Eric Holder Evokes 'Mississippi Burning' Case to Denounce 20% Reduction in Early Voting Days

    In a video message Monday on the website of the Justice Department, Eric Holder once again broached the subject about which he famously declared Americans cowardly: race. The occasion for his message, however, has nothing overtly to do with race, but rather the recent Supreme Court decision allowing Ohio's plan to scale back early voting to take effect. A U.S. district judge initially threw out the plan, ruling that the reduction of early voting days would disproportionately affect minorities.
    The fact that the plan scales back early voting days only 20%, from 35 days to 28 days, did not stop Holder from raising the specter of the Ku Klux Klan murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi half a century ago in what became known as the Mississippi Burning case. Holder also referred to the Klan murder of Viola Liuzzo, a woman from Detroit killed in 1965 during civil rights marches in Selma, Alabama. Here are some screenshots from Holder's message:

    The attorney general has managed to equate a 20% reduction in early voting days with "turn[ing] our back" on Ku Klux Klan victims. If some Americans really are cowards when it comes to race, could it be fear of being branded a Klan sympathizer by the top law enforcement official in the country for simply favoring tighter controls on voting? Once a legislature has expanded the single day of voting that existed for most of the nation's history to multiple weeks of voting, is any subsequent reduction de facto racism? Would perpetually open polls be nirvana?
    When Eric Holder addresses race in his position as attorney general, he often pays lip service to "how far we've come" as a nation on race. But he keeps a full deck of race cards tucked in his back pocket just waiting to play trump on any argument.

Eric Holder: School Fights are "Relatively Minor Transgressions"

    Wednesday, Attorney General Eric Holder gave a speech at Frederick Douglas High School in Baltimore, MD.   I wrote about the announcement of the appearance at The Weekly Standard earlier in the day.  The event was billed as "Solutions to Enhance School Climate/Improve Discipline Policies and Practices".  Holder was there with Education Secretary Arne Duncan as part of President Obama's anti-gun violence initiative launched in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
    Part of the president's plan was to "disseminate best practices on school discipline policies and to help school districts develop and equitably implement their policies."  In fleshing out this proposal, Holder made a rather strange, even alarming, statement:

As it stands, far too many students across the country are diverted from the path to success by unnecessarily harsh discipline policies and practices that exclude them from school for minor infractions.  During critical years that are proven to impact a student’s later chances for success, alarming numbers of young people are suspended, expelled, or even arrested for relatively minor transgressions like school uniform violations, schoolyard fights, or showing “disrespect” by laughing in class.

    Holder's formulation conflates "schoolyard fights" with school uniforms violations and laughing in class, clearly a false equivalence.  While the latter two items might be characterized as "relatively minor transgressions," does a physical altercation really fit the bill?  Fights do not begin spontaneously - usually there is an aggressor, which probably indicates an assault and battery has occurred.  Certainly not all fighting in school rises to the level of arrest, but shouldn't suspensions or even expulsion be on the table?  And has anyone ever really been arrested, or even expelled, for a uniform violation or laughing in class?  Unlikely.
    Why would Holder muddy the waters in this way?  How does preventing violence in schools square with downplaying the seriousness of... violence in schools?  As I pointed out in my Weekly Standard post, the whole Baltimore event seemed predicated on the idea that unfair, discriminatory, and ineffective school discipline could lead to gun violence.  If Holder truly subscribes to that line of thinking, he should stop trying to get schools to go easy on violent offenders by comparing them to the merely disrespectful and dress code violators.

President Obama's Meeting With Mayors About Youth Violence Included One Republican

    President Obama and Attorney General Holder met with a group of 18 mayors at the White House on Tuesday afternoon.  The meeting was billed as a discussion "with mayors from cities around the country to discuss reducing youth violence." And although Republicans hold about a quarter of mayoral positions in the fifty largest cities in the U.S., only one Republican mayor was in attendance at the meeting,  Greg Ballard of Indianapolis.  The remaining mayors included sixteen Democrats and one Independent.
    According to recent data, there are twelve Republicans among the mayors of the fifty largest U.S. cities.  Twelve of the eighteen cities represented at the White House meeting are among those fifty.
    Some of the smaller cities represented at the meeting have high profile mayors, such as Corey Booker of Newark, NJ.
    Many of the cities appear on various Most Dangerous City lists, which may give an indication as to why the White House included them on the guest list.
    The White House released a short summary of the meeting:

President Obama and Attorney General Holder met this afternoon with a group of mayors from around the country to discuss strategies to reduce youth violence. The President reiterated that government alone can never fill the void that causes a child to turn to violence, but that we all have a responsibility to do our part to create safe communities and save lives. The President applauded the mayors for their local efforts to combat violence, solicited their input about proven methods, and pledged his Administration’s partnership. He also vowed to continue doing everything in his power to combat gun violence through executive action and to press Congress to pass common-sense reforms like expanding the background check system and cracking down on gun trafficking.

    Here is the complete list of mayors in attendance:

• Mayor Greg Ballard (Indianapolis, IN)
• Mayor Tom Barrett (Milwaukee, WI)
• Mayor Cory Booker (Newark, NJ)
• Mayor Vincent Gray (Washington, DC)
• Mayor Sly James (Kansas City, MO)
• Mayor Kevin Johnson (Sacramento, CA)
• Mayor Mitch Landrieu (New Orleans, LA)
• Mayor Mark Mallory (Cincinnati, OH)
• Mayor Michael Nutter (Philadelphia, PA)
• Mayor Annise Parker (Houston, TX)
• Mayor Jean Quan (Oakland, CA)
• Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (Baltimore, MD)
• Mayor Kasim Reed (Atlanta, GA)
• Mayor RT Rybak (Minneapolis, MN)
• Mayor Francis Slay (St. Louis, MO)
• Mayor Dayne Walling (Flint, MI)
• Mayor Molly Ward (Hampton, VA)
• Mayor AC Wharton (Memphis, TN)

Note: A version of this article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

AG Holder's Non-Answer on Warrants for Email

    At a Congressional hearing on May 15, Attorney General Eric Holder faced some rather hostile questions from lawmakers regarding recent Obama administration scandals, such as the IRS targeting of conservative non-profits, the Justice Department acquisition of Associated Press phone records, and Benghazi. However, about three hours into the hearing, a relatively friendly questioner, Susan DelBene (D-WA), inquired about a recent report from the ACLU concerning FBI documents that suggest that the FBI does not need a warrant to obtain access to at least some private emails.  The attorney general's answer was barely an answer at all, despite The Hill's assertion that "Holder backs warrant requirement for most email searches":

Attorney General Eric Holder said on Wednesday that the Justice Department will likely support legislation requiring law enforcement officers to obtain a warrant before accessing private online messages, such as emails or Facebook messages.
"It is something that I think the Department will support," Holder said in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee.
He urged Congress to exempt "certain very limited circumstances" such as civil investigations.
"But the more general notion of having a warrant to obtain the content of communications from a service provider is something that we support," Holder said.

    However, The Hill's article actually reports Holder's answer to DelBene's follow up question.  Here is the full exchange, beginning with DelBene's original question regarding obtaining certain emails without a warrant:

    Perhaps The Hill was simply being kind to the attorney general by not printing his initial answer given the lack of coherence.  Whatever enthusiasm Mr. Holder showed for updating legislation, he was clearly not anxious to surrender the freedom the FBI and the Justice Department currently assume the right to exercise.  This non-answer combined with the non-apology for the seizure of AP phone records cannot give privacy advocates a good feeling about this administration's view of government's limits on its investigative powers.

Eric Holder's Chutzpah

    When Vice President Joe Biden lets loose with one of his infamous quotables, such as yesterday's "a depression for millions and millions", one gets the sense that many in the administration are listening with a hand over their eyes, slowly shaking their heads.  However, when Eric Holder plays the high school troublemaker who is facing the teacher with an innocent look, inwardly thumbing his nose, those same administration members have a hand over their mouths suppressing a "pppbbbbbtttttttt!" with an admiring look on their faces.  After yesterday's overwhelming House vote (bi-partisan!) finding Holder in contempt of Congress, Fox News reports Holder's reaction:

“Today’s vote is the regrettable culmination of what became a misguided and politically motivated investigation during an election year,” Holder said afterward. “By advancing it over the past year and a half, Congressman Issa and others have focused on politics over public safety.”

The "past year and a half" and "during an election year"?  Yes, because Holder and his Justice Department have managed to stall and deceive and stonewall so long.  And "public safety"?  That's the especially galling statement considering Fast and Furious resulted in the death of a border agent and over 300 others, and is still responsible for 2,000 missing firearms, presumably in the hands of Mexican drug gangs.  Since the resolution of this issue quite possibly depends on Holder's Justice Department investigating itself, don't look for answers any time soon.  Just as in high school, the troublemakers tend to protect their own.

Motor Voter, Photo Voter: The Eric Holder Paradox

    In 1993, the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), also known as the Motor Voter Act (because laws that rhyme are better,) was signed by Bill Clinton.  According to the Justice Department's website, the purpose of the law was to make "it easier for all Americans to register to vote and to maintain their registration."  Just last week, Eric Holder, in an address at the Annual Meeting of the American Law Institute reaffirmed the Obama administration's commitment to enforcing and strengthening that law:

We must keep working to enforce provisions like the “Motor Voter” law – and, to that end, have recently filed two lawsuits to increase access to registration opportunities beyond local DMV offices.  In one of those cases, we reached a settlement with the State of Rhode Island that resulted in more voters being registered in the first full month after our lawsuit than in the entire previous two-year period.  And in just the past year, we’ve participated as an amicus in five separate lawsuits raising issues under Sections 7 and 8 of the NVRA.

    In the same speech, Eric Holder explained his Justice Department's continued opposition to voter/photo ID laws:

The recent wave of changes to state-level voter identification laws also has presented a number of problems requiring the Department’s attention.  In December, we objected to South Carolina’s voter ID law, after finding – based on the state’s own data – that the proposed change would place an unfair burden on non-white voters.  And this past March, we objected to a photo ID requirement in Texas because it would have had a disproportionate impact on Hispanic voters.

    Juxtaposing these two Justice Department positions presents an interesting paradox.  On one hand, Motor Voter is put forth as one of the best ways to make "it easier for all Americans to register to vote" because of the ubiquity of DMV locations and the need for most Americans to periodically visit a DMV office.  And yet requiring the acquisition of a photo ID is deemed to place "unfair burden[s]" and have "disproportionate impact[s]" even though the very same DMV offices are where photo ID's are acquired.
    Of course, in addition to DMV offices, Motor Voter also requires voter registration forms to be "available at local registrar offices, ... public assistance offices and disability-service offices, to groups doing voter registration drives, and through the internet on the website of the chief election official."  In that case,

[t]he voter registration portion of the application may not require any information that duplicates information required on the driver’s license portion of the application and may require only the minimum amount of information necessary to prevent duplicate voter registrations and permit State officials both to determine the eligibility of the applicant to vote and to administer the voting process.

So registering to vote is part of a larger process of filling out a (notoriously complicated and intrusive) government application.  Is obtaining a photo ID so much more of an "unfair burden" with a "disproportionate impact" than most of our other interactions with government?
    And what about registering by mail?  Motor Voter allows for that, too. And the required forms of identification?

These forms of identification are: 1) a current and valid photo identification; or 2) a copy of a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document that shows the name and address of the voter.

Imagine that.  A photo ID.  Of course, it may be argued that exceptions are built in to Motor Voter to allow for hardships, and casting provisional ballots is provided for as well.  But most, if not all, state laws requiring ID for voting have similar exceptions.  The target of these state laws is vote fraud, not voters.  But Eric Holder and the Obama administration are going out of their way to erect roadblocks to these laws.  The result is a weakening of the integrity of the very system that Motor Voter and the original Voting Rights Act were ostensibly meant to broaden and protect.