Eric Holder Vs. Texas—Standing In The Courthouse Door Crying “Voter Fraud Forever!”

A timely post about from www.Vdare.com about Texas being in the crosshairs of the President. This follows this post about the GOP backing down on Obamacare. In the meantime, you can read an interesting take on society's problems HERE and aninteresting book HERE.

Memo From Middle America | Eric Holder Vs. Texas—Standing In The Courthouse Door Crying “Voter Fraud Forever!”

http://www.vdare.com/articles/memo-from-middle-america-eric-holder-vs-texas-standing-in-the-courthouse-door

By Allan Wall     

Attorney General Eric “My People” Holder demonstrates once again that the Obama administration will continue its war against the historic American nation by any means necessary.
In the latest outrage, AG Holder, who didn’t like a Supreme Court decision, has announced he’ll fight it by using a lower court to make an end run around it.
Now just let that sink in a minute. The Obama/Holder regime has no problem with overreaching judicial tyranny from the Supreme Court, as long as the court is upholding Obamacare or same-sex marriage or such. But when the court rules against something the administration supports, that just can’t stand. So Holder is off to get a lower court to stymie the Supreme Court decision.
On the other hand, it’s not surprising. After all, the goal here is not to uphold the rule of law, but to further the Agenda. And the Agenda does not respect the historic American nation and its traditions.
The issue here: the 1965 Voting Rights Act, passed at the height of the Civil Rights era. It included “preclearance” provisions, restricting seven southern states, Arizona and Alaska, plus some smaller entities in other states (see map) in regards to future changes to their election laws.
What it means is that these states can’t change election laws without the permission of the U.S. Department of Justice (how convenient for Holder) or the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. These provisions were last renewed in 2006, during the Bush administration.
That situation, though, has just been altered by Shelby County v. Holder, a Supreme Court decision handed down June 25^th, 2013. The Court struck down Section 4(b) and made Section 5 inoperable. (Shelby County is in Alabama).
Shelby County v. Holder was yet another of these 5-4 decisions, supported by Chief Justice Roberts, and by Justices Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Kennedy and opposed by Ginsburg, Breyer, Kagan and Wise Latina Sotomayor. (Thomas however, wanted to take it even farther and completely strike down Section 5).
Disparate treatment of states, ruled the majority, was “based on 40 year-old facts having no logical relationship to the present day. ” The United States, said the court, “has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions.”
I like that—“current conditions”. Not living in the past like today’s Civil Rights movement. For the activists, it’s always Selma, Alabama, 1965, forever and ever, amen.
Where though, is the evidence that black voters, or any citizens, for that matter, are being denied the vote today, in 2013?
Wouldn’t any such action be immediately noised abroad by the MSM?
In 2012, five southern states had higher voting percentages among blacks than whites, and much-maligned Mississippi had higher black turnout than Massachusetts.
By the way, I’m not a Neo-Confederate. My ancestors lived in the Midwest during the Civil War. One of my relatives was in the Union Army and received a Congressional Medal of Honor for capturing a Confederate general.
However, as an American I’m tired of the Southerner-bashing which is being used as a tool to delegitimize and deconstruct the historical American nation.
Obviously, the goal of those who want to maintain “preclearance” is to keep the South, especially Southern whites, restricted, as if it were still 1965. Bashing white Southerners is still in fashion and is a powerful tool to further the left-wing multicultural Agenda.
It even makes it hard to oppose illegal immigration in southern states because the open border supporters bring up their knee-jerk “it’s like Jim Crow” response. It’s not just Democrats either. Plenty of Republicans do it too. For just one example, click here to read how Governor (and now professional pundit) Hucksterbee used the past treatment of black Americans to justify coddling today’s illegal aliens.
When the Supreme Court handed down Shelby County v. Holder , President Obama was “deeply disappointed” and called on Congress to basically revive preclearance with legislation. AG Eric “My People” Holder called it “a serious setback for voting rights”. (You mean like having the Black Panthers intimidate white voters?)
Georgia Democratic Representative John Lewis was “shocked, dismayed and disappointed” at the decision.
John Lewis has a lot invested in this issue. As a young man he was a major civil rights leader who was physically attacked and jailed several times. Lewis still has the scars on his head from a beating by Alabama state troopers on a bridge in Selma, Alabama, and was personally present when President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act.
Certainly, Lewis did exhibit courage and leadership in fighting for his cause as a young man. But in 2013, he seems to be still living in 1965. Why, for example, does he have such an abysmal record on immigration and why does he oppose voter ID, as both positions harm grassroots black Americans?
On July 25^th, speaking to the Urban League, Eric “My People” Holder announced his plan to go after the state of Texas. [Transcript: Attorney General Eric Holder Delivers Remarks at the National Urban League Annual Conference] Hmm, that wouldn’t’ have anything to do with the Democrats’ plan to “turn Texas blue” now, would it?
Holder’s supposed legal basis for going after Texas is Section 3 of the Voting Rights act, which provides for a state to be returned to pre-clearance status if “violations of the fourteenth or fifteenth amendment justifying equitable relief have occurred within the territory of such State or political subdivision.” BREAKING: Justice Department Will Ask Court To Reinstate Voting Rights Act In Texas, By Ian Millhiser, ThinkProgress, July 25, 2013
Holder’s plan has two parts:
(1) Get the federal government mixed up in the ongoing Texas dispute over redistricting, in a federal court in San Antonio, and
(2) Prevent the enactment of a Texas voter ID law heretofore blocked by the DOJ, but which Texas AG Greg Abbott thought would be legitimate after the Shelby v. Holder decision.
Voter ID utilizing photographs has been strongly attacked by Democrats, under the argument that it disenfranchises poor/minority voters, some of whom don’t have photo ID. I really find that hard to believe, given the current inexpensive photo technology. But, for the sake of quelling that argument, states could just issue photo ID at government expense—which is what the Texas law did.
The Texas voter ID law only calls for ID checks at polling stations, utilizing a driver’s license or other form of photo ID. But if any voter doesn’t have such identification, he will be issued one by the state of Texas, specifically by the DPS (Department of Public Safety). Furthermore, the law is similar to one in Indiana which was upheld by the Supreme Court.
Well, the naysayers say that Texas is so big and there aren’t DPS offices in every part of the state.
So there you go, there’s always some excuse for those who don’t want secure voter ID.
As longtime readers of VDARE.COM may know, for years I have held up the example of Mexico’s voter registration system, as an example of how states could run their own voter registration system. (See archive here).
Every registered Mexican voter has a Voter ID card complete with photograph, fingerprint, and a holographic image to prevent counterfeiting. Furthermore, at the Mexican polling station there is a book containing the photograph of every voter in the precinct. This book is available to the poll workers and observers from various parties. If there's a doubt as to someone’s identity, the poll workers can simply look up the person's name and see if the photo matches up.
Also, the Mexican voter's thumb is smudged with ink. That way, if he shows up at another polling site to vote, they know he's already voted elsewhere. (The ink wears off after a few days.)
It's a good system. Sure, Mexico has many problems. But they solved that one!
Local and state elections were held July 7^th in about half of Mexico, and while there were other sorts of problems with the elections, voter registration wasn’t one of them. (See here, here and here).
One problem we have here in the U.S. is the Motor Voter regime, established twenty years ago during the Clinton administration, which makes it hard to have serious verification of citizenship and even identity. (See How Come Mexico Can Require Voters to Prove Citizenship and Arizona Can’t?)
Ted Cruz, the junior Texas senator, has filed a bill, S. 1336, that would amend Motor Voter to permit States to require proof of citizenship to vote in Federal elections.
Now wouldn’t that be something? Actually permitting states to require proof of citizenship!
Is that discriminatory? Well, yes, it’s discriminatory against noncitizens. Is that bad?
To put it another way, in Holder’s 2013 America, do even Southern states have the right to stop noncitizens from voting?
American citizen Allan Wall (email him) moved back to the U.S.A. after many years residing in Mexico. Allan's wife is Mexican, and their two sons are bilingual. In 2005, Allan served a tour of duty in Iraq with the Texas Army National Guard. His VDARE.COM articles are archived here; his Mexidata.info articles are archived here; his News With Views columns are archived here; and his website is here.

Competing Interpretations of Fisher, the Affirmative Action case

Here is an interesting article from www.volokh.com (h/t Steve Sailer) about the Fisher v. University of Texas affirmative action Supreme Court case. This follows this post about various items in the news, including the Trayvon Martin Case. This follows this post about the book "To Kill a Mockingbird."  In the meantime, you can read an interesting take on society's problems HERE and more about the book shown HERE.

Competing Interpretations of Fisher

http://www.volokh.com/2013/06/24/competing-interpretations-of-fisher/

Ilya Somin • 

Commentary on today’s Supreme Court decision in Fisher v. University of Texas seems to be divided between those who believe, as I do, that the ruling tightens judicial scrutiny of university affirmative action plans, and those who contend it will make no real difference.
Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog suggests that “affirmative action survives at least in theory..., but will be far more difficult to implement in practice.” Bill Mears of CNN reaches a similar conclusion, and affirmative action opponent Roger Clegg claims that the ruling will be “helpful” to litigators seeking to strike down racial preferences. By contrast, Gerard Magliocca believes that Fisher “said nothing,” and UC Irvine Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky concludes that it just reaffirms Grutter and other previous decisions.
I think the latter interpretation of Fisher is difficult to defend. It’s true that the Court did not hold that all affirmative action for diversity purposes is unconstitutional, and claimed that its decision was completely consistent with Grutter. On the other hand, as I explained previously, it ruled that affirmative action plans must be scrutinized by courts without giving any deference at all to the university’s judgment, and should be judged by the same standards as racial preferences in non-university settings (where the Court tends to be very tough). This is a major change from Grutter’s extension of a substantial “degree of deference” to university’s expertise. Essentially, in the opinion he wrote today, Justice Anthony Kennedy adopts the legal rule advocated in his Grutter dissent, where he took the majority to task for its “perfunctory” review of the University of Michigan Law School’s affirmative action program, and for “deferring to the law school’s choice of minority admissions programs.” Today’s decision holds that a university “receives no deference” on such questions.
To determine the likely impact of today’s decision, it’s worth asking the following question: How difficult will it now be for a university to prove that it is permissible for it to adopt a program of racial preferences in admissions? I say it’s going to be pretty darned hard. Without any judicial deference to their educational expertise, schools will be hard-pressed to show that their programs are “narrowly tailored” or that there are no “racially neutral” alternatives that could have achieved the same goal. Many legal battles turn on the issue of who has the burden of proof and how high that burden is going to be. Fisher emphasizes that the burden is both high and clearly imposed on the university. By contrast, after Grutter, the conventional wisdom was that affirmative plans were largely safe from legal challenge so long as they did not include clear racial quotas or precise numerical bonus points for minority applicants.
This doesn’t mean that the legal battle over affirmative action is over. Far from it. In particular, there is likely to be litigation over the issue what qualifies as a “race-neutral” alternative to affirmative action.
As with other Supreme Court decisions on controversial issues, there is always a danger that commentators will interpret the ruling to align with their own preferences. For what it’s worth, my interpretation of today’s opinion is pretty far from what I would have preferred the Court to do. For example, Fisher reaffirms the doctrine that affirmative action preferences are at least sometimes permissible for purposes of promoting “diversity,” while leaving intact precedents holding that they cannot be used to achieve compensation for “societal” discrimination against minority groups. My view is exactly the opposite. Similarly, I believe that the Texas Ten Percent Plan is worse than conventional affirmative action, and likely unconstitutional. Today’s decision clearly leaves open the possibility that the Ten Percent Plan and other similar programs are acceptable “race-neutral” alternatives to explicit racial preferences. I find much to agree with in both Justice Thomas’ concurring opinion in Fisher (which argues that Grutter should be completely overruled), and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissent (which argues that the decision will lead universities to adopt deceptive admissions policies that pretend to be race-neutral, but really aren’t). Nonetheless, Fisher does make it significantly harder for universities to defend racial preferences in admissions. To that extent, it is a victory for opponents of affirmative action.
UPDATE: I have made some stylistic changes to this post.
UPDATE #2: Lawrence Hurley of Reuters also interprets the decision as making it more difficult for universities to defend racially preferential affirmative action policies:

To the relief of affirmative action supporters, the high court left intact existing court precedent that allows for limited consideration of race in university admissions.
But in a departure from its most recent precedent, the court ruled that when an appeals court rehears the case it must apply a more stringent legal standard in deciding whether the university’s policy violated the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection, meaning the University of Texas program still hangs in the balance.

Adam Liptak, the Supreme Court reporter for the New York Times, adopts an intepretation that seems intermediate between the two described above:

The Supreme Court on Monday ordered lower courts to take a fresh look, under a more demanding standard, at the race-conscious admissions policy used to admit students to the University of Texas. The 7-to-1 decision was simultaneously modest and significant, and its recalibration of how courts review the constitutionality of affirmative action programs is likely to give rise to a wave of challenges to admissions programs at colleges and universities nationwide.....
The decision did not disturb the Supreme Court’s general approach to affirmative action in admissions decisions, saying that educational diversity is a government interest sufficient to overcome the general ban on racial classifications by the government. But the court added that public institutions must have good reasons to use the particular means they use to achieve that goal.
That requirement could endanger the Texas program when it is reconsidered by the federal appeals court in New Orleans.

UPDATE #3: At Salon, Jillian Rayfield rounds up reactions from a number of experts and commentators, including several whose interpretations of the ruling are closer to mine than Chemerinsky and Magliocca’s:

Damon Hewitt, of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said that this decision means that they “all live to fight another day on this.” Ben Jealous, the president and CEO of the NAACP, said the group is “pleased” with the court’s decision....
But, as Sherrilyn Ifill of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund put it in the same conference call with reporters, the Court’s decision creates a “sharper and tighter standard” for schools that wish to implement affirmative action policies....
Lyle Denniston of SCOTUSblog writes that the Court’s decision is “hardly enthusiastic” on the part of affirmative action:

Justice Kennedy repeated a statement that the Court has often reiterated in race cases: the standard of “strict scrutiny” must not be “strict in theory, but fatal in fact.” But, he went on, “the opposite is also true. Strict scrutiny must not be strict in theory but feeble in fact.” The emphasis was different, and it obviously was intended to be a meaningful difference.
Whether a university program that takes any account of race can run this legal course and survive, whether at the University of Texas or elsewhere, will depend upon cases that are now likely to unfold across the country. There is a strong new incentive for opponents of “affirmative action” in college admissions to test virtually every such program; indeed, in some ways, the tone of the opinion would seem to invite such further testing.