A piece in the Washington Examiner posted last night and written by Department of Justice whistleblower J. Christian Adams indicates we’re about to see some fireworks – and potentially a window in the political strategy about to be employed by the state’s Democrats this fall with some help from the Obama administration.
Specifically, the DOJ has descended upon Louisiana in an effort to dig up evidence that the state’s welfare offices aren’t pushing to register recipients to vote, which in the Holder Justice Department constitutes a call to jihad.
During a time when DOJ travel is purportedly frozen, these numerous DOJ staffers have been deployed for days in New Orleans and around Louisiana trolling for stories of state officials failing to urge welfare recipients to register to vote.
The DOJ will use the evidence collected from welfare recipients to support a lawsuit against Jindal’s administration under Section 7 of Motor Voter.
The “Motor Voter” law passed in 1993 contained an important congressional compromise. Welfare and motor vehicle agencies would serve as voter registration offices, while states would be obligated to conduct voter roll cleaning to purge ineligible felons and dead voters. The two provisions act together as counterparts.
The Obama administration has refused to enforce the voter list integrity provisions while making the welfare agency registration law their top priority.
DOJ Voting Section bureaucrats have been lurking outside welfare agencies in Louisiana trying to collect evidence to sue the Jindal administration. When people leave the welfare offices, investigators rush to interrogate them, asking if they were urged to register to vote. Sworn declarations of welfare recipients are snapped up.
DOJ’s Voting Section, as Adams documented last year to considerable national notice, has under the Obama administration refused to address issues in which the voting rights of non-minority groups have been infringed upon. That practice was most notably exemplified in the notorious New Black Panther case; the new House Republican majority is expected to commence a congressional investigation into that matter.
But Adams says if Justice does decide to pursue some sort of legal action against Jindal, he – and Attorney General Buddy Caldwell, who’s a newly-minted Republican – are not without resources.
Leftist activist groups like Project Vote have been deeply disappointed with Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez. They don’t like the paltry litigation caseload of his Voting Section, especially after so much campaign bluster to “reopen the Civil Rights Division.” Perez still peddles this spin around the country, though the litigation docket renders it a laugh line.
So cue “Operation Sue Bobby Jindal.”
Jindal and any other state executive sued by the DOJ Voting Section should recognize that the Voting Section is a Potemkin litigation shop that wants opponents to think the odds are stacked against them.
But very few lawyers in the Voting Section have ever litigated a case to judgment after trial, not even in traffic court. They’re just not as experienced as defendants might assume.
States should take note: This Voting Section is petrified of protracted and costly litigation. That applies to both Louisiana and any other state targeted in the upcoming legislative redistricting. For example, one lawyer was so rattled by the stress of a rare trial the lawyer stayed in a hotel room through the trial instead of appearing in court.
If the DOJ dares to sue Louisiana, it will be a chance for Jindal to put Holder on trial instead.
Recall the testimony of former Voting Section chief Christopher Coates before the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Coates testified that his Obama political bosses spiked eight Motor Voter investigations of states that had severely corrupted voter rolls.
Americans have a right to know why the Obama DOJ is on a quest to enforce laws that register likely political allies, but won’t enforce laws to protect the integrity of American elections.
Jindal may soon get a chance to demand an answer.
It’s entirely possible – in fact, it’s relatively certain – this expedition is all about politics on the part of the Obama administration. Specifically, this could be an undertaking in pursuit of what used to be called a “50-state strategy” aimed at building state Democrat fortunes and punishing political enemies. And since the state’s moribund Democrat Party needs some life breathed into it, Holder could be playing out something of a long game.
Namely, the grapevine says that while we still don’t have even a rumored Democrat candidate for governor in this fall’s legislative session there now appears a relatively high-profile candidate for Secretary of State. That would be Caroline Fayard.
Fayard, also a lawyer, said everywhere she goes people ask her to stay involved but she too remains noncommittal about her plans. “I’m out and about listening, going around the state,” she said.
“The secretary of state is an open seat. That always comes to mind when you are considering,” said Fayard. Since she is not an elected official, Fayard did not have to file a campaign finance disclosure last week.
Fayard’s travels took her to a Louisiana Clerks of Court meeting in Lafayette last week to “say hello” to officials with whom the secretary of state’s office works in its elections function.
Fayard, of course, is the closest thing to an up-and-comer in the Democrat Party despite the fact that she and the state party conducted a laundry operation whereby the party served as a conduit for her father, big-money trial lawyer Calvin Fayard, to shovel cash into her campaign for Lieutenant Governor last year in violation of state campaign finance laws.
She’s also the one Democrat with national connections, given that she has lots of ties to the Clintons. And while Fayard pere was part of the PUMA movement which actually gave money to John McCain after Obama won the Democrat nomination in 2008 – he was also one of 11 major Democrat donors who offered to pay for a Michigan primary that Hillary Clinton would likely have won that year – it’s amazing how quickly bygones can be bygones when larger events intervene.
And the Secretary of State job is not insignificant. After all, the Secretary of State is the official in whose trust the state’s voter rolls – the integrity of which across the country Motor Voter has been so destructive to – are placed.
We’ve mentioned before that following Katrina, former Secretary of State Jay Dardenne, a Republican, conducted a very professional and consequential spring cleaning of Louisiana’s voter rolls. Since his having done that, the state’s Democrats have had a rapidly decreasing ability to get people elected. Getting the SOS office back is of major importance to the Dems; if they can manage it, the old days of election-day machines – particularly in Orleans Parish – which turn out astonishing numbers in favor of populist lefty candidates might well return.
And a determined effort by the Department of Justice to tar the governor and the Secretary of State’s office as racists or partisan Republicans attempting to keep poor blacks from voting would certainly contribute to the rest of the narrative we see building – namely, that Jindal disenfranchised all the blacks on the Board of Regents so he could kill SUNO and that he’s starving public schoolteachers to give out tax breaks to rich white corporations. A “Jindal is doing everything he can to disenfranchise black voters” piece would complete the puzzle. Run someone for governor like Cleo Fields or Karen Carter Peterson, who won’t get more than 40 percent of the vote but will pull at least 35 just based on demographics, to push that narrative, and now you’re capable of turning out enough vote in heavily Democrat areas to perhaps minimize the damage that is sure to come down the ballot.
It might even be enough to carry Fayard into office as the Secretary of State if the Republicans can’t find a strong candidate (Walker Hines is already in, most people think acting Secretary Tom Schedler will run and there are rumors that former acting Lieutenant Governor Scott Angelle will run for Secretary of State rather than his old position). And if the Dems can retake the SOS office, with Holder’s help, it might give them a boost toward becoming viable as a statewide entity again in the future.
Advertisement
Advertisement
