Americans have been frustrated with the Democrats for leaving town for two weeks over the Independence Day holiday with so many important votes still on the board. They will also leave for the entire month of August. Of course, our government performs better under a deadline. Attorney General Merrick Garland took major action, which he announced on Friday.
The President Joe Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) has decided to take on the Republican’s 480 state laws that suppress Americans’ votes, according to The Mother Jones publications. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said this about the Georgia laws:
‘There is nothing Jim Crow.’
According to The New York Times, the law included 16 different provisions making it more difficult for Georgians to vote and directly targeting the Atlanta metropolitan counties with significant Black populations
Head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Kristen Clarke and Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta will be in charge of the investigation:
‘The Georgia law appears to have been part of a coordinated national effort by conservative activists to make it harder to vote in states across the country.’
‘The dark money group Heritage Action for America bragged in a leaked video to donors in April, first reported by Mother Jones, that the Georgia law had “eight key provisions that Heritage recommended.”’
The wayward laws included:
‘[Policies] restricting mail ballot drop boxes, preventing election officials from sending absentee ballot request forms to voters, making it easier for partisan workers to monitor the polls, and restricting the ability of counties to accept donations from nonprofit groups seeking to aid in election administration.’
Attorney General Garland said he planned on doubling the number of attorneys in his department’s voting section. Of course, he will still be facing a conservative-dominated judiciary.
Our federal government has had a long history of being involved in voting rights. However, with the Supreme Court “gutting the Voting Rights Act” in 2013, the DOJ has its work cut out for it.
Republicans filibustered S.1, the For the People Act, which provided “sweeping democracy reform” on Tuesday. President Biden indicated he would also be more aggressive about a federal voting rights plan.
The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act also promoted voting rights but in a way that complimented S.1. It incorporated a compromise with Senator Joe Manchin’s proposal. With the filibuster, the Senate GOP only needs 41 votes or the filibuster to kill it.
That is where AG Garland’s DOJ is challenging the right to vote restrictions:
‘We need Congress to pass S.1 and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which would provide the department with the tools it needs.’
Three White Lions podcast, Gloria Christie reads her week’s most important news/ commentary stories in the liberal online newspaper The Bipartisan Report. Gloria Christie Report her newsletter for people on the go. Written in her own unique style with a twist of humor in a briefer version of Bipartisan Report. Christie’s Mueller Report Adventures In Bite-Sizes a real-life compelling spy mystery. Find her here on Facebook.
