{"id":18451,"date":"2013-07-25T17:02:36","date_gmt":"2013-07-25T21:02:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=18451"},"modified":"2013-07-25T17:02:36","modified_gmt":"2013-07-25T21:02:36","slug":"holder-can%e2%80%99t-wait-to-revive-stricken-piece-of-voting-rights-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/18451\/holder-can%e2%80%99t-wait-to-revive-stricken-piece-of-voting-rights-act\/","title":{"rendered":"Holder Can\u2019t Wait to Revive Stricken Piece of Voting Rights Act"},"content":{"rendered":"

Less than a month after the Supreme Court lifted an outdated \u201cpreclearance\u201d formula off the backs of states like Texas, Eric Holder\u2019s Justice Department is trying to reinstate the restrictions by inviting judicial activism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The move comes in response to the Supreme Court\u2019s invalidation of a coverage formula<\/a> in Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Previously, states with a history of racial discrimination had to seek Justice Department approval \u2013 preclearance \u2013 before enacting any changes to their election laws. The problem for states like Texas is that the formula for deciding which jurisdictions are required to submit to preclearance hasn\u2019t been updated in decades, making it virtually impossible to get out from under the federal government\u2019s thumb.<\/p>\n

In striking down<\/a> Section 5\u2019s coverage formula, the Court said that Congress is free to create a new formula based on current data. But with the legislative branch divided, few think any action is imminent.<\/p>\n

And so, in keeping with the Obama administration\u2019s motto \u201cWe Can\u2019t Wait<\/a>,\u201d Attorney General Holder announced today that his department won\u2019t wait for Congress to update the law. Instead, lawyers at Justice are filing lawsuits against Texas and other jurisdictions seeking to reinstate preclearance on a case-by-case basis.<\/p>\n

The cost to taxpayers will be huge, since both sides of the \u201cv.\u201d are government employees. Each federal judge hearing a case will act as a mini-Congress by making factual findings before crafting a rule of law to determine the outcome. Of course, these decisions will be litigated up the lengthy federal appellate chain; all the way to the Supreme Court, if possible.<\/p>\n

What makes this an affront to the constitutional design of separation-of-powers is the deliberate intent of one arm of the executive branch to invite members of the judiciary to make laws that Congress will not pass.<\/p>\n

Granted, for well-connected attorneys like Holder it\u2019s cheaper to litigate the Left\u2019s pet projects on the taxpayer\u2019s dime rather than as a private lawyer working pro bono<\/em>. But as Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry said in response, Holder\u2019s actions really amount to \u201cutter contempt for our country\u2019s system of checks and balances.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Less than a month after the Supreme Court lifted an outdated \u201cpreclearance\u201d formula off the backs of states like Texas, Eric Holder\u2019s Justice Department is trying to reinstate the restrictions by inviting judicial activism. The move comes in response to the Supreme Court\u2019s invalidation of a coverage formula in Section 5 of the Voting Rights […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[84,498,1823,4208,838,4207,92,561,3241],"class_list":["post-18451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-congress","tag-eric-holder","tag-justice","tag-preclearnace","tag-rick-perry","tag-rights","tag-supreme-court","tag-texas","tag-voting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18451"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18461,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18451\/revisions\/18461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}