Manafort Trial Not About Trump or Russian Interference in 2016 Election

The trial of Paul Manafort has been frequently in the news the past few weeks, and to listen to the mainstream media, it would appear that the trial is about Mr. Manafort's crimes on behalf of President Trump during his brief time with the Trump campaign in 2016.  But as Hans von Spakovsky pointed out, the trial has nothing to do with President Trump, the Trump campaign, or alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election:

But when it comes to the mandate given to Mueller on May 17, 2017, we’ve learned absolutely nothing. Mueller was charged with investigating “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump.” 

But neither Gates nor any other witness at the Manafort trial has testified about the Russian election interference or any alleged collusion between the Trump campaign – or Trump himself – with the Russians. . . . All of the testimony at the Manafort trial has addressed events that occurred long before Manafort went to work for 2016 Trump campaign. The testimony has focused on Manafort’s and Gates’s activities as alleged “unregistered agents” representing the Ukrainian government starting in 2006. 

It would be absurd to argue that Manafort’s other clients in the 12 years since then are somehow to blame for any criminal activity he may have engaged in – and prosecutors aren’t even trying to point the finger at President Trump for these activities.

As Mr. von Spakovsky describes, the only connection between President Trump and Mr. Manafort's alleged misdeeds is how President Trump's opponents will try to attack him through his brief association with Mr. Manafort: 

If Manafort is found guilty of tax evasion and bank fraud, some will try to use his very brief association with the Trump campaign to tar the president. But such criticism would ignore two crucial facts. 

First, presidential campaigns are not law enforcement agencies. They have neither the capacity nor the resources to do detailed background investigations on the thousands of individuals who volunteer to work with a campaign. 

Second, Manafort appeared to be a successful, ethical businessman. Even the government – including the IRS, the FBI and our intelligence agencies – had no idea that he was allegedly engaging in any wrongdoing for a foreign government through an elaborate scheme of offshore bank accounts and shell companies, until Mueller’s office started investigating him. 

While the trial of Mr. Manafort is rife with political overtones, it is important that he not only receives a fair trial but also that the coverage of any evidence presented and the eventual verdict is accurate and not used as a political weapon through distorting the subject matter of the trial.

Recent Left-Wing Attacks Distort Judge Kavanaugh’s Views on Voting Rights

In modern Democrat politics, anyone who supports measures to enhance voting integrity and decrease the likelihood of voter fraud should be labeled an ‘extremist.’ Hillary Clinton went as far as to say Judge Kavanaugh will bring the United States back to times of slavery. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker said if you support Judge Kavanaugh, you are ‘complicit with evil.’  As election law expert Hans von Spakovsky points out, these vicious attacks by top Democrats are totally baseless.

The latest bizarre claim laid against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is that his confirmation would “spell the end of voting rights.” This ridiculous charge has been spun up from two of Kavanaugh’s writings: a 2012 opinion upholding South Carolina’s voter ID law and a brief he filed as a private attorney in a case challenging Hawaii’s practice of preventing residents from voting based on their ancestry.

In both cases, Kavanaugh’s views were — and are — quite mainstream. More importantly, they have been affirmed.

In fact, Judge Kavanaugh’s key rulings on voting rights have all been affirmed by the Supreme Court.

In South Carolina v. Holder, Kavanaugh (joined by two other judges) held that the state’s voter ID law was not discriminatory and did not violate the Voting Rights Act.

Kavanaugh noted, South Carolina made it even easier to vote by providing a “reasonable impediment” exception to its ID requirement. This allows those without proper identification to vote anyway. All they need do is sign a simple affidavit stating the reason they have not obtained a photo ID. Do that, and they can cast a ballot immediately, no questions asked.

Hans von Spakovsky's recent piece for The Hill illustrates the sad state of our political climate. For supporting a measure that would actually make it easier to vote and increase election safety, Democrats and major left-wing organizations have labeled Judge Kavanaugh a ‘racist’ trying to take away voting rights. Thankfully, history and facts have proven Judge Kavanaugh right.

Opponents of the law claimed it would “disenfranchise tens of thousands of minority voters,” but it never happened. The law has been in place since 2013 with no problems and no effect on turnout. No disenfranchisement. No voter “suppression.

Oddly enough, none of Judge Kavanaugh’s critics has bothered to mention that, in a subsequent voter ID case, the Obama Justice Department agreed that an ID law with a “reasonable impediment” exception was not discriminatory. On Aug. 3, 2016, the parties in Veasy v. Abbott penned a “Joint Submission of Agreed Terms” in which they agreed that Texas could apply its photo ID law in the 2016 election as long as any resident who signed “a reasonable impediment declaration” would “be permitted to vote using a regular ballot.”

Judge Kavanaugh is one of the most qualified nominees for the Supreme Court in modern history. Democrats have no viable explanation for opposing his confirmation. However, they have so much animus for President Trump and the American people who voted for the president that they are willing to harm the judicial system and attempt to trash the reputation of an honorable public servant for political gain. Thankfully, it does not appear their scorched Earth tactics will work and Judge Kavanaugh will be confirmed.

Not Just Kavanaugh: Democrats Obstructing Virtually All Trump Nominees

In order for our country to function, the executive branch must be able to appoint qualified nominees to critical positions. It appears, however, that Democrats have no interest in what is best for the effectiveness of our nation. They have one goal, obstruct President Trump at all costs. As Hans von Spakovsky and Thomas Jipping explain at Fox News,

More than a year and a half after the inauguration of Donald Trump’s presidency, the left continues to obstruct the confirmation of nominees to critical posts in both the executive and judicial branches. The unprecedented obstructionism denies leadership to executive branch departments and agencies and impedes the fair and swift administration of justice.

It is also an abuse of the Senate’s constitutional obligation to provide “Advice and Consent” regarding presidential nominations of judges and key “Officers of the United States.”

How bad has the obstruction gotten when compared to President Obama’s nominations?

As of July 17, the Senate had confirmed 515 presidential nominations. That may sound like a lot, but it’s nearly 30 percent less than the number confirmed at this point in President Barack Obama’s first term.

And it’s not that Trump hasn’t given the upper chamber plenty of nominations to act on. A whopping 371 nominations are now pending in the Senate, including 90 judicial nominees.  

Trump Judicial and Executive confirmations have not just slowed compared to Obama.

According to a one-page White House memo obtained by the Washington Examiner, each of the last four presidents had confirmed hundreds more judicial and executive nominees than Trump by the second July of their presidency. For instance, the Senate had confirmed 75 and 87 percent of former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton’s picks by this time in their term. They have confirmed just 58 percent for Trump.

Democrats have forced Republicans to dot every procedural I and cross every parliamentary T before getting their nominee a vote. As the New York Times reported last year, that means calling for a cloture vote which in turn requires an “intervening day” to allow the request, in parliamentary parlance, to "ripen." After that, the rules require 30-hours of “post-cloture” debate before a final vote.

This Democrat obstruction does not only hurt President Trump, it harms the country and the American people most importantly. Let’s hope the Democrats rethink this politically motivated tactic before too much damage is done.

ICYMI: 5th Circuit Upholds Amended Texas Voter ID Law

Last Friday, the Fifth Circuit upheld Texas' voter ID law, which it had amended in 2017 in response to an earlier en banc Fifth Circuit decision.  Judge Edith Jones wrote for the three-judge panel in Veasey v. Abbott, noting the irony that the plaintiffs were challenging, and the district court found invalid, the very interim remedy that both the plaintiffs and the district court had agreed to in 2016 (internal citations omitted): 

In the face of these obvious improvements over SB 14, Plaintiffs neither allude to nor adduce any proof that SB 5 has a discriminatory effect on indigent minority voters. To a large extent, SB 5 replicates the terms to which both parties agreed as an interim measure to cure SB 14’s Section 2 deficiencies in advance of the national 2016 election. Although the interim remedy was without prejudice to any party’s asserting its legal rights at a later date, one must wonder why the features the Plaintiffs agreed to only a year ago yielded an insufficient remedy when enacted into law. No explanation is forthcoming in their briefs. . . . 

That Plaintiffs’ factual critique boils down to speculation demonstrates the prematurity of the court’s decision to invalidate SB 5 in 2017, well before the law took effect in 2018. Nothing we conclude today disposes of any potential challenges to SB 5 in the future. Plaintiffs may file a new lawsuit, and bear the burden of proof, if the promise of the law to remedy disparate impact on indigent minority voters is not fulfilled. They did not challenge SB 14, for instance, for several years after its effective date. As a remedy for the deficiencies found by this court in Veasey II, however, there is no evidentiary or legal basis for rejecting SB 5, and the district court was bound not to take the drastic step of enjoining it. Further, because SB 5 constitutes an effective remedy for the only deficiencies testified to in SB 14, and it essentially mirrors an agreed interim order for the same purpose, the State has acted promptly following this court’s mandate, and there is no equitable basis for subjecting Texas to ongoing federal election scrutiny under Section 3(c) [of the Voting Rights Act].

Jason Snead and Hans von Spakovsky of The Heritage Foundation point out that the decision, while important for election integrity reasons, also has major implications for the rule of law:

It was on this flimsy legal basis that [District Court Judge Nelva Gonzales] Ramos supported her decision to jettison the entire Texas voter-ID law. This judgment was made despite the fact that “all of the evidence supports that SB 5 was designed to remedy every defect” in the earlier law and “to supply indigent voter protections” recommended by the Fifth Circuit. . . . 

It’d hard to disagree with Judge Jones’s reasoning here. Texas made, by all rights, a good-faith attempt to rectify problems with its election laws while preserving an essential, commonsense tool for fighting fraudulent votes. The solution it settled on was largely based on Ramos’s own 2016 remedy, and it offers a broader set of alternatives “to producing compliant photo voter ID” than the Indiana statute the Supreme Court upheld as constitutional in 2008. Its “reasonable impediment” exemption is also virtually identical to South Carolina’s voter-ID law. South Carolina’s law was upheld by a three-judge federal court in the District of Columbia in 2012 and has caused no problems. 

Judge Ramos may have a personal bias against voter-ID laws, but as a federal judge she is not entitled to substitute her own policy preferences for those of elected lawmakers. As Judge Jones reminded us, “Courts must defer to [the government’s proposed remedy] unless the newly enacted plan is itself unconstitutional or violates federal law.” 

Neither condition applies here, and Jones rightly reversed Ramos’s decision. Judge Jones has delivered a victory not only for the integrity of the ballot box, but for the rule of law itself.

While the plaintiffs will likely appeal to the en banc Fifth Circuit and the Supreme Court, the efforts of Chairman Chuck Grassley and Leader Mitch McConnell to confirm President Trump's excellent judicial nominees have changed the composition of both of those courts since this case was last on appeal in 2016 and 2017.  

Conservatives Respond to End of Election Integrity Commission

On Wednesday, President Trump ended the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity (PACEI), which had been plagued by lawsuits from liberal organizations and even one of the Commission's own Democratic members.  Liberals are touting their victory in "resisting" an initiative started by President Trump, but conservatives have also responded.

RNLA Executive Director Michael Thielen wrote today in The Hill:

Why is this hatred so strong? Besides that it is the liberal election administration community’s way of participating in the Trump “resist” movement, they feared the PACEI because the last two presidential election commissions have recommended corrective measures that go against the liberal agenda. . . . Contrary to the liberal’s narrative, the PACEI disbanding does not prove there is no vote fraud; rather, it proves liberals fear looking into this issue because things such as illegal non-citizen votes favor the Democratic Party in elections. . . . 

In the end, liberals won this battle to prevent any inquiry into fraudulent votes and messy elections, but may lose the war. When the President disbanded the PACEI, he also “asked the Department of Homeland Security to review these issues.” . . . If DHS reviews the issues that the PACEI was tasked with studying, it could use the SAVE database to help states fix their voter registration lists and find non-citizens registered and voting much more efficiently than an advisory commission ever could, as election officials have been clamoring for for years. . . .

So Democrats have “resisted” the bipartisan efforts, in the fine tradition of the last two presidential election commissions, to study and propose solutions to fix our elections. Sadly, the American people are those who lose the most whenever the liberal election world is “successful.” Every illegal vote cancels out the vote of an American citizen, who has lost the right of self-government due to the political agenda of liberal activists. But the left may lose the war, as their victory may hurt their real goals and make it easier to stop non-citizens from registering and voting. 

Former PACEI member Hans von Spakovsky issued the following statement:

While I am disappointed about the dissolution of the Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, I understand President Trump’s action.  The ability of the Commission to research, review, and examine the integrity and security of the American election process was made almost impossible by the unprecedented and unjustified obstruction by many state election officials who defiantly refused to cooperate with the Commission.

The Commission was also hampered by the almost dozen meritless lawsuits that were filed against the Commission by progressive advocacy groups that were solely intended to prevent its work and take up the time of the Commission’s staff with frivolous litigation. 

The American people understand how important it is that we have a secure system in which everyone who is eligible is able to vote and their vote is not diluted or stolen by fraudulent votes or administrative errors and mistakes by election officials.

The obstacles and impediments used to hinder the work of the Commission is evidence that there are many politicians and activists who want to prevent the American people from finding out the truth.

Fellow former PACEI member Christian Adams also issued a statement:

Foes of election integrity lost their seat at the table.  Now the important work of improving the integrity of the election process will be done by people who believe in election integrity, not by those who seek to preserve vulnerabilities in the system. Over the years, demonstrable and empirical data has been developed showing noncitizen voting, double voting, and defects in the election system that no credible observer could deny. Some news outlets and activists have decided to ignore those facts, as if they do not exist.  Unfortunately, there are plenty of well-funded groups, activist academics and individuals who are not credible who sought to undermine and sabotage the Commission’s work.  They may delight today in the dissolution of the Commission, but before long they’ll realize that advocates of election integrity have more stamina, support and perseverance than they realize.

We thank the members of the PACEI for their work and look forward to future efforts to improve the integrity of elections and voters' confidence in election systems and their outcomes. 

ICYMI: DOJ Finally Enters Litigation Against Guam's Racially Discriminatory Voting Law

A week ago Tuesday, the Department of Justice finally decided to fight against a blatantly racially discriminatory voting law in Guam, as Hans von Spakovsky described:

I have written numerous updates about the voting-rights lawsuit that Davis, a retired Air Force officer, filed back in 2011 against the territory of Guam . . . . Guam refused to allow Davis, a long-time resident of Guam, to register to vote for a plebiscite on the future of the territory because he is white and not Chamorro, the racial designation given to the natives who originally inhabited Guam.

The personnel changes made by President Trump, including Jeff Sessions as Attorney General and John Gore as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, were necessary for the Department of Justice to uphold the law and the rule of law:

After Guam lost in March, it appealed the decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. On November 28, after eight years of studied indifference, the U.S. Justice Department under Attorney General Jeff Sessions finally did the right thing: It filed an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit supporting Arnold Davis.  

DOJ’s brief, which was filed by John Gore, the acting assistant attorney general of the Civil Rights Division, argues that “Guam’s plebiscite law intentionally discriminates based on race.” It directly violates Supreme Court precedent set in Rice v. Cayetano, a 2000 decision in which the Court threw out a similar Hawaii law. DOJ points out that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments both apply to Guam; the fact that it is a territory does not deprive its residents of those constitutional protections. The brief asks the Ninth Circuit to uphold the district court’s decision. . . .

The discriminatory law had been ignored for 8 years by the Obama DOJ because the voters the law discriminated against were the wrong color: 

The Obama administration refused to enforce federal law barring racial discrimination in voting, housing, employment, and education on a race-neutral basis. The Holder/Lynch Justice Department didn’t care if you were being discriminated against unless you were a member of one of its favored groups, a distinction that does not exist in our anti-discrimination laws. The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, as well as federal statutes such as the Voting Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act, protect all Americans from racial discrimination.

Because DOJ had abdicated its duty to enforce the laws, this long case to vindicate Mr. Davis' voting rights has been fought by a courageous attorney - RNLA member Christian Adams.  We are grateful that the Sessions Justice Department respects the rule of law and has chosen to support Adams' litigation against this discriminatory law - at last.

ICYMI: Administrator Pruitt Takes Another Step to Restore Rule of Law at EPA

Last Monday, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt ended the "sue and settle" practices by which environmental activist organizations controlled a portion of the regulatory process at the EPA during the Obama Administration:

“The days of regulation through litigation are over,” said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.  “We will no longer go behind closed doors and use consent decrees and settlement agreements to resolve lawsuits filed against the Agency by special interest groups where doing so would circumvent the regulatory process set forth by Congress. Additionally, gone are the days of routinely paying tens of thousands of dollars in attorney’s fees to these groups with which we swiftly settle.”

The EPA explained how these "sue and settle" practices worked:

Over the years, outside the regulatory process, special interest groups have used lawsuits that seek to force federal agencies – especially EPA – to issue regulations that advance their interests and priorities, on their specified timeframe.  EPA gets sued by an outside party that is asking the court to compel the Agency to take certain steps, either through change in a statutory duty or enforcing timelines set by the law, and then EPA will acquiesce through a consent decree or settlement agreement, affecting the Agency’s obligations under the statute.  

These practices bypassed the required processes for regulatory changes, resulting in regulatory overreach without the required input from the public and regulated community that is required by law: 

More specifically, EPA either commits to taking an action that is not a mandatory requirement under its governing statutes or agrees to a specific, unreasonable timeline to act.  Oftentimes, these agreements are reached with little to no public input or transparency. That is regulation through litigation, and it is inconsistent with the authority that Congress has granted and the responsibility to operate in an open and fair manner. 

“Sue and settle” cases establish Agency obligations without participation by states and/or the regulated community; foreclose meaningful public participation in rulemaking; effectively force the Agency to reach certain regulatory outcomes; and, cost the American taxpayer millions of dollars.

Administrator Pruitt laid out eight specific practices that will now be used by the EPA to "increase transparency, improve public engagement, and provide accountability to the American public when considering a settlement agreement or consent decree."  As legal scholars Hans von Spakovsky and Rob Gordon point out, these are the types of changes are needed across the Executive Branch to undo the regulatory overreach that was pervasive under President Obama:

Congress could, and should, make such improvements permanent. These types of changes are needed not just at the EPA, but at every federal agency — including the Fish and Wildlife Service — to prevent the abuse of power perfected by the Obama administration.

We thank Administrator Pruitt for taking this vital step towards restoring the rule of law and reversing eight years of regulatory overreach.

Top Election Leaders to Headline the 16th RNLA National Election Law Seminar

This year, the RNLA is hosting it's 16th National Election Law Seminar in Grand Rapids, Michigan with an all-star lineup of speakers on August 4th and 5th.  Here are some highlights of recent articles written by some of the speakers that they will likely be discussing during this year's Seminar:

Ronna McDaniel, Chairwoman, Republican National Committee

• RNC Chair: It's Critical We Fulfill Our Campaign Promises on Obamacare, Fox Business, July 24, 2017
• RNC Statement on Senate Democrats' Obstruction, RNC, July 10, 2017

Hans von Spakovsky, Senior Legal Fellow, The Heritage Foundation

• New Report Exposes Thousands of Illegal Votes in 2016 Election, The Daily Signal, July 28, 2017
• The Supreme Court Agrees to Tackle the Biggest Election Law Case in Years. Will it "Weaponize" Our Federal Courts?, Fox News, June 20, 2017
• No, Hillary, Voter-ID Laws Don’t ‘Suppress’ Turnout, National Review, June 20, 2017

Rudy Takala, Opinion Editor, The Hill

• GOP Commissioner: Trump poised to revamp election agency, The Hill, March 7, 2017

Eric Wang, Special Counsel, Wiley Rein LLP

• FEC Settles Urologist Association's Messy Fight Over PAC Affiliation, Wiley Rein Election Law News, July, 2017
• Potential Federal Campaign Finance Legislation on the Horizon, Wiley Rein Election Law News, January 2017

Randy Berholz, Counsel to Election Integrity Project California

• California watchdog group: Dirty voter rolls create situation ripe for polling-place scammers, Valerie Richardson, The Washington Times, June 22, 2017

For a full list of speakers and Seminar topics, please click here.  To more information and to register for the National Election Law Seminar, please click here. 

Highlights from First Meeting of Commission on Election Integrity

The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity met for its inaugural meeting today in Washington, D.C. The commissioners gave opening statements, shared what they think priorities for the commission to study should be, and emphasized that they hope the commission's work can increase voter confidence in the election system.

The RNLA live tweeted many of the key moments of the meeting, which was streamed live online. We wanted to summarize and bring you the highlights:


Vice President Pence, also serving as Commission Chair, during opening remarks:

"We want to hear the voice of the American voter," @VP says. #electionintegrity

— RNLA (@TheRepLawyer) July 19, 2017

President Trump greeted the Commission. He rhetorically questions why some states willfully refuse to share public voting information:

President Trump on states that refused to share voter information: "One has to wonder what they're worried about" https://t.co/rIic2jaUqd

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) July 19, 2017

Vice President Pence, no less than three times, emphasized and reemphasized the following point:

"We have no preconceived notions or preordained results." ~ @VP #electionintegrity

— RNLA (@TheRepLawyer) July 19, 2017

Commission Vice Chair Kris Kobach, and Kansas Secretary of State, attempted to dispell the rumors of the left:

Kobach reiterating private voter data will be kept private.

— RNLA (@TheRepLawyer) July 19, 2017

Commissioner Bill Gardner, Democrat Secretary of State from New Hampshire, was consistently on point. He pointed out this excellent fact--voter ID does not equate to lower turnout--two of the highest turnout states have voter ID laws in place:

Busting the suppression myth: States with the highest voter turnout are those that require #voterID https://t.co/yvWiMqQ4zm pic.twitter.com/l9qcq9a0YH

— Heritage Foundation (@Heritage) July 19, 2017

Commissioner McCormick, who also sits on the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, did not parse words about her experience with voter rolls:

EAC Com. McCormick never seen an accurate voter list. Despite Obama com. supporting such efforts, Left has opposed efforts 4 clean lists.

— RNLA (@TheRepLawyer) July 19, 2017

Commissioner Hans von Spakovsky, from the Heritage Foundation, wants to be clear not all errors in voter rolls are malicious, but, nonetheless, they need to be promptly corrected:

von Spakovsky wants to distinguish between error in duplicates on voter rolls and those who may be trying to "take advantage" of the system.

— RNLA (@TheRepLawyer) July 19, 2017

You can watch the entire meeting here. The next meeting is not expected until sometime in late-September or October. In the meantime, we will keep you up-to-date with any news and developments.

New Hampshire Attempts Minimal Election Integrity Protection; Democrats Predictably Overreact

In the midst of the New Hampshire Secretary of State's verification of voters who registered at the polls on Election Day in the fall finding 458 likely fraudulent voters (and probably more), the New Hampshire legislature is attempting to enact minimal common sense verification procedures for those who register to vote close to the election:

Earlier this year, the state Senate passed Senate Bill 3, an innocuous measure aimed at ensuring that a new voter has taken the steps necessary to make New Hampshire “the one place, more than any other, from which he or she engages in the domestic, social, and civil activities of participating in democratic self-government.” . . . To accomplish this, SB 3 tightens the state’s voter eligibility requirements. Under the proposal, someone registering to vote within 30 days of an election must “identify and provide evidence of a verifiable action” taken to maintain a domicile in the state. 

Just what are those “verifiable actions?” The bill establishes a wide-ranging list, including renting or purchasing a home in the state, obtaining a driver’s license, enrolling a child in a public school, attending a college or university, or obtaining a state-issued hunting or fishing license. Residence at a homeless shelter would also be sufficient.
Eager to ensure that the new law would in no way hinder the lawful casting of ballots, lawmakers make clear in the legislation that nearly any document – ranging from a lease, deed or utility bill, to a government form verifying the voter’s claimed address – would be accepted as documentation. . . .

SB 3 goes further still, allowing (as under current law) for same-day voter registration even if applicants do not have the required proof on hand. Applicants must sign an acknowledgment asserting their residency under penalty of voter fraud, and agree to provide the required proof to city officials within 10 days. That deadline is extended to 30 days in towns where clerks’ offices are open only part time. 

So, who will be removed from New Hampshire’s voter rolls? Only those who cannot, or will not, provide even a shred of evidence to support their claim of residency.

New Hampshire Democrats are saying those who support SB 3 are trying to suppress voters, attack "the legitimacy of our elections," and impose a literacy test, completely (and unfortunately predictably) resisting any effort to protect the integrity of elections and election results.  The Democrats' overreaction is particularly ridiculous in this case, as enacting this law would only bring New Hampshire in conformity with nearly every other state, which require some proof of residency in the state prior to registering to vote.

Supreme Court Upholds Soft Money Contribution Limits on Donations to Parties; Gorsuch Objects

Today, in Republican Party of Louisiana v. FEC, the Supreme Court summarily affirmed a three-judge court's upholding of the soft money contribution limits on donations to political parties:

The ban stems from the 2002 McCain-Feingold law, which prohibited unlimited and unregulated large contributions to party committees known as soft money. The high court on Monday affirmed without hearing oral arguments a lower court ruling that denied the Louisiana Republican Party’s challenge to soft money bans for state and local parties. 

“I’m disappointed in the decision, but it’s not that big of a surprise,” said Hans A. von Spakovsky, a former Federal Election Commission member who manages the Election Law Reform Initiative at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “It’s now pretty clear that the court is just not going to get into this part of McCain-Feingold and if the parties want these provisions to change, they’re going to have to go to Congress.” 

On Capitol Hill, von Spakovsky’s side will meet intense resistance from Democrats, even as those who favor campaign finance deregulation have a pivotal ally in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who led the legal challenge to the McCain-Feingold law. They also have an ally in White House Counsel Donald McGahn, a former Federal Election Commission member.

Newly confirmed Justice Gorsuch, with Justice Thomas, wanted the Court to hear the case and noted his vote in the order, his first major decision since joining the Court.  Prof. Rick Hasen (with whom we frequently disagree but who is probably correct here) said of Gorsuch:

This also tells us something about Justice Gorsuch. He was not shy at all — not only about being willing to wade into this very controversial area, but about announcing publicly his vote to hear the case (something he did not need to do). It could well be that he will be as conservative as Justice Thomas is in these cases. (Justice Thomas believes all campaign finance laws—including disclosure—should be subject to strict scrutiny and are likely unconstitutional.) I expect that unlike most Justices J. Gorsuch may not begin his first few terms cautiously, and then work his way up to his full Supreme Court voice.  

RNLA member James Bopp led this challenge to the soft money party contribution limits, noting that Citizens United left a "grave inequity" between parties, to which contributions are limited, and independent organizations such as super PACs, which may receive unlimited donations.

While today's opinion was very short, it does give us several interesting takeaways: 1. The principles outlined in Citizens United will only apply to outside organizations, at least for now.  2. Justice Gorsuch will likely be an active member of the Court from the beginning.  3. Justice Gorsuch, as his prior opinions indicated, is inclined to view campaign finance restrictions skeptically as infringing on important constitutional rights.  4. The legal challenges to contribution limits post-Citizens United will likely continue, until the right case and facts come before the Supreme Court to cause it to take up the issue once again or until Congress decides to amend the existing restrictions.

More Fake News: Preet Bharara and US Attorneys

Once again the Democrats and their allies are screaming scandal where there is none.  Claiming that the 46 US Attorneys asked to resign last week is somehow wrong or unusual.  As Hans Von Spakovsky states:

In 2009, President Barack Obama asked for the resignation of George W. Bush-appointed U.S. Attorneys. When he replaced virtually all of them, it was treated as nothing out of the ordinary. That’s because it wasn’t. In March 1993 President Bill Clinton had Attorney General Janet Reno fire 93 of the 94 U.S. Attorneys appointed by the prior administration. (Only Michael Chertoff was retained, apparently at the request of Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J.) Again, there was no outrage over these firings.

Speaking of the 1993 resignation request letter, here is a copy of the March 23, 1993 letter sent to then US Attorney Jeff Sessions.  Now Attorney General Sessions did not refuse to resign and forced himself to be fired.  General Sessions was not grandstanding for the conservative base.  And to be clear the request was immediate.  As the letter states: “The President has asked me to request that United States Attorneys immediately submit letters of resignation, as has been asked of all Presidential appointees.” 

Yet, Preet Bharara acted like he was wronged and refused.  Why?  As Von Spakovsky explains:

Like all of the other remaining Obama political appointees, he was asked to resign. Unlike all the others, he refused to do so.

The administration then did the most natural thing in the world: it dismissed him.  Bharara broke the news himself, tweeting out that he had been fired almost as soon as he got off the telephone call with Main Justice. This little bit of political theatre is apparently calculated to raise his profile, his “cred” and perhaps his market value among the “Resist” wing of the Left.  

I am told by a knowledgeable media source that Bharara is extremely ambitious. New York papers have speculated that he may be ramping up for a run for governor or mayor.  Another former Justice Department source confirmed that Bharara “has grand political aspirations,” adding that he is also “extremely partisan.”

The most unfortunate part of this story is that the media is giving Preet any positive attention.  Preet is not a martyr, but a political opportunist using the left’s fake news machine.  

Liberals' Opposition to Sessions for AG Designed to Send Message

Here are the real reasons for all the charges of racism, irrelevant liberal talking points, and grandstanding during Sen. Jeff Sessions' confirmation hearings last week:

Why does the Left find Sessions so objectionable? Because he actually believes in the rule of law and abiding by the Constitution, and he would apply the laws to everyone equally — a notion that some on the Left reject when it comes to applying those laws to groups whom they favor. They would far prefer judges and attorneys to suspend equal application of the law in favor of applying the law on the basis of identity politics.  

Despite Sessions’ almost certain confirmation, progressive politicians felt they had to provide political theater for their supporters and allies, because their supporters want them to oppose everything the Trump administration proposes and everyone the Trump administration wants to bring in. They complied with these wishes by arranging a mini-parade of “witnesses” to denounce Sessions as a racist hostile to women, minorities, gays, and immigrants (as Sen. Cory Booker did to his everlasting shame). 

I believe there was a second motivation behind this grotesque display: The Left wanted to make Sessions’ hearing as unpleasant as possible, to send a message to the hundreds of other prospective appointees looking to staff the middle levels of the executive branch.
The vast majority of those positions, while they require presidential appointment, do not require Senate confirmation. And it is at this level where most of the actual work gets done within agencies. 

The success of the Trump administration will hinge on the ability of mid-level political appointees to adhere to conservative principles and implement public policy based on those principles: smaller, more efficient government; commitment to the rule of law and the constitutional limits on the power of the federal government; respect for local sovereignty and our federal system; and rejection of the identity politics that threaten to permanently divide us as a nation.

It is vitally important that courageous Americans, especially attorneys, who value the rule of law and the Constitution, apply to serve in the Trump Administration to help Attorney General Sessions and other new leaders roll back the federal overreach of the Obama Administration.  Liberals and Democrats have not lost sight of future elections and those who will wield the power to implement the policies of President Trump and his cabinet.

Sessions' "Racist" Vote Fraud Prosecution Was to Protect Black Voters' Voting Rights

Liberals, particularly the NAACP, in the past few weeks have repeated the claim that Sen. Jeff Sessions is a racist based on his 1985 prosecution of civil rights activists for absentee ballot vote fraud.  

What are the facts and legal history of that case?  Then-U.S. Attorney Sessions was acting pursuant to a complaint brought by African-American candidates who believed that their African-American supporters' votes were being stolen or altered to steal the election away from them.  He prosecuted after a grand jury indictment, with the assistance and oversight of the Department of Justice, and evidence of the stealing of African-Americans' votes was presented at trial. He was upholding his duty as a federal prosecutor to prosecute violations of the law for which there is sufficient evidence to believe a conviction may be achieved; it was not a malicious prosecution on racist grounds:

“No federal prosecutor faced with the evidence seen by the grand jury would have failed to take the case and go forward with the prosecution,” [former head of the Election Crimes Unit inside the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section Craig] Donsanto told me. “The evidence in the case was overwhelming. I was there with the other assistant U.S. attorneys and not one dissented — everyone thought it was a solid case. I told Jeff Sessions to go forward with the case.” . . . 

Donsanto is highly offended by any claims that the prosecution was racist. The federal prosecutors were “trying to protect black voters who were having their votes stolen,” he notes. Moreover, the investigation was initiated only after local black voters and candidates complained to the Justice Department. When asked about the fact that a jury found the defendants not guilty, Donsanto says that as a former federal prosecutor, he respects the jury system. . . .  

In Perry County, Jeff Sessions and the other Justice Department lawyers were trying to protect black voters from having their right to vote stolen — a precious right that those voters had fought very hard to obtain during the civil rights battles of the 1950s and 1960s. Unfortunately, a jury let the defendants off despite the evidence in the case, including testimony from black residents of the county about how their ballots had been altered and changed without their permission. And that is the real tragedy of this case. 

As Craig Donsanto says, this was a prosecution intended to preserve and protect the right to vote, something to which he dedicated his entire professional career. Anyone who claims this was a racist prosecution by Jeff Sessions is, according to Donsanto, “a liar and a political opportunist of the worst kind.”

Similarly, the Public Interest Legal Foundation pointed out five important ways in which former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick had distorted the facts and history of the case in his opposition letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee:

Mr. Patrick misleads readers to believe the ‘Perry County Three’ in Alabama were prosecuted by Mr. Sessions for ‘assisting’ voters. They weren’t. 

Prosecuting voter fraud is not itself an act of voter intimidation. 

Mr. Sessions was not a rogue prosecutor – he acted with oversight from multiple DOJ offices. 

If Sessions’ advancement of the case was as faulty as Patrick alludes, why did the Court refuse to acquit the defendants from the outset? 

Patrick fails to remind Congress that the defendants offered to enter guilty pleas for the misdemeanor election crimes.

Unfortunately, the facts of the case will not prevent liberals from using it as a basis to call Sen. Sessions a racist, despite all evidence to the contrary.  We can only hope that the American people will see through this name-calling and learn about the actual history of the Perry County absentee ballot fraud prosecution. 

4th Circuit Upheld Virginia Voter ID Law

Tuesday, a unanimous three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Virginia's voter ID law:

In Lee v. Virginia State Board of Elections, the court held that not only does the photo-ID law “not impose an undue burden on minority voting, there was no evidence to suggest racially discriminatory intent in the law’s enactment.” Therefore, there was no violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and no constitutional violation either. 

The court’s description of the evidence presented by Elias and the plaintiffs shows just how frivolous this case was. Elias produced 14 “voter-witnesses” to support the Democratic party’s claims, yet as the district court found, “none of the voter witnesses was actually denied his or her right to vote.” In other words, out of the more than 5.6 million registered voters in Virginia, the Democratic party couldn’t find a single one who was unable to vote because of the law. So much for the Left’s constantly repeated theme that voter-ID laws “suppress” votes. . . .  

The evidence that the Virginia legislature passed the ID law with the intent to discriminate was almost equally pathetic. . . . Moreover, the court observed, the ID-law was passed “through the normal legislative process, and that process was unaccompanied by any facts or circumstances suggesting the presence of racially discriminatory intent.” This made the Virginia legislative process “in no way like” the process in North Carolina over its voter-ID law, which a different panel of the Fourth Circuit held as invalid in July in NAACP v. McCrory. Thus, this panel did not have to follow the other Fourth Circuit panel’s decision over the North Carolina law. . . . 

One final note. Those opposed to voter-ID laws consistently claim that huge numbers of American voters have no ID and no ability to get one. Yet when it comes to actually producing evidence to support that claim, opponents always fall short. In fact, in this lawsuit, they couldn’t produce a single Virginian who didn’t have an ID or who couldn’t easily get the free ID provided by the state.

The entire decision is well worth reading.  The Fourth Circuit rightly recognized, as the Supreme Court said in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, that inconveniences do not constitute a substantial burden on the right to vote, especially when a state is attempting to protect the integrity of its elections and has taken steps to ensure that no eligible voter loses the opportunity to vote.

DOJ's Civil Rights Division Actions Since October 15, 2014, May Be Void

Hans von Spakovsky recently published a commentary calling into question the validity of all Vanita Gupta’s official actions. Ms. Gupta is the acting head of the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division and apparently has been working in violation of federal law for more than a year and a half. The result—it may render all the official actions Ms. Gupta has taken during her entire tenure, including lawsuits, demand letters, and hires, “void” and of no effect.

Under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, when an office that requires Senate confirmation becomes vacant, “the first assistant to the office of such officer shall perform the functions and duties of the office temporarily in an acting capacity subject to the time limitations of section 3346.” The time limitation set by that section is 210 days…. But it also stipulates that if an acting officer violates this time limitation, all actions taken by that individual “shall have no force or effect.”

[Ms. Gupta] was appointed on Oct. 15, 2014, by President Barack Obama “to lead the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice.” It describes her as the “chief civil rights prosecutor for the United States.”…The official Justice Department press release from that same day states that Gupta will “serve as principal deputy assistant attorney general and acting assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division” (emphasis added).

Obama never formally nominated anyone to fill this post after Gupta was appointed. Consequently, Gupta has remained the designated acting assistant attorney general since that designation was made on Oct. 15, 2014. That means her 210 days of being able to hold the acting position expired on May 13, 2015, 18 months ago. 

The bottom line is that the Obama administration appears to have blatantly violated the Federal Vacancies Reform Act precisely because it didn’t want to comply with the confirmation requirement for Gupta. It has treated her as the head of the Civil Rights Division from the very first day she was hired and officially named as the acting assistant attorney general.

Hans von Spakovsky concludes by arguing that those groups targeted by Ms. Gupta’s Civil Rights Division might have a valid defense, under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, as a means of avoiding actions rendered against them.