Unanimous Supreme Court Rejects "Unrestrained Power for Prosecutors"

This is yet another case in a series of recent cases that we have discussed on this blog indicating a dangerous trend of politicizing justice. It has continued to be a favorite tactic utilized by the left while attempting to silence those with differing opinions. We discussed it when groups attempted to enforce the law of the land , again when the left went after Rick Perry,  then when a leftist AG harassed non-profits involved in scientific research, once again with the current DOJ attorney’s ethics violations in U.S. v. Texas and finally in the Planned Parenthood allegations against David Daleiden.

This has also become a preferred path for those who seek to silence free speech. As a country, we should not support throwing tantrums.  In an unanimous decision, SCOTUS reversed former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s 11 corruption convictions today. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the opinion of the court. The Richmond Times-Dispatch put out an article earlier today discussing some of the finer points of the case (emphasis added).

“The government openly advocates a legal rule that would make a felon of every official at every level of government — from a Cabinet secretary to a janitor — who accepts travel in exchange for public appearances, who has lunch with a lobbyist when both know the lobbyist will pick up the check, who trades campaign contributions for a few minutes of time, or who cleans one classroom with special care because its teacher brings him gift cards,” McDonnell’s lawyers wrote in one of his appeal briefs.

Before McDonnell's case was argued before the Supreme Court, some analysts thought his case suffered a blow with the February death of Justice Antonin Scalia. That left the high court with four justices nominated by Republican presidents and four nominated by Democratic presidents.

[. . .] On April 27, when the Supreme Court heard McDonnell's appeal of his 11 corruption convictions, the justices questioned lawyers about what constitutes “official action” by public officials and expressed concern about giving unbridled power to prosecutors who are probing corruption.

That day, a sometimes frustrated Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who was nominated by President Bill Clinton, looked for a definition that would catch wrongdoers but not give unrestrained power to prosecutors who might bring “ridiculous” cases.

FreedomWorks, Curt Levey, applauded the decision earlier today noting that:

"The job of prosecutors, like other officers in the executive branch, is to objectively enforce the law, not to rewrite or expand the laws to reflect their moral or ideological preferences. The Court's ruling is an important step towards preventing overly zealous or politically motivated prosecutors from criminalizing routine, helpful actions performed for constituents. It is the voters who should decide whether elected officials are conscientious public servants.

James Bopp, Jr., counsel for the Madison Center, is pleased with the decision: 

“The Court rightly recognized the First Amendment chill that would be cast over both constituent and campaign participation if the government can selectively enforce so broad a corruption definition against public officials and candidates associating with voters.  Limiting quid pro quo corruption to exchanges of money or other gifts for official acts ensures the government does not exceed its authority and unconstitutionally silence the speech of its citizens.”

McDonnell was also quick to praise the decision.

Today, a unanimous United States Supreme Court vacated my convictions, and it is a day in which my family and I rejoice and give thanks.

From the outset, I strongly asserted my innocence before God and under the law. I have not, and would not, betray the sacred trust the people of Virginia bestowed upon me during 22 years in elected office.

[. . . ] I am exceptionally grateful to my faithful legal team who zealousy advocated my cause at every step, as well as the authors and signers of the 13 excellent amicus briefs that argued for reversal. 

More and more innocent leaders and organizations are being targeted for expressing their opinions and these attackers relish in the fact that they are working to silence an entire segment of society. The last eight years have seen entire federal organizations turned into partisan attack dogs seeking out any who oppose a certain point of view.  These cases are not about corruption but silencing speech and attacking those who disagree with the political views of the Democrat and DOJ prosecutors. 

Republican Senators Stand Strong in Refusing to Hold Hearings for Scalia's Replacement

Republican Senators hold their ground as Obama and the left seek to shift the balance of the Supreme Court. Despite the hypocrisy of both President Obama's and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's positions, they have criticized Republican Senators' refusal to confirm a nominee in this election year. 

A shift to the left has already begun in our nation’s highest Court. Given the Court’s recent conduct absent Scalia, it has become abundantly clear that the Court cannot afford another liberal justice. We need Republican Senators to stand strong and refuse to back down. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley is doing just that:

“It isn’t any different if the President of the United States notifies Congress well in advanced of a piece of legislation that he’s going to veto it,” Grassley said, suggesting that many of his Iowa constituents have expressed anger at the Supreme Court itself for taking an activist role in the law. 

“Whether it’s today or tomorrow or whether it’s for the next seven or eight months, this is a very important debate that we ought to have about the constitution and about not only who’s going to be a replacement for Justice Scalia but about the role of the Supreme Court,” Grassley added. “At the grassroots of America, there’s a real feeling of ‘Is the Supreme Court doing what the Constitution requires?'” 

It is uncontested that the President has the right to nominate a candidate; however, the Senate also has the right to choose whether or not to hold a hearing on his nomination. We should support the actions of our Senators who are standing up for what is right and refusing to bend to the strong arm tactics of the Democrats. It is clear to many that the President is focused on dealing a parting blow to conservatism. After eight years of a failed administration, many feel President Obama has done enough. Justice Scalia spent the entirety of his Supreme Court career protecting the Constitution and the rights therein. Scalia’s replacement is an important decision that should be left until after the people have spoken this November.

Obomination: President\Emperor Governing By Decree

RNLA Advisory Council Member and Chapman Law Professor Ronald Rotunda supports the goals of President Obama’s immigration plans.  However, he vehemently opposes the methods.  As Professor Rotunda testified  in front of the House Judiciary Committee last week (emphasis added): 

I favor reform along the lines that the President has proposed. Whether Congress enacts “comprehensive” immigration reform or whether it moves one-step at a time, the important thing is reform. The government tells us that there are over 11 million undocumented aliens. This country is not going to march 11 million people across our border. Democracies do not engage in mass deportations. I think we also agree that we have to secure our borders. If a 15-year old can cross our borders without papers, an al Qaeda operative can do the same. 

The issue is whether it is constitutional for the President, unilaterally, to rewrite our immigration laws and change the status of about 5 million people. The President’s executive power does not give him the power to govern by decree. If the President can get away with this action, future Presidents will be able, for example, to rewrite other laws. For example, if the next President does not favor the Affordable Care Act, he or she can simply grant a waiver to all of that law.

Our Constitution rejected the notion that the President can govern by decree. President Obama did not base his decision on any theory that he was merely implementing Congressional intent. He did not argue that any legal precedent supported his actions. He did not even say that he was incorrect when he earlier said, repeatedly, that he does not have the legal authority to deal with undocumented aliens. Instead, the President, in his address to the nation, said that he acted and issued his order because “Congress has failed.”

Congress does not fail when it refuses to enact a presidential proposal. If our Constitution were a computer program, we would not say that the separation of powers is a bug; instead, it is a feature of the program. The framers designed our Constitution to make it difficult to enact laws and to require compromise — all for protecting our liberty. 

If you have a minute, please click on the link for the entire testimony. 

Obomanation: A Political Demagogue Should Not be a Voting Commissioner

Generally when one is nominated for a commission, judgeship or other government position for a job that can stir controversy but serves the entire public, the nominee stays out of the limelight in that field.  At the very least, the nominee stays out of areas of blatant partisanship and does not use inflammatory rhetoric when one is nominated to work on a bipartisan commission. 

This rule is not being just broken but shattered by Myrna Perez, a nominee to be a Commissioner for the Election Assistance Commission.  As we detailed in our opposition letter, Ms. Perez has a long history of partisanship and playing fast and loose with the facts.  Recently she has taken this to new levels on the subject of Voter ID.

Instead of trying to work with groups to help publicize the multiple free ID options to voters, Ms. Perez has been fear mongering with ridiculous and groundless claims like saying people have to choose between eating and voting because of ID requirements. 

(The irony of the last statement is that Ms. Perez is in effect denying people some social services, such as those of the courts, over the counter medicines, and much more that often require some form of identification.  It seems she is in favor of oppressing the poor to make a rhetorical political point over helping them obtain a free ID.)

Wait there is more, according to Ms. Perez:

• “at least 1.2 million” in Texas don’t have IDs, a number so incredible that not ever her own side’s biased statisticians think the number is anywhere near that high.
• ’Here was an issue when a state enacted this kind of restriction on right to vote for the purpose of discriminating against racial minorities,’ said Myrna Pérez, a Brennan Center for Justice attorney.”  (Ms. Perez, other than you and a few on the far left, no one has ever said that or believes that.  Actually voter ID will help many minorities who are often the victims of vote fraud and effectively disenfranchised by fraudulent votes.  For just a few Texas examples check http://rnla.org/votefraud.asp and search for Texas.)

Ms. Perez is not alone in making these spurious allegations.  But she is the only one who has been nominated to a commission to assist with voting that is making these sort of comments. 

President Obama should immediately withdraw Ms. Perez’s nomination, his failure to do so is another Obomanation.

Obomanation: President Obama's Hypocrisy on Voter Registration List Maintenance

 President Obama has taken hypocrisy to a new level this week, calling Republicans “un-American” at a recent lavish fundraiser in Dallas.  Why because Republicans want elections to be open, fair and honest.  Republicans want elections to be run in a non-partisan fashion where the voters decide not political hacks. 

So this week in addition to his McCartylike statements, President Obama’s far left liberal hack appointee Myrna Perez was approved by voice vote in the Senate Rules committee to be a commissioner on the Election Assistance Commission(EAC).  This will make ensure that the EAC, which was set up to be bipartisan, only has Democrat appointees.  As ranking Republican Member Senator Pat Roberts stated:

Mr. Chairman – as you know I have called for the elimination of this agency as I believe it has outlived its usefulness.  I have also said, however, that if it is going to exist it should be bi-partisan as the statute that created it intended. 

I cannot, however, support moving these nominations without Republican counterparts and accordingly will vote no.

RNLA’s Executive Director goes into more details on the problems with Perez and Obama’s attacks on such things as voter list maintenance in an Op-Ed at the Daily Caller.  A brief highlight of his hypocrisy is below: 

We fear that President Obama’s appointments such as Ms. Perez and his statements show that is not interested in offering more than lip-service toward fixing the election process for voters. Rather, President Obama seems interested in fear mongering about voter suppression to scare his base. That is why he gave his remarks about “preventing people from voting” to his snobbish fundraiser in Texas. For him elections are about winning and politics, not about fairness or voters.

For more, please read the whole article here. 

Obomination: The Latest Liberal Effort in their War Against Accurate Voter Rolls

We pointed out previously the hypocrisy of the Democrats efforts opposing list maintenance or efforts to keep accurate voter rolls despite the recent Presidential Commission’s Report on Election Administration supporting such efforts.  The latest example of this hypocrisy is the nomination by President Obama of Myrna Perez to be a commissioner for the Elections Assistance Commission(EAC)  Her views are so extreme, the RNLA has decided to take the unusual position of formally opposing her nomination. 

It is hard to imagine a person less suited for a commission whose job is to be “independent, bipartisan commission charged with developing guidance to meet HAVA requirements” than Ms. Perez.  Some of the Help America Vote Act ,or HAVA’s, requirements were for states to update their voting rolls.  An effort which Ms. Perez has long opposed calling such efforts “list purging” with made up statistics and overheated rhetoric.  An example of the latter is Ms. Perez once said: “purging happens all across the country, probably every day.”

To election officials of both parties that statement is ridiculous but it is the kind of extremist rhetoric that Ms. Perez has been spouting for years against Republicans and Democrats who try to enforce laws on voting that the far left opposes.  In Ms. Perez’s world such Republicans and Democrats are racists or fear mongers. 

As our opposition letter details, Ms. Perez has regularly been guilty of gross exaggeration.  This type of rhetoric for an agency that is to work on a bipartisan basis is completely inappropriate.

President Obama’s nomination of Ms. Perez to be an EAC Commissioner should be rejected by Senators of both parties who value open fair and honest elections.  

Obomination: Presidential Report Proves Again Liberals Would Rather Cry Race Than Fix Elections

A major bipartisan commission that includes prominent Democrats and Republicans issues a report making recommendations to improve our elections.  However, over time some Democrats and the far left not only disagree with the report, they label all those who attempt to implement many of its recommendations (even fellow Democrats) as in favor of voter suppression and either state or imply that they are “racist.”

No, I am not talking about the recent report issued by the Presidential Commission on Election Administration headed by Ben Ginsberg and Robert Bauer but an earlier effort headed by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker, the Commission on Federal Election Reform or Carter-Baker Commission  That bipartisan report adopted the following recommendation on voter ID:

The electoral system cannot inspire public confidence if no safeguards exist to deter or detect fraud or to confirm the identity of voters. Photo IDs currently are needed to board a plane, enter federal buildings, and cash a check. Voting is equally important.

Over time the left labeled voter ID at best a cynical attempt by Republicans to keep Democrats from voting or at their worst as racist. Democrats continue to attack all efforts to pass any kind of voter ID law.  This despite the fact voter ID requirements have broad support from all groups, including Democrats, and have been passed by Democrats in states such as Rhode Island. 

Now the same thing may be happening again.  With apologies to Mr. Bauer and Mr. Ginsberg, they are not as famous as Jimmy Carter or James Baker nor was their commission’s charter as broad.  However, one of their conclusions regarding voter registration list maintenance has met with more resistance in the past from the radical left than voter ID did before Carter-Baker.  Briefly that recommendation is: 

States should join interstate programs that share data and synchronize voter lists so that states, on their own initiative, come as close as possible to creating an  accurate database of all eligible voters.  

The radical left and many in the Democrat Party have labeled efforts to update such lists as, you guessed it, racist.  Infamously, the Obama Justice Department even refused to enforce laws regarding “list maintenance”.   

Will the radical left apologize to people such as Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach who has been a leader in efforts to clean up voter lists and even set up a volunteer state exchange database?  Will the Obama Department of Justice start doing its job that a commission led by President Obama’s former White House Counsel recommends?

Just as with Carter-Baker on Voter ID, we are concerned that the far left and some of their Democrat allies would rather make false cries of racism than fix our elections.   Until the Department of Justice starts enforcing the law in this regard, it will remain an Obomination.  

Insulting our Allies with Unprepared Nominees

Today’s Obominaition is short and to the point.  Please see the following article on an Obama nominee to be Ambassador to Norway who so poorly prepared as to be an embarrassment and an insult to the people of Norway. 

While it is true as the article alleges that large donors are sometimes appointed to be ambassadors under both Republican and Democrat Presidents, it is the duty of the administration that these nominees are prepared for the job in front of them.  The Obama Administration failed miserably and that is on the administration. 

Obomination: Too Extreme for the ABA but Not the Obama Justice Department

While much has rightly been made of Debo Adegbile -- President Obama’s nominee to lead the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division -- representation of radical cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, there are a number of other reasons that make his nomination extremely troubling. 

Adegbile is a staunch supporter of affirmative action who opposes criminal-background checks by employers and advocates extreme racial-hiring quotas.

He has said he wants U.S. judges to ensure that "customary international law" is "the law of the land."

It is views like the latter that led Obama Administration to withdraw his earlier nomination to be a judge on the DC Circuit. 

In fall 2011, Obama asked the American Bar Assn. to evaluate Adegbile for possible appointment to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, normally a precursor to nomination. But later the White House withdrew his name.

Conservative bloggers say the bar association found Adegbile unqualified.

The left will say it is for other reasons such as possible Republican opposition that Adegbile’s name was withdrawn but that is patently ridiculous as Nina Pillard was arguably more liberal but was still nominated and confirmed (after the Nuclear Option was initiated by Senator Reid).  It certainly looks like Mr. Adegible would have been rated unqualified by the ABA not because he was liberal but because he is outside the mainstream of US jurisprudence. 

Yet, President Obama saw fit to nominate to head the Civil Rights Division. That is this week’s Obomination. 

Obomination of the Year: And the Winner is Eric Holder

Every other week on Friday, and often more, the Republican Lawyer blog does a post called an Obomination.  These posts highlight the way President Obama and his allies have defied the rule of law.  

In 2013 many Obominations focused on Harry Reid and his unprecedented action to break the Senate rules to change them when he executed the Nuclear Option so some of President Obama’s most extreme judicial nominees could be confirmed. 

President Obama was the topic of Obminations as well but the number one offender was Eric Holder.  Holder was constantly defying the rule of law in 2013.  While we could cite any number of posts about Holder, we will choose a simple summary post from June 7 entitled: The Eric Holder Circus.  This post is on the leaks and NSA but it includes outraged Democrats as well as Republicans. 

We chose this post among the many outrageous posts on Holder to remind the media, Democrats and nonpartisan sorts that this is not just about Republicans being upset about a lawless Attorney General.  

Hopefully after 2013 Democrats realize the need to join with Republicans to oppose Holder. In 2013 a few Democrats joined with Republicans to hold Holder in contempt in the House.   However, if more don’t join Republicans, we remain confident that the voters will make Democrats pay a heavy price in 2014. 

So the real Obomination for 2013 is that President Obama will not fire Holder for we know Holder will never resign.  As we closed the post of the year, so we close this post quoting Senator Ted Cruz:

Attorney General Holder says he won’t resign until he accomplishes all his goals. I guess there are still some amendments in the Bill of Rights left unviolated….

Obomination: Harry Reid and the Democrats Broke the Senate and They're Not Done Breaking

As usual the Democrats are trying to blame the Republicans with what is going wrong instead of trying to fix things.  Actually in this case it is because of something they broke. 

Senator Chuck Grassley has a unique perspective on this matter.  He has served long enough to be in the Senate in all control scenarios.  A Democrat or Republican President with both a Democrat and Republican Senate.  He knows how the Senate works and it is not working now. 
The reason is simple:

The Senate Majority Leader has effectively become a one man version of the House Rules Committee, dictating what amendments will be debated and which ones will never see the light of day.

This strips the ability of individual senators to effectively represent their state, regardless of party.

It also virtually guarantees that any legislation the Senate votes on will be more partisan in nature.

I would ask my colleagues across the aisle, isn’t your first responsibility to the people of your state, not your party leadership?

Unfortunately the answer to Grassley question is many of the Democrat Senators no longer care about the voters or the people of their states.  All they care about is the party and advancing President Obama’s regulatory agenda through appointments now. 

The situation is only getting worse.  It has spread to the committee level, where Patrick Leahy is once again making things up.  As Senator Grassley stated in response to Senator Leahy latest persecution fantasy:

There's no doubt that after the Democrats broke the rules to change the rules, it’s going to be harder to get things done.  There is only one party that voted for the irresponsible rules change.  And, the fact of the matter is that given the atmosphere the Democrats created by invoking the nuclear option, nominations are going to be given added scrutiny.

It’s interesting that Democrats are blaming Republicans for not being at an executive business meeting last month.  They must have a short memory.  That was the very day and time that the Democrats decided to ignore two centuries of Senate history and precedent to break the rules and invoked the nuclear option with a simple majority vote, thereby disrupting the committee mark-up.

The so-called obstruction of nominees is a figment of the Democrats’ imagination.  They are blatantly misleading the public.  We have confirmed 44 judicial nominees this year alone.  To put this number in context, the Democrats allowed only 21 of President Bush’s judicial nominees to be confirmed in the fifth year of his presidency.   The only thing being obstructed is the rights of the minority.

Now, they are resorting to new threats at the committee level.  It’s a sad commentary on the Democrats’ rule of the Senate and the Obama administration.  They are slowly but surely taking the world’s greatest deliberative body and moving towards a majoritarian body, all in the name of rubberstamping the President’s extremely unpopular regulatory agenda.

The only solution is a Republican Senate for Christmas in 2014. 

Obomination: Eric Holder Must Go

Rep. Pete Olson has introduced a resolution to impeach Eric Holder.  Before passing judgment on the resolution, one should review the reasons.  First, Eric Holder is not being held accountable for his actions.

The House approved civil and contempt resolutions against Holder in June 2012 over the Fast and Furious program, the first time that has been done to a sitting Cabinet member. DOJ refused to enforce the criminal contempt resolution, as previous administrations have done. The civil contempt citation is mired in a legal fight in federal court between Justice and House attorneys.

Those actions are a serious breach of his duty.  As the articles of impeachment state:

1.       Refusal to comply with a subpoena issued by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on October 12, 2011, seeking information and documents regarding Operation Fast and Furious. This is a violation of 2 U.S.C. 192.

2.      Failure to enforce multiple laws, including the Defense of Marriage Act, the Controlled Substances Act, and the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. This is a violation of the oath Mr. Holder swore to "well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office" of Attorney General.

3.      Refusal to prosecute the IRS officials involved in the targeting and disclosure of tax records belonging to political donors. This is a violation of the oath Mr. Holder swore to "well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office" of Attorney General.

4.      False testimony under oath before Congress on May 15, 2013, about the Justice Department investigation of journalist James Rosen. This is a violation of 18 U.S.C. 1621.

RNLA and others have called on Eric Holder to resign.  Including House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte:

“Under Attorney General Holder’s watch, there has been a lack of leadership and a politicization of the Justice Department. Scandals from the Fast and Furious gunwalking operation to the seizure of reporters’ emails and phone records in national security leaks investigations have undermined the Department’s credibility and the American people’s trust. Attorney General Holder has also politicized the rule of law by refusing to enforce laws he doesn’t like.”

Goodlatte added: “The only way to restore credibility at the Department of Justice is through an improvement in the quality of leadership. President Obama should make a change in the leadership of the Department of Justice to restore the confidence of the American people in our nation’s top law enforcement agency.”

Rep. Olson is doing important work calling attention to the extreme actions of Eric Holder who should not be Attorney General.  The actions of this Administration are not just outrageous to conservatives but also liberals such as Professor Jonathan Turley:

“The danger is quite severe. The problem with what the president is doing is that he’s not simply posing a danger to the constitutional system. He’s becoming the very danger the Constitution was designed to avoid. That is the concentration of power.”

Eric Holder is not protecting the Constitution.  

Obomination: Obama’s Presidency is now Defined

The quote of Obama’s presidency has now been made.  “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.”  And unlike other famous or infamous quotes by other Presidents, President Obama said versions of this quote over and over again.  Check this out for one quick example:

Obama lied in a substantive and important way.  There is no other way around it.  This lie is going to have an important effect on elections going forward, as shown in the recent Virginia Governor’s race in an analysis by famed prognosticator Larry Sabato:

President Obama’s poor ratings in the post-Obamacare launch fiasco probably hurt McAuliffe to some degree (so much for that big Obama rally on Sunday).

On local radio station WTOP, former Democrat Virginia Governor Doug Wilder put it much stronger terms say that it almost cost the man he endorsed, Terry McAuliffe, the Governor’s office.  Ken Cuccenlli, who some are trying to label as too extreme for Virginia, actually won independents by nine points on Tuesday.  As Politico put it:

The president’s approval rating has slipped in the wake of the Obamacare fiasco and other scandals of his fifth year in office, and his trip to Virginia Sunday probably motivated some independents and Republicans to back Cuccinelli

Even if the website gets fixed, this does not change that President Obama lied many times about the program that bears his name.  Obama finally realized the problem is serious and did a much too late apology yesterday.  This was likely based on his fellow Democrats telling him he had to do this to stop the political damage. 

As things stand now, one thing is for sure.  Democrats up for reelection in 2014 are worried and I doubt that many will be asking the President to campaign with them the weekend before the election.  

Obomination: Republicans Stop First Effort at Court Packing

Yesterday Senate Republicans successfully stopped President Obama’s attempt at court packing by voting against cloture for the first of three unnecessary judges to the DC Circuit.  As has been laid out here and other places multiple times, there is no need for more judges on the DC Circuit.  So why is this effort taking place?

As Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell put it (emphasis ours):

“So if the court’s caseload clearly doesn’t meet their own standards for more judges, why are Senate Democrats pushing to fill more seats on a court that doesn’t need them?

“What’s behind this push to fill seats on a court that is cancelling oral argument days for a lack of cases and which, according to the judges who serve on it, won’t have enough work to go around if we do?

 “Well, we don’t have to guess.  Our Democratic colleagues and the Administration’s supporters have been fairly candid about it.  They have admitted they want to control the court so it will advance the President’s agenda.

 “As one Administration ally put it, ‘the president’s best hope for advancing his agenda is through executive action, and that runs through the D. C. Circuit.’

“Let me repeat, the reason they want to put more judges on the D.C. Circuit is not because it needs them, but because ‘the president’s best hope for advancing his agenda is through executive action, and that runs through the D.C. Circuit.’

As Republican Leader McConnell further detailed, this is not some biased Republican or conservative effort.  The DC Circuit is evenly divided and rule against President Bush as well. 

“Another Administration ally complained that the court ‘has made decisions that have frustrated the president’s agenda.’ 

“Really?  The court is evenly-divided between Republican and Democratic appointees.

“And according to data compiled by the federal courts, the D.C. Circuit has ruled against the Obama Administration in administrative matters less often than it ruled against the Bush Administration.

 “So it’s not that the court has been more unfavorable to President Obama than it was to President Bush.  Rather, the Administration and its allies seem to be complaining that the court hasn’t been favorable enough to it.

“Evidently, they don’t want any meaningful check on the President.  You see, there is one in the House of Representatives, but the Administration can circumvent that with aggressive agency rulemaking.  That is, if the D.C. Circuit allows it to do so.

“Mr. President, a court should not be a rubberstamp for any administration.  And our Democratic colleagues told us again and again during the Bush Administration that the Senate confirmation process should not be a rubberstamp for any administration either.

On behalf of RNLA and more importantly the rule of law, thank you leader McConnell and your fellow Republican Senators for stopping President Obama’s efforts at court packing. 

Obomination: Court Packing

According to dictionary.com “court packing” was “an unsuccessful attempt by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937 to appoint up to six additional justices to the Supreme Court, which had invalidated a number of his New Deal laws.”  Now President Obama is seemingly trying to do the same thing on a smaller scale with the DC Circuit.  As Hans von Spakovsky and Elizabeth Slattery of Heritage explain:

Why, then, is Mr. Obama pushing for more judges on the D.C. Circuit? The answer is pretty clear. The D.C. Circuit has ruled against the president’s agenda in several high-profile cases in recent years. Most notably, the court invalidated a rule applying the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, overruled a burdensome Environmental Protection Agency rule regulating cross-state power-plant emissions, and ruled Mr. Obama’s sham “recess” appointments to the National Labor Relations Board were unconstitutional. It’s no surprise that Mr. Obama is trying to improve his chances before the court by packing it with judges whom he thinks — rightly or wrongly — will rubber-stamp his policies.

As if that is not bad enough President Obama is ignoring his duty to other circuits who unlike the DC Circuit have judicial emergencies (about half of which do not have a judge nominated to fill the slot) that could use additional judges.  The lack of need for additional judges on the DC Circuit has long been noted by Republicans and Democrats.  Von Spakovsky and Slattery note:

In fact, there is such a lack of need for more judges in the D.C. Circuit that in 2006, eight Democratic senators, led by Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont and Charles E. Schumer of New York, sent a letter to then-Sen. Arlen Specter, who at the time was Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asking for a postponement of the confirmation hearing for one of President Bush’s nominees to that court (who was never confirmed) because the court’s low workload “did not warrant” more judges. They pointed out that, since 1997, “by every relevant benchmark, the caseload for that circuit has only dropped further.” Since then, the D.C. Circuit’s workload has dropped even more.

Court packing was not appropriate during the desperate times of the Great Desperation and it is certainly not appropriate now.  For more details and statistics go here.  Shame on President Obama for ignoring his duty to other circuits in order to nominate judges to the DC Circuit in an effort to promote his illegal agenda. 

Obomination: Another Court (TN) Unanimously Upholds Voter ID

While Eric Holder continues to fight against efforts to stop vote fraud, such as list maintenance and Voter ID, the Tennessee Supreme Court unanimously upheld Voter ID yesterday:

Ruling on constitutional challenges to the state’s Voter Identification Act by the City of Memphis and two Shelby County voters, the Tennessee Supreme Court has unanimously declined to overturn the act.  

The act, which was passed in 2011, requires voters to present government-issued photographic identification in order to cast a ballot in state or federal elections. As originally written, the act authorized several acceptable forms of identification, one of which was a valid photographic identification card issued by an entity of the State of Tennessee.

. . . In response to the new law, the City of Memphis Public Library began issuing photographic identification cards to its patrons. Shelby County residents Daphne Turner-Golden and Sullistine Bell attempted to vote in the August 2012 primary using their library cards but were turned away by election officials. 

On April 23, the General Assembly amended the Voter Identification Act so that cards issued by municipal libraries were specifically excluded as valid identification. Because of the April 2013 amendments, the Supreme Court first ruled that all issues pertaining to the validity of the Memphis Public Library cards were moot. In addition, the Court ruled that the individual plaintiffs, Turner-Golden and Bell, had legal standing to challenge the act, but the City of Memphis, which obviously did not have a vote, did not. Finally, the Court held that the version of the act in effect at the time of the 2012 primary election met constitutional standards, concluding that the legislature has the prerogative to enact laws guarding against the potential risk of voter fraud and determining that the additional requirements placed on voters were not so severe as to violate protections set out in the Tennessee Constitution.

Writing for the Court Chief Justice Gary R. Wade wrote:

"Protection of the integrity of the election process empowers the state to enact laws to prevent voter fraud before it occurs," Wade said. "It is within the authority of the General Assembly to guard against the risk of such fraud in this state, so long as it does not do so in an impermissibly intrusive fashion."

Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett sums things up in a manner that we wish Eric Holder would listen to: 

Hargett said the photo ID law is meant to be "one more tool in the toolbox" toward preventing fraud. He said the law is one of several steps his office has taken, placing it alongside efforts to prevent disenfranchised felons from voting, purges of deceased voters from rolls and checks of voter records to ensure Tennesseans do not also cast ballots in other states.  "We've worked very diligently to make sure only eligible voters are on the rolls," he said.

Obomination: Democrats Fighting for Ineligible Voters in Virginia

The election of Governor in Virginia this November is likely to be a very close race.  As a result, the Democrat Party and their candidate for Governor, Terry McAuliffe, are pulling out all the stops to “turn out” voters, including non-people and ineligible voters.

Democrats in Virginia are stopping just short of opening polling places in the graveyards to make sure every ineligible voter is counted. The state Democratic Party last week asked a federal judge in Alexandria for an injunction to block state and local election officials from deleting the names of ineligible voters. When the roll is called up yonder, in the updated hymn, the dead Democrats will still be here.

The suit is about ineligible voters, not dead ones, but some dearly departed Democrats are no doubt on the rolls, too. Election officials have compiled a list of 57,000 names of former Virginians who have moved and put down roots elsewhere in the country. Election officials want to cross-check the names of nonresidents against the voter-registration list and cross off the names of everyone who shouldn’t be voting in Virginia.

When voter rolls aren’t cleaned up on a regular basis, the result is a voter-registration list that swells beyond the total number of residents. The Huffington Post reported in April 2011 that this happened in 14 out of the 102 counties in Illinois. Just last month, a federal court ordered Walthall County, Miss., to purge the voter rolls, which list 124 percent of the county’s voting-age population.

 . . . Virginia officials counted 7,934 duplicate names on the Fairfax County voter rolls, and the Democratic lawsuit asks that every one of those be allowed to cast a ballot on Nov. 5. We suggest that Mr. McAuliffe court eligible Virginians, and leave be the Virginians who have moved on. Any dead ones, too. They don’t really have much interest now in what goes on in Richmond.

For those who think the ineligible don’t vote in Virginia, look no further back than last year when it was found “solicitors” went around encouraging ineligible felons to vote in the 2008 election in Virginia.  Of course it took four years for that to come to light, which is why Mr. McCauliffe is fighting so hard.  He knows it will take years for the ineligible to be brought to justice, if ever. 

That encouraging ineligible voting was done by “solicitors” supporting President Obama and is trying to be continued by Terry McAuliffe is this week’s Obomination.   

Obomination: Are Efforts to Stop “Voter Suppression” Really Code for Efforts to Support Vote Fraud?

For years Democrats have cried “voter suppression” every year with virtually no proof of suppression.  Recently Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton have even likened the relatively mild measure of asking for ID to voter suppression.  Yet when real voter suppression happens to those in our overseas military or by the New Black Panthers outside a poll with Billy Clubs and using racial epithets, the Democrat Party ignores it.  Worse, in the case of the New Black Panthers, Democrats elected one of the vote suppressors a local Democrat official. 

The kicker is Democrats have not cited a single credible case of Republican efforts to suppress the vote.  Could the term “voter suppression” really mean something else?  Some believe it is a fear based turnout strategy to scare certain voters into voting but recent events in New York suggest it may have another purpose: to support vote fraud.

The recent case of Frances Knapp lends some credence to the latter possibility.  In New York there are partisan election officials and for Duchess County Democrats it is Ms. Knapp.  Ms. Knapp is charged with 94 counts of vote fraud for her activities regarding elections.  This would seem like a no-brainer for Ms. Knapp to step aside until her case is resolved and local papers have called upon her to do just that.  Yet she won’t.  Under New York law she can only be removed by Democrat New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. 

Now it comes out the person who pushed Ms. Knapp to be retained when allegations of problems first surfaced years ago is none other than the Democrat's choice to be head of the New York Election Commission, Kathleen O’Keefe.  Ms. O’Keefe fought for Ms. Knapp to be reappointed because, you guessed it, she fought against alleged “voter suppression.” 

In Albany, Democrats have been pushing for lawyer Kathleen O'Keefe to become the state election board's chief enforcement officer. O'Keefe in 2010 strongly urged the Dutchess County Democratic Committee to reappoint Knapp to the board, hailing her defense of absentee ballots from challenges by GOP lawyer (and Nassau County Attorney) John Ciampoli.

"Voter suppression is not something I engage in," Ciampoli said when contacted.

O’Keefe is the Democrats choice for the chief election official and has been called by New York Daily News: “NY Silver’s fox in henhouse: The state's new election enforcement chief is a political hatchet woman for the Assembly speaker”:

Suddenly facing scrutiny by Gov. Cuomo’s anti-corruption commission, the state Board of Elections is filling a post that has been useless for years — that of the lawyer who is responsible for policing New York’s campaign finance rules.

. . . . Under that pressure, the two Democrats and the two Republicans who oversee the operation are installing a new enforcement chief. Be not impressed.

. . . By night, she [O’Keefe] did [Democrat Assembly Speaker] Silver’s political dirty work. . . .

This is a counsel who has shown that she can be trusted to do the right thing — for the insiders.

So why hasn’t Governor Cuomo or O’Keefe called on her friend Knapp to resign or be fired?  Is it because her work to “stop voter suppression” was really for vote fraud?  We don’t know but we do know that as long as Knapp is serving, she is not helping to stop alleged suppression but she is adding credence to the allegations that Democrats support vote fraud. 

Obomination: All Those Who Cry Racism on Voter ID are Wrong Again

The Atlanta Journal Constitution(AJC) editorializes correctly on the fact that Voter ID is not racist. 

Elections data reviewed by the AJC show that participation among black voters rose by 44 percent from 2006 — before the law was implemented — to 2010. For Hispanics, the increase for the same period was 67 percent. Turnout among whites rose 12 percent.

It was expected that African American turnout would spike in 2008, when Barack Obama became the first person of color to win the presidency. And it did rise to historic highs in Georgia.

Black participation fell in 2010, as it did for all demographic groups. Still, a far greater share of black voters turned out in 2010 than in 2006, showing that Obama was not the only factor driving turnout.

Time and time again it is shown that Voter ID does not suppress minority voting and that critics who use that false argument are playing the race card in an incendiary and purely political way. 

However, the article goes on to talk about zero fraudulent votes being cast when not even realizing that their own numbers show fraudulent voting efforts.  The AJC writes.

Still, the law has had real and measurable effect for some voters: Since November 2008, the ballots of 1,586 Georgians didn’t count because of the law. (They arrived at the polls without a photo ID, cast provisional ballots, and did not return later with the required ID.) Overall, 13.6 million votes were cast in the state during the same period.

What the AJC fails to realize is some of these 1586 votes were fraudulent and certainly not "Georgian voters."  The provisional ballot system worked.  Provisional ballots which were adopted in the bipartisan Help America Vote Act, allow for review of questionable ballots.  If these so-called “voters” wanted to vote they could have returned with ID or even received a free ID provided under Georgia law. 

They did not.  While there are a number of potential reasons for this, one of the reasons is they were not real Georgia voters.  For Voter ID not only stops “voter impersonation” it also stops out of state and out of precinct voters. 

Of those 1500+ people who turned away it strains credibility to say they all did not have IDs.  It should not be forgotten that in the Supreme Court case declaring ID constitutional, one of the plaintiffs herself had an ID from another state.  She was looking to be able to vote in two places. 

Voter ID is working in Georgia and is not disenfranchising voters.  The same is true everywhere.  It is time for Eric Holder and Democrat front groups like the Brennan Center to stop claiming otherwise.