Garland announces expansion of Justice Department's voting rights unit, vowing to scrutinize GOP-bac
Source: Washington Post
Attorney General Merrick Garland pledged Friday to double the size of the Justice Departments voting rights enforcement staff to combat efforts to restrict ballot access and prosecute those who threaten or harm election workers.
In an expansive speech that invoked the nations long and, at times, faltering progress toward ensuring every Americans right to vote, Garland likened the fight against efforts to curtail ballot access to past campaigns enshrining voting rights for Black Americans in the Constitution and the seminal Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Garland said the additional trial attorneys, which he plans to hire over the coming 30 days, will scrutinize new laws and existing practices across the nation for potential discrimination against Americans of color, including in new measures GOP state lawmakers are pushing. They will enforce provisions of the Voting Rights Act by challenging such laws or practices in court and prosecute anyone found to intimidate or threaten violence against election officials.
The expanded unit will also monitor the growing number of post-election ballot reviews being called for around the country by supporters of former president Donald Trump in search of signs of violations of federal laws, Garland said, and will watch over upcoming redistricting efforts to call out discriminatory practices.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/merrick-garland-voting-rights/2021/06/11/47906eda-cad1-11eb-81b1-34796c7393af_story.html
PSPS
(13,594 posts)sprinkleeninow
(20,246 posts)My dad would say that. 😄
EYESORE 9001
(25,936 posts)FarPoint
(12,354 posts)Sibelius Fan
(24,396 posts)Perhaps Garland needs to stand on a street corner and shout neener, neener at Rs, hmm?
Action in this instance will involve lawyers and the courts.
IthinkThereforeIAM
(3,076 posts)... yep. If you want something worthwhile accomplished, you have to, "dot your i's and cross your t's". To be polite, I think some people need to check out decaf.
LenaBaby61
(6,974 posts)And there are a LOT of folks who are angry at him while others defend him.
However how is he going to get the GQP in on this? We know that the man from WV is holding Dems hostage, and so is the twit from Arizona also, who also doesn't even fully know what a filibuster IS, and neither is going to let the filibuster die because they believe that it's DEMS who aren't being bi-partisan 😑 Rotten, racist ass McTurtle's said he is going to stop Pres. Biden's agenda and that NO GPQ'er will vote for anything in this Biden far left administration or words to that effect.
Neither DINO is going to find any GQP votes I don't think to pass voting rights legislation.
WHAT am I missing here?
I'm not even talking about that big, fat MESS Garland was left with from fatas45's corrupt DOJ et al. I know Garland's in for a tough slog there with that.
JustAnotherGen
(31,819 posts)Kristen Clarke is the FAAFO Assistant AG for Civil Rights.
How long did it take to get her confirmation?
This speech was right on time.
AG Garland could of whittled the speech down to this:
AG Clarke: Fuck Around And Find Out
Any Speech of intent prior to May 25th would have been foolish. Two weeks for AG Clarke to complete a deep dive into these horrific laws and for those to agree to strategy?
I'll take it. Two weeks from the time she wad FINALLY confirmed and she's throwing elbows.
Ms Clarke has a clear mandate.
mopinko
(70,099 posts)it's gonna take time to clean up the mess, but i have faith.
Really FED UP with the knee jerk negative comments
Bayard
(22,063 posts)That's the biggest question for me. They are really dangerous, saying elections were fake and they don't accept the results. Undermining democracy is a very real thing now.
madville
(7,410 posts)Many on the losing side in every close election claim it was stolen, rigged, etc. Seems like a freedom of speech issue, you cant make opinions illegal even if they are wrong.
If Biden loses a close election in 2024, there would be many on the left claiming it was stolen, to not concede, challenge all the results. Everyone got mad at Hillary for not challenging the 2016 results and how many people flat out claim that the 2000 and 2004 elections were illegitimate and stolen? Should those claims of fraud be illegal too?
Bayard
(22,063 posts)That's illegal. Justice already sent them a letter, but hasn't followed up on it.
bucolic_frolic
(43,149 posts)I'm not optimistic we'll do a lot better than hold our own in blue states, but it's worth a try. At least there are champions on the field.
CaptainTruth
(6,589 posts)I've told my wife multiple times that when the next election comes around she needs to have cash on hand for my bail, because if there are long lines & people need water or food I'm going to provide it, Florida's fascist GOP anti-voting laws be damned. I have no more F's to give, we're at war with the GOP & we need to start thinking that way before we lose our democracy.
Hugh_Lebowski
(33,643 posts)I do wonder, however, how difficult it will be to prove that these laws specifically target people because of race or similar.
You notice how the PuQ's in Georgia backed off of the no early voting on Sunday thing, and didn't pass the law with that in it?
They aren't morons, they knew exactly what the DoJ under Biden would do, and they know what powers they have and what tools Garland can leverage.
The most potent ones are the ones from the civil rights era. So they avoid obvious things that could run afoul of them.
IOW, my thinking is that it would be very hard to prove that limiting early voting or voter ID laws or tightening absentee ballot rules ... was done to specifically harm any particular race.
I'm not saying this to put down Garland or DoJ efforts, I think this is awesome, we need to do everything we can for sure!
However I don't have a lot of faith they'll really be able to do much to combat these new laws because I don't know that they have the legal tools to do so.
Unless of course we got the voting rights bill passed
oasis
(49,382 posts)Last edited Tue Jun 29, 2021, 12:15 PM - Edit history (1)
Critical Race Theory