote on account of race or color. Originally the law took effect on those states that had less than 50% voter turnout and also a voting test (a literacy test, for example) in the 1964 election. (Essentially, this took in the Goldwater states.) In 1975 the rule added language as a test—in other words, expecting a voter to speak English was considered a violation. Texas was added to the list at this point. So now voting procedure laws and redistricting are subject to federal oversight. 

Oversight can be either through the DOJ or through a judge. Unfortunately, the Texas Secretary of State submitted the Voter ID law to the DOJ. Adams said the only reason he can imagine for Texas to do that is that state officials are ignorant of what is going on at this DOJ. There is a 90% chance that Voter ID will be objected to—in other words, no matter how carefully the law was written, no matter how freely the people of Texas supported the law, the DOJ can call it discriminatory at will. So in the 2012 Election, despite all our efforts to work toward free and fair elections, Obama’s administration is working to allow as much fraud as they are used to. 

Redistricting at least was submitted to a judge, instead of the DOJ. But there are very strict rules to make sure that gerrymandering to get minority representatives elected are not infringed. (Liberal minorities only—minority conservatives get no representation in those districts.) 

Adams mentioned that, besides control of voting law, the DOJ also has a lot of power over the economy and culture. One example of culture interference was a case in the New York Mohawk Unified School District. There were two 15-year-old boys who decided to cross-dress. They wore stilettos, miniskirts, and pink wigs—apparel not acceptable by any gender. They were told this was disruptive. Attorney General Eric Holder stepped in to sue the school district, forcing accommodation of these child transvestites. In addition Mohawk USD is forced to spend $50,000 a year to hire gender identity counselors. 

The DOJ alters school discipline. They claim it is racially discriminatory that blacks are 9% of the population but account for 30% of expulsions. They do not look at individual behavior; they assume discrimination if there is discipline against blacks. Even the threat of lawsuits makes it difficult to discipline the chosen minorities. Those not of that color get disciplined more to level the field. In other words, the DOJ gives incentive for more bad behavior from those who are already committing bad behavior. 

As Adams says, “Ideological fervor in this DOJ is against the values of the country.” He has a photo in the book of the voting rights museum in Selma, Alabama. The famous painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence has the caption: “1776 The Declaration of Independence signed by wealthy white people.” Even though they weren’t all wealthy, and even though they were risking their lives to sign that document in order to bring about freedom. The radicals are corroding what we have revered. And they are doing it successfully. 

Adams was asked whether Eric Holder would survive, and his answer was discouraging: it doesn’t matter. “From root to branch, it’s a philosophy that has been building for 40 years and is finally now in charge.” They are radicals. They weren’t in charge during the Clinton era. “Oh to have Janet Reno back!” he said. 

It doesn’t matter if Eric Holder survives. “It’s like whack-a-mole; take one down, and another pops up.” Radical philosophy has completely taken hold of this DOJ. “Don’t expect a big change if he goes.” 

I still believe that the radicals are only a small portion of the population. If they spoke openly about their plans to toss out the Constitution and replace it with their socialist tyranny, they couldn’t get a foothold. So sunlight is the disinfectant we need. Thanks to Christian Adams for doing his part to bring the corruption to light. 

In a few days you will be able to see the discussion I’ve summarized here online here.