In her confirmation hearing to head the civil rights division of President Biden’s Justice Department, Kristen Clarke faced intense questioning from Republican members of the Senate Justice Committee about her past criticisms of tough voting rules. Several GOP senators used the hearing to stake out their defense of the restrictive election measures sweeping across the nation — measures that are facing a backlash not just from Democrats and civil rights advocates, but from the business community that is usually aligned with the Republican Party.
“I’m convinced you will be the lead warrior in that liberal agenda to destroy local election integrity,” Blackburn said. “I fear that you will use your power at the civil rights division to take away states’ rights — their constitutional duty — and federalize control of elections.”
Ummmmm, that constitutional duty isn’t exactly clear Senator Blackhead. Crawl back away from the sunlight now dear.
The controversy arises at the intersection of two recent trends in the management of elections. First, a number of states, out of a fear of voter fraud (especially, a suspicion that non-citizens who are illegally in this country are voting), have been imposing tight new ID requirements to ensure that only citizens get to vote. Second, Congress and a federal election management agency have been proceeding, under a 1993 law, to try to ensure that barriers to registration are eased so that more people get to go to the polls.
Those contrasting trends have been made more difficult to sort out, as a constitutional matter, because the Supreme Court in a major ruling last year gave guidance that points in two directions: buttressing federal power to try to make registration requirements uniform, but virtually inviting states to sue to try to get their way in enforcing their own registration rules.
Clarke even managed to work in during Blackburn’s hostile questioning a similar line about the Tennessee senator, who was a House member during the 2006 renewal push.
“I view voting rights issues in a nonpartisan sense,” Clarke said. “And I thank you for being one of the 390 people who voted to reauthorize section five in 2006.”
In a sense, a dunderhead like Blackburn and her word-salad is a vast improvement for what’s coming, GOP style…
–Boxcars heading “East”–
The above is a metaphor for those who have no power…having been long ago stripped of what little they ever had, because of abominable racists like Blackburn. Power is not stripped in one fell swoop. It goes in increments.
At what point does Tennessee realize what an embarrassment they have in Blackburn? What a dope. Nasty one at that. Republican women are in a class by themselves.
“Clarke, a high-profile civil rights advocate, is the second controversial Biden Justice Department nominee to appear before the Senate panel.”
Clarke is not contoversial. The GOP senators questioning her were controversial. That being said, I love that Blackburn got Black Burned by Clarke’s "I view voting rights issues in a nonpartisan sense…And I thank you for being one of the 390 people who voted to reauthorize section five in 2006.”
Hopefully that wasn’t too uppity for the pasty white lady from Tennessee.
Cornyn also seemed to have missed the part where GQP Governor Abbott extended the early voting period by a week to accommodate COVID-19 restrictions – and who then restricted ballot drop-off sites to one per county when Republicans saw how popular it was… or how the Texas and Harris County sued to eliminate drive-through voting (and invalidate some 200K early votes in a Democratic stronghold).
Earlier in the hearing, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) noted how the number of voters in Texas skyrocketed in the 2020 election and asked if voters of color had been suppressed there.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the top Republican on the committee, signaled in his opening remarks GOP support of restrictive measures that supposedly “secure” elections.
He downplayed the threat of voter suppression by noting the historic turnout in the 2020 election
When is someone gonna ask these mooks if you all noticed the high turn out in 2020, and you think that a high turn out is good thing, then why are all these red states, or Republicans in blue states, trying to change the voting procedures in their states?
They’re like arsonists who insist arson shouldn’t be illegal because firefighters keep putting out the fires before they do the maximum damage. Like yeah, voter turnout WAS higher in 2020; thanks to Democrats fighting your voter suppression. And that’s the exact reason you’re passing these laws now.
But I think the end result of all this will be the national election laws they hate, not just because everything they do ultimately backfires but because all their rhetoric actually supports national election laws. If election security is your biggest issue and making sure that each citizen only votes once, you need a national voter database and consistent election laws nationwide.
But of course, the real reason they want to keep elections local will likely turn out to be that Republicans have been rigging elections in districts they control using the exact methods they say liberals use. Every accusation they make is a confession.
I absolutely cannot stand Marsha Blackburn. She was bad enough as a member of the House, when she was just one of 435, but it’s much worth now that this Republican hack is a member of the ruling minority in the Senate.
