Free Republic

As I often say, "OK, I get it." People have very passionate views both on the value of the Voting Rights Act and its past requirements of certain states and on the issue of same-sex marriage. Polls show people split on the issues. Delving into the merits of the central issues involved in all of the major decisions handed down by the Supreme Court on these matters will obscure a valuable silver lining for devotees of our constitutional framers. In the instance of the Voting Rights Act, the court in essence said that to single out certain states based on...

Via Mediaite. If you believe Eric Holder is the Moses of our time because he’s the “chief lawgiver of the United States,” I guess you’ll believe this. We should be thankful, at least, for the creativity of the metaphor. Most of the nastier left-wing attacks on Thomas rely on lazy smears of him as an “Uncle Tom” or a “house slave.” If you’re going to go that far, you might as well go full Godwin. No sugar-coating.Semi-related: A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 51% of Likely U.S. Voters consider radical Muslims to be the bigger threat to...

Something perverse happened after the Supreme CourtÂ’s decision today invalidating citizenship-verification requirements in Arizona for registrants who use the federal voter registration form. The Left knows they lost most of the battle, but are still claiming victory. ThatÂ’s what they do. Election-integrity proponents and the states are saying they lost, but donÂ’t realize they really won. The Left wins even when they lose, and conservatives are often bewildered and outfoxed in the election-process game. Earlier today, I called the decision a nothingburger. After re-reading the case and reflecting a bit more, itÂ’s clear that the decision was a disaster for...

Former vice presidential adviser I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby is among more than 1,000 felons whose voting rights were restored in the past year by Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, according to a report to the General Assembly. Libby’s name is listed in the Feb. 23 report on pardons, commutations, reprieves and other forms of clemency the Republican governor is required to submit annually. Without elaboration, the report says Libby’s civil rights were restored Nov. 1, 2012. … In Virginia, only the governor can restore felons’ civil rights. McDonnell has streamlined the process and, consequently, has restored the rights of more than...

The U.S. Supreme Court's conservative justices voiced deep skepticism Wednesday about a section of a landmark civil rights law that has helped millions of Americans exercise their right to vote. In an ominous note for supporters of the key provision of the Voting Rights Act, Justice Anthony Kennedy both acknowledged the measure's vital role in fighting discrimination and suggested that other important laws in U.S. history had run their course. "Times change," Kennedy said during the fast-paced, 70-minute argument. Kennedy's views are likely to prevail on the closely divided court, and he tends to side with his more conservative colleagues...

Central parts of an election law dating back to the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, the Voting Rights Act, appeared to be in jeopardy Wednesday after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a challenge to them.

Jimmy Green's stepdaughter had never voted before. The 57-year-old is mentally disabled, and Green said she doesn't understand the concept of casting a ballot. But this week, she called her parents to say she had voted for President Obama. The care home in Fayetteville where she lives registered its residents to vote and drove them to the polls, Green said. "My concern is that somebody told her who to vote for," he said. "She didn't even know there's two different parties." Complaints of uncomprehending voters being ferried to cast ballots surface every election. And in a presidential race as close...

WASHINGTON (AP) — When last we saw the chief justice of the United States on the bench, John Roberts was joining with the Supreme Court’s liberals in an unlikely lineup that upheld President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.

Charging that millions of citizens, two-fifths of them black, have been denied the right to vote because of felony convictions, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People called on the United Nations this week to investigate America’s “racially discriminatory election laws.” An NAACP delegation visiting Geneva hosted a panel on the “disenfranchisement” of U.S. citizens and addressed the U.N. Human Rights Council, which is in session in the Swiss city. A delegate told the HRC that the right to vote was a cornerstone of democracy and that in the U.S. a patchwork of divergent laws and procedures have...

AKRON, Ohio -- More than 1.7 million Ohioans voted before Election Day in the 2008 presidential election - about 30 percent of all ballots cast. And nearly 100,000 of them voted in-person in the final three days before the November election. Noting the significance of those numbers, President Barack Obama's campaign filed a federal lawsuit in Columbus on Wednesday, seeking to restore the three days of early voting prior to Election Day that the GOP-controlled Ohio Legislature eliminated earlier this year. The suit was the first legal action Obama's campaign has filed in this election. "This lawsuit seeks to treat...

Some Democrat leaders in Ohio are alarmed by the recent decision by Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted to deep-six extended hours and weekend early voting for the period leading to the November general election. The liberal alarmists’ volume has been turned up by recently primary deposed Cleveland-based congressman Dennis Kucinich. He insists that the secretary of state must reverse his decision in order to insure that urban voters have a chance to vote. Kucinich believes that this would be a show of good faith and a “vote for democracy.” Yet, it seems that the soon to be former congressman...

I was just on the Glen Beck show on GBTV and had occasion to note that Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion in the Obamacare case was familiar to me. It turns out that Roberts adopted a similar activist rewriting of the parties’ arguments in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District v. Holder. Most people just call it the “MUD” case, but it provides some clarity about what happened last week in the Obamacare ruling. In MUD, a small utility district in Texas was challenging Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act as unconstitutional. (Shelby County Alabama and Texas are currently doing...

Changes in elections laws have been enacted many times since 1790 when only American white males were legally allowed to vote. Included were the 1870 law that allowed former slaves to vote, in 1920 women’s suffrage came about, in 1924 the Indians Citizenship Act gave Native Americans the right-to-vote and in 1964, the poll tax was banned in all federal elections. These were all considered positive changes.

Suffrage: Fresh from using his race as a defense in the Fast and Furious scandal, the attorney general blocks South Carolina's voter photo ID law as discriminatory. Tell that to the Department of Motor Vehicles. The Palmetto State can't seem to catch a break from this administration. First, the right-to-work state gets harassed by the National Labor Relations Board over Boeing's expansion into a new plant. Now the Justice Department has blocked a voter ID law passed in May and signed by Gov. Nikki Haley. Both federal actions, along with a Justice Department investigation into Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, have...

....“There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today,” Clinton added. Clinton mentioned Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s move in March to overturn past state precedent — including under former GOP governors — that allows convicted felons to vote once they’ve served they’ve finished probation periods.

The Civil Rights Division has blocked a much-needed reform of a local school board in S.C., once again showing it has no interest in protecting minority voters if they are white. The Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department has done it again. Under the supervision of scandal-plagued Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes, the Division has blocked a much-needed reform of a local school board in Fairfield County, S.C. It’s the latest example of what happens when you put a civil rights enforcement unit under a political appointee who opposes race-neutral enforcement of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). Aided...

Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for civil rights, is testifying today about military voting problems before the House Administration Committee. He should get hammered for the bureaucracy’s laggard attention to making sure those who defend our rights can exercise their own right to vote. Despite Justice Department claims to the contrary, voting procedures for troops and civilians stationed overseas were plagued by difficulties in 2010. Bumbling and obstinacy at Justice are part of the problem. At issue for much of last year was implementation of the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act, which requires that ballots for these...

Todd F. Gaziano is very angry at the Justice Department (DOJ). As one of the commissioners on the U.S. Commission of Civil Rights, he says ...

Should Legal Noncitizens Have the Right to Vote? Yes -- If they pay taxes and can serve in the military, it's only fair that they also be allowed to vote on local issues. Yes, but... -- Only in state and local elections. The right to vote in a national election should be reserved for citizens of the United States of America. No -- Voting is a citizen's right. If they want it, then let them first become citizens. Undecided Other (Post a comment)

Justice Department disenfranchises military, protects Black PanthersThe Obama Justice Department is doing everything it can to boost Democrats in the upcoming election. It's helping stifle military votes, facilitating criminal voting and encouraging intimidation at the polls by deep-sixing the New Black Panther voter-intimidation case. In an Oct. 15 letter representing the views of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich tied together the department's mishandling of military voting rights and the Black Panther case. Mr. Weich wrote Rep. Frank Wolf, Virginia Republican, to give assurance that Justice would "not take any action that would be inconsistent...