Report: Judge Unimpressed by Obama DOJ’s Dive on Non-Citizen Voting
23rd February 2016
Earlier today, I wrote about the scheduled hearing in a case brought by several left-wing organizations to block three states from taking measures to make sure non-citizens can’t vote in the upcoming presidential elections. The states received permission from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to proceed. The leftist outfits seek to enjoin the EAC’s order.
The Justice Department is, in effect, the lawyer for the EAC. However, it has chosen to tank the case. It “consents” to the motion to enjoin the Commission’s order.
They thought they had a sweet deal: Have a bunch of the Usual Suspect leftist anybody-can-vote groups to challenge a ruling that States can actually ask for ID, and then have the DOJ, supposedly defending the ruling, take a dive. But it didn’t work out that way.
Judge Leon also seemed taken aback that the Justice Department is not opposing the plaintiffs’ motion to enjoin the government. Leon called it “unprecedented” for DOJ to agree to a preliminary injunction blocking a federal official’s decision. “I’ve never heard of it in all my years as a lawyer,” the judge stated.
The same statement applies, I think, to any number of actions and positions taken by the Obama Justice Department under both Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch.
Stalin once said that it doesn’t matter who gets to vote so much as who counts the votes; the Obama DOJ corollary to this appears to be that it doesn’t matter what the law says so much as who gets to enforce (or not enforce) the law.
With DOJ taking the plaintiffs’ side, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach took the lead in defending the proof of citizenship requirement imposed by his state. He also raised the conflict of interest argument (discussed in my earlier post) that stems from allegations that the Justice Department ghost wrote the original ECA decision, which went in favor of the leftist civil rights plaintiffs.
My, what a surprise! Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.