Posted on 07/27/2013 3:04:49 PM PDT by smoothsailing
July 27, 2013
PJ Media came out with a big story yesterday. It claimed that the RNC was working to undermine the Supreme Court decision that took some states out from under the thumb of the Voting Rights Act.
Attorney General Eric Holder announced Thursday that the Justice Department will seek to recapture Texas and return it to federal oversight for approval of all election law changes such as photo voter identification. Holder’s move comes after the Supreme Court in June freed Texas and other states from the requirement that all state election laws be approved in Washington, D.C. Holder’s move prompted outrage from Texas Senators Ted Cruz, John Cornyn and Governor Rick Perry.
The three should also be angry with the Republican National Committee. PJ Tatler has learned that staff at the RNC have been spending RNC donations plotting to do exactly what Eric Holder is seeking to do – return Texas and other states to federal oversight.
According to RNC sources frustrated with the race-based effort, paid RNC consultant Tom Hofeller (thofeller@rnchq.org) is spending RNC donations to develop race-based criteria to grab Texas and other states and place them back into federal receivership. The sources tell Tatler that nearly all of the members of the actual committee have been kept in the dark about this effort, and no mention is ever made in RNC fundraising efforts — for good reason, because GOP donors would be furious.
Hofeller, a long-time RNC consultant on redistricting, has devised ways to force several states back into federal receivership by amending the Voting Rights Act to grab states and force them to obtain Washington, D.C. approval. He is hopeful that Congressional Republicans will use his RNC-generated ideas to accomplish this goal.
So far, the Republicans in Congress have shown more sense than the Republicans paid by the RNC, and are cool to the idea of returning states to federal receivership.
According to congressional sources, Hofeller has also been misrepresenting the importance of the law struck down by the Supreme Court. Hofeller has told Hill sources the federal election oversight law is essential to elect Republicans, something most Republicans on the Hill no longer believe is true. Hofeller has spread this message while being paid by the RNC.
The RNC’s Raffi Williams sent out a strongly worded email to bloggers late last night denying this,
“A anonymous post in PJ media that is based entirely on anonymous sources makes the false allegation that the RNC and its redistricting consultant Dr Tom Hofeller are spending RNC donations to develop “race- based criteria” to “grab Texas and other states and place then back under federal receivership”. The story fails to note that a contributor of PJ Media, J. Christian Adams, was on the losing side of the effort to renew the Voting Rights Act in 2006.
Here are the facts:
1. There is no RNC effort what so ever to influence litigation or legislation dealing with the effects of the Shelby County decision.
2. There is no RNC efforts to create any new criteria to replace section 4 which was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
3. No RNC staff or funding have used to for this purpose.
4. There is no RNC effort nor has there been any involvement in devising criteria that amends “the Voting Rights Act to grab states and force them to obtain Washington, D.C. approval.”
5. There is no RNC effort nor has there been any attempts to use Hofeller’s “RNC-generated ideas to accomplish this goal.”
6. On this matter there are NO “RNC generated ideas” – period!
7. Of the so -called Republicans in Congress that are “cool to this idea” PJ Media cannot name one (see number 6 – there is no plan to be cool to).The RNC demands a full retraction and apology. Legal action against the source will be pursued.”
So, who’s right?
Well, to begin with, it’s hard to understand why the RNC would be trying to undermine this decision in the first place since the only meaningful impact of the Voting Rights Act is to allow Democrats in D.C. to harass Republican states that want to redistrict or put voter ID laws in place. Additionally, the chances of getting Republicans in the House to snatch defeat from the jaws of a victory handed to them by the Supreme Court would have to be pretty close to zero.
So, this is an unlikely story that should have produced a high level of skepticism at PJM. Of course, it’s possible that it did. PJM claims to have multiple sources at the RNC and PJM implies members of Congress have been contacted by the RNC as well.
On the other hand, the RNC is responding to this story on the record, not anonymously, it’s issuing a flat denial and it’s challenging PJM to name a Republican in Congress who has been approached. That seems to not only be a fair request, but also one that the RNC would be unlikely to make unless it’s sure there is “no there, there.”
In other words, the ball is in PJM’s court at this point and if this is a legit story, PJM needs to offer up more proof — like for example, a congressman who was approached. On the other hand, if PJM was intentionally burned by an anonymous source, which seems entirely possible at this point, I’d love to see them publicly reveal that person’s name. Journalists have no ethical obligations to sources who intentionally deceive them (and this certainly couldn’t be some kind of innocent misunderstanding).
Neither PJM nor the RNC seems to be in the mood to back off; so it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
It’s all a show for the dems, fires up the base and raises campaign cash. It’s so transparent and phony it’s laughable.
And of course it’s another distraction from this administration’s crimes. Tailor made to give the enemedia something new to divert attention with.
The Democrats are constantly on a war footing.
Division, Diversion, Demagoguery and Dishonesty are Democrats only hope for victory. As Rush says; they can’t compete in the marketplace of ideas.
I wouldn’t doubt anything. It doesn’t surprise me that Congressional staffs are totally interchangeable that the party staffs would be too.
No?
I think we might have identified a problem...
Nothing would surprise me out of the GOP at this point.
The things in life I’m certain of have never included political parties.
I saw a post on the RNC facebook page soon after the SCOTUS decision that everyone should have a right to vote or something along those lines.
Do the RINOs in charge of the GOP want to commit suicide, or does 0bama have some first class dirt, courtesy of the NSA, on them?
The "rebranded" GOP.
How would this story fire up the Democrat base?
Or, do you mean they are doing it to try to undermine the RNC in the eyes of its base? (Seems hard to imagine any additional effort would be required there.)
The RNC doesn’t deny that this particular consultant was doing anything along these lines, only that ‘the RNC’ wasn’t.
Here’s an interesting story in The Atlantic last year about this consultant apparently making his living off of the redistricting enabled by the VRA over the past 40 years.
Given that, I could see the potential for this story to be accurate despite the denials:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/10/the-league-of/309084/
I meant the part about Holder going after Texas and voter id laws. I reread my post, I should have been more clear about that.
I do not doubt it.
The GOP consists of backstabbers (Rove, Romney),
liars and manipulators, authors of ObamaCARE/RomneyCARE
who now support both (weasels, they are),
and DNC supporters.
Check out the story I linked to above—it involves this RNC consultant and Texas redistricting.
Pretty sure democrats loathe Hofeller. He’s been extremely effective at maximizing Republican electoral clout through his remapping and redistricting efforts.
That’s why I think the PJM story stinks, the dems would love to get rid of him and what better way than to brand him a traitor to the right.
There is no more DNC/RNC. It is all the same thing. It is the Establishment with their useful idiots on the left vs Conservative Americans who believe we still have a Constitution.
While the left has diverted our attention by engaging us in a morality fight, the Establishment has proceeded to take away our rights one by one as well as bankrupt us.
It’s nice to be able to boast how many weapons we have, how much ammo we have and how we are going to protect our homes and families. It all means crap when we wake up one morning, go to the mailbox and realize our entire lives have been taken from us by financial institutions colluding with the government and being systematically wiped out from redistribution and no jobs.
It's no secret Rep. Sensenbrenner is all for restoring this. I don't know how tight he is with the RNC but he's supposed to be a Conservative.
A piece I posted on this recently:
Reps. Sensenbrenner and Lewis urge Congress to restore Voting Rights Act
From your article I don’t get the impression Sensenbrenner is interested in restoring the VRA as it existed before the the SC ruling, but rather updating it to be more in tune with the realities of today.
That could be but Christian Adams doesn’t think that from this link I posted in that article at post #11.
excerpt of the last of linked piece:
“The 2006 reauthorization was a shady deal between Republicans and the racialist left: Republicans thought it would buy them peace and safely racially gerrymandered seats. Today, the Court repeatedly cited the 2006 deal as a reason to strike down the law. Some Congressional Republicans have vowed to “fix” the coverage formula after any Supreme Court decision. Among them are Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WS):
When asked if Republicans have the political will to act if the VRA is struck down, Sensenbrenner told Salon: “I’m gonna make them fix it.”
There’s only one problem with his promise: the Supreme Court left almost no room to “fix” anything. Only in “exceptional circumstances” may the federal government have power to preclear state election law changes. “Exceptional circumstances” is a term pulled from the jurisprudence to describe conditions blacks faced in 1964.
Anyone with any sense knows those days are gone.
Congressional Republicans should ignore the inevitable slurs from the racialist Left and find better things to do besides “fix” a law that the Court has found to be mostly unfixable and which has upset the Constitutional order for the last couple of decades.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3035480/posts
Thanks jaz, Christian Adams makes the most sense of all.
Agreed smooth, Adams always makes sense.
Putting all that aside and assuming Sensenbrenner had nothing to do with this RNC thing, it’ll be interesting to see what comes out in the next few days.
It doesn’t sound like PJM is going to give on this nor the RNC. May be popcorn time. :-)
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