Book Notes
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Chapter Nine
1. Congressional reports tell more stories: Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Voting Rights Act: Evidence of Continued Need, hearings throughout 2005 and 2006, all available in the Congressional Record
See also, Clarke, Kristen, The Congressional Record Underlying the 2006 Reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act. Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review (CR-CL), Vol. 43, No. 2, 2008, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1139705
2. BB King sign in Kilmichael: Kilmichael: B.B. King’s roots, in the Historical Marker Data Base
https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=900163. “They should be lynched”: Mississippi Rep. Karl Oliver says those who destroy Confederate monuments should be 'lynched,’ by Anna Iovine, Yahoo, May 22, 2017. Oliver later took the Facebook post down and apologized.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/2017-05-22-mississippi-rep-karl-oliver-says-those-who-destroy-confederate-monuments-should-be-lynched-22103467.html4. Money and Duck Hill: The gruesome history of Oliver’s district from Rep. Karl Oliver’s Winona: Divided long before he proposed lynching by Larrison Campbell, Mississippi Today, May 24, 2017
https://mississippitoday.org/2017/05/24/rep-karl-olivers-winona-divided-long-before-he-proposed-lynching/5. Duck Hill … where in 1937 a white mob: Tellings of the Duck Hill lynchings include
The gruesome history of Oliver’s district from Rep. Karl Oliver’s Winona: Divided long before he proposed lynching by Larrison Campbell, Mississippi Today, May 24, 2017
https://mississippitoday.org/2017/05/24/rep-karl-olivers-winona-divided-long-before-he-proposed-lynching/Lynch and Anti-lynch: Time magazine, April 26, 1937
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,757674-2,00.htmlThis Disgraceful Evil
https://thiscruelwar.wordpress.com/2016/04/13/this-disgraceful-evil/Race in America: Renaissance and Depression by Mike Bennighof, July 2021
https://www.avalanchepress.com/CriticalRace9.php‘Red And Bootjack’ Marker Shines Light On Duck Hill Lynching, Remembers Victims by Aliyah Veal, Mississippi Free Press, July 5, 2023
https://www.mississippifreepress.org/34412/red-and-bootjack-marker-shines-light-on-duck-hill-lynching-remembers-victims6. “It was all done very quickly”: Lynch and Anti-lynch: Time magazine, April 26, 1937
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,757674-2,00.html7. Madera Tribune tells the horrifying story in detail: The original story, MISSISSIPPI LYNCH MOBS UNDER PROBE Blow Torches Are Turned on Two Negroes Bring Crime Confessions TORTURES DESCRIBED No Member of Mob Was Recognized Statement of Three Officers, is online at https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=MT19370414.1.1
8. First lynching photographs published by the national press: Among others,
‘Red And Bootjack’ Marker Shines Light On Duck Hill Lynching, Remembers Victims by Aliyah Veal, Mississippi Free Press, July 5, 2023
https://www.mississippifreepress.org/34412/red-and-bootjack-marker-shines-light-on-duck-hill-lynching-remembers-victims9. On that very day: As Time reported, “In Washington the House debate rose to a furious crescendo after Michigan's Michener read a press report of what had just happened at Duck Hill. Negroes in the gallery, who had cheered and applauded intermittently throughout the day when one of their champions made a good point on the floor, were shocked into silence.” Nevertheless, “Few Washington observers would concede last week's bill an outside chance in the Senate. Many doubted that it would ever get out of committee. The fact that the Administration needs the support of Southern Senators to get the President's Court Plan passed, caused considerable speculation when the anti-lynching bill got through the House. A filibuster, which seemed almost certain….”
Lynch and Anti-lynch: Time magazine, April 26, 1937
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,757674-2,00.html10. Allen v. State Board of Elections: Allen v. State Bd. of Elections, 393 U.S. 544 (1969)
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/393/544/#tab-opinion-194779911. Between the Allen decision and the VRA’s 2006 reauthorization: The Voting Rights Act and Mississippi, 1982-2005 by Robert McDuff,
https://gould.usc.edu/students/journals/rlsj/issues/assets/docs/issue_17/05_Mississippi_Macro.pdf and http://www.protectcivilrights.org/pdf/voting/MississippiVRA.pdf12. Kilmichael: The House Judiciary report called what happened here “intentionally developed to keep minority voters and candidates from succeeding in the political process.” H.R. REP. NO. 109-478, at 36 (2006)
13. Mary Young wasn’t expecting: Mary Young, all quotes from interviews with the author
14. In a letter that made it clear: DOJ Voter Determination Letter from Ralph F. Boyd, assistant attorney general, to J. Lane Greenlee. As the letter further details, “First, the decision to cancel the election came only after black persons had become a majority of the registered voters and the release of census data indicated that black persons were now a majority of the population in the town. Second, the decision occurred only after the qualification period for the election had closed, and it became evident that there were several black candidates for office, and that under the existing at-large electoral method, the minority community had the very strong potential to win a majority of municipal offices, including mayor.”
https://www.justice.gov/crt/voting-determination-letter-23 -
15. Hempstead and Last Stand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hempstead,_Texas and “The History of Hempstead and the Formation of Waller County, Texas” by Frank MacD. Spindler. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly 63, no. 3 (1960): 404–27. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30240882
16. Plaque: The plaque was erected in 1963, the height of the civil rights movement, and not closer to the end of the war. It reads, “Erected by the State of Texas 1963 (back of Hempstead, C.S.S.) Breakup at War's End In the spring of 1865 Texas troops returning from Louisiana and coastal defenses gathered at Camp Groce. Rumor reached them of General Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox. Some doubted, but soon the news was confirmed. Confederate generals Kirby Smith, John B. Magruder, and John H. Forney were there and bade their troops farewell. Comrades-in-arms of the recent conflict left to walk their weary way home in one of the last sad scenes of the southern Confederacy.”
https://atlas.thc.state.tx.us/Details/5473009388https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=125608
17. Dress and shawl: Davis was certainly captured in his wife’s shawl. The dress was widely reported for decades and became part of the myth of his capture, but most modern historians now discount that he was actually wearing it.
https://www.americanheritage.com/was-jefferson-davis-captured-dress18. Waller County’s history: The county’s deep racist past, over decades, received fresh attention after the death of Sandra Bland, the cause of which remains contested between her family and authorities. Some of the best stories from which much of this history is derived include: Sandra Bland and the Long History of Racism in Waller County, Texas, by David A. Graham, the Atlantic, July 2015
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/sandra-bland-waller-county-racism/398975/Sandra Bland’s death divides Texas county with ugly history of racism by Tom Rowley, Washington Post, July 27, 2015
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ugly-history-of-racism-dogs-texas-county-where-sandra-bland-died/2015/07/27/e69ac168-3317-11e5-8353-1215475949f4_story.htmlWaller County has history of racial tension by Michael Graczyk, Associated Press, July 27, 2015
https://www.star-telegram.com/news/state/texas/article28772632.html#storylink=cpyThe Texas county where Sandra Bland died: there's 'racism from cradle to grave' by Tom Dart, The Guardian, July 17, 2015
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/17/sandra-bland-alleged-suicide-waller-county-texas-racismTexas County’s Racial Past Is Seen as Prelude to Sandra Bland’s Death by Sharon LaFraniere, Richard A. Oppel Jr. and David Montgomery, New York Times, July 26, 2015
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/27/us/racial-divide-persists-in-texas-county-where-sandra-bland-died.htmlThe Texas County Where Sandra Bland Died Is Fraught With Racial Tensions by Jaeah Lee, Mother Jones, July 17, 2015
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/texas-waller-county-sandra-bland-racial-tensions/19. More lynchings: Waller County has long been seen as the county with among the most lynchings, though the most comprehensive and latest study from the Equal Justice Initiative suggests it ranks third
Sandra Bland’s death divides Texas county with ugly history of racism by Tom Rowley, Washington Post, July 27, 2015
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ugly-history-of-racism-dogs-texas-county-where-sandra-bland-died/2015/07/27/e69ac168-3317-11e5-8353-1215475949f4_story.html20. Waller County voting tricks: For a terrific overview of the student fight for voting rights in Waller County, see Texas’ oldest Black university was built on a former plantation. Its students still fight a legacy of voter suppression by Alexa Ura, Texas Tribune, Feb. 25, 2021
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/25/waller-county-texas-voter-suppression/Also, Black Students In Texas Filed A Voting Rights Suit But Didn’t Get An Answer In Time by Emmanuel Felton, BuzzFeed News, Oct. 30. 2020
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emmanuelfelton/trump-judges-voting-rights-texas-black-studentsIn rural Texas, black students’ fight for voting access conjures a painful past by Amy Gardner, Washington Post, September 24, 2019
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-rural-texas-black-students-fight-for-voting-access-conjures-a-painful-past/2019/09/24/fa18e880-ca69-11e9-a1fe-ca46e8d573c0_story.html21. Symm v United States: SYMM v. U.S, 439 U.S. 1105 (1979)
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/439/1105/22. Racial gerrymanders dilute student strength: Black university was built on a former plantation. Its students still fight a legacy of voter suppression by Alexa Ura, Texas Tribune, Feb. 25, 2021
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/25/waller-county-texas-voter-suppression/23. June 2002 DOJ letter: DOJ Voting Determination Letter from Ralph F. Boyd, assistant attorney general, to Waller County attorneys online at:
https://www.justice.gov/crt/voting-determination-letter-15824. Open letter: Black university was built on a former plantation. Its students still fight a legacy of voter suppression by Alexa Ura, Texas Tribune, Feb. 25, 2021
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/25/waller-county-texas-voter-suppression/25. Dozen students had been charged: Black university was built on a former plantation. Its students still fight a legacy of voter suppression by Alexa Ura, Texas Tribune, Feb. 25, 2021
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/25/waller-county-texas-voter-suppression/ -
26. Months before the 2008 elections: Black university was built on a former plantation. Its students still fight a legacy of voter suppression by Alexa Ura, Texas Tribune, Feb. 25, 2021
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/25/waller-county-texas-voter-suppression/27. DOJ brought litigation: United States v. Waller County, TX (S.D. Tex. 2008)
28. Backed down completely: “On October 9, 2008, the Department simultaneously filed a complaint and consent decree against Waller County, TX regarding the County's voter registration practices and procedures that violated Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act and Title I of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42. U.S.C. ｧ 1971(a)(2)(B). The violations primarily affected students at Prairie View A&M University, an historically black college. On October 17, the court entered a consent decree which enjoins the County from further implementation of unprecleared registration practices and requires it to reprocess those applications that were wrongly rejected, develop a training program for voluntary deputy registrars, and initiate voter registration programs on the Priarie A&M campus.”
29. DOJ complaint: https://www.justice.gov/crt/case-document/file/1082166/dl
30. DOJ consent decree: https://www.justice.gov/crt/case-document/file/1096926/dl?inline
31. 107 objections, more Section 5 withdrawals, 97 local changes: Voting Rights in Texas 1982-2006 by Nina Perales, Luis Figueroa and Criselda G. Rivas, USC Law Review 2006
https://gould.usc.edu/students/journals/rlsj/issues/assets/docs/issue_17/06_Texas_Macro.pdf32. Louisiana: Voting Rights in Louisiana 1982-2005 by Debo P. Adegbile, USC Law Review 2006
https://gould.usc.edu/students/journals/rlsj/issues/assets/docs/issue_17/04_Louisiana_Macro.pdf33. Pointe Coupee Parish, three consecutive decades: https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/20211118_letter_to_pointe_coupee_parish_school_board.pdf
34. Thirteen times: Voting Rights in Louisiana 1982-2005 by Debo P. Adegbile, USC Law Review 2006
https://gould.usc.edu/students/journals/rlsj/issues/assets/docs/issue_17/04_Louisiana_Macro.pdf35. Sunset Community Center: DOJ Voting Determination Letter from Isabelle Katz Pinzler, acting assistant attorney general to Kathy Moreau, secretary, St Landry Parish Police Jury
https://www.justice.gov/crt/voting-determination-letter-18036. Also in Louisiana: Kristen Clarke tells this story from Orleans Parish. Another example comes from Louisiana, where discrimination emerged in Orleans Parish to preserve white political power in the face of the parish’s shrinking white population.126 The legislative record includes evidence showing that Louisiana’s proposed plan eliminated outright a majority black district in Orleans Parish. That district provided black voters the opportunity to elect candidates of their choice on the grounds that the move was necessary to guarantee proportional representation of whites in Orleans Parish. White population loss during the prior decade prompted the change, and the state conceded that its goal was to diminish black opportunity in order to increase the electoral opportunity of white voters in New Orleans. At one point, the state significantly altered its legal theory in the case, prompting the D.C. District Court to issue an order “condemning the Louisiana House of Representatives for a mid-course revision in its litigation theory and tactics.” Ultimately, the state dismissed its action seeking judicial preclearance of the plan and entered into an eve-of-trial settlement that restored the black opportunity district in Orleans Parish.
Clarke, Kristen, The Congressional Record Underlying the 2006 Reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act. Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review (CR-CL), Vol. 43, No. 2, 2008, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1139705
37. Alabama had another 46 objections: Voting Rights In Alabama 1982-2006 by James Blacksher, Edward Still, Jon M. Greenbaum, Nick Wuinton, Cullen Brown and Royal Dumas
https://gould.usc.edu/students/journals/rlsj/issues/assets/docs/issue_17/04_Alabama_Macro.pdf38. Pleasant Grove: Voting Rights In Alabama 1982-2006 by James Blacksher, Edward Still, Jon M. Greenbaum, Nick Wuinton, Cullen Brown and Royal Dumas
https://gould.usc.edu/students/journals/rlsj/issues/assets/docs/issue_17/04_Alabama_Macro.pdfPleasant Grove’s history hardly improved: The majority-black city blocked from electing black officials, by Sam Levine, The Guardian, February 28, 2020
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/28/alabama-pleasant-grove-fight-to-vote39. Good neighbor city: The majority-black city blocked from electing black officials, by Sam Levine, The Guardian, February 28, 2020
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/28/alabama-pleasant-grove-fight-to-vote40. Pleasant Grove litigation: City of Pleasant Grove v. United States, 479 U.S. 462 (1987)
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/479/462/#top41. Justice Department files: https://www.justice.gov/crt/section-5-objection-letter
42. Seguin, Texas: Nina Perales, Southwest Regional Counsel Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Property Rights Re: “Renewing the Temporary Provisions of the Voting Rights Act: Legislative Options After LULAC v. Perry” Thursday, July 13, 2006 https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/7-13-06ninaperales.pdf
43. “It’s not gone. It’s not gone”: Mary Young interview with the author
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Chapter Ten
1. Near-unanimous: House votes to extend Voting Rights Act, Associated Press, July 13, 2006
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna13841124By a Vote of 98-0, Senate Approves 25-Year Extension of Voting Rights Act by Carl Hulse, New York Times, July 21, 2006
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/21/washington/21vote.html2. Political pundits still hail: For example, in the New York Times, Jim Rutenberg framed the issue like this: “On July 20, 2006, the United States Senate voted to renew the Voting Rights Act for 25 more years. The vote was unanimous, 98 to 0. That followed an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote in the House of Representatives, which passed it by a vote of 390 to 33. President George Bush signed the renewal with apparent enthusiasm a few days later. This bipartisan support for the Voting Rights Act — first enacted into law 50 years ago this month by Lyndon B. Johnson — was not unusual; indeed, it was the rule throughout most of the legislation’s history on Capitol Hill. And if you want to understand how dramatically Congress’s partisan landscape has changed in the Obama era, it’s a particularly useful example. As it happens, two bills introduced in the past two years would restore at least some of the act’s former strength, after the 2013 Supreme Court decision in Shelby v. Holder, which significantly weakened it. And both are languishing, with no significant Republican support and no Republican leader willing to bring them to the floor for a vote. What was, less than a decade ago, an uncontroversial legislative no-brainer is now lost in the crevasse of our partisan divide.”
Nine Years Ago, Republicans Favored Voting Rights. What Happened? by Jim Rutenberg, New York Times, Aug. 12, 2015
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/12/magazine/nine-years-ago-republicans-favored-voting-rights-what-happened.htmlRepublicans used to unanimously back the Voting Rights Act. Not any more. By Jamie Fuller, Washington Post, June 26, 2014
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/06/26/republicans-used-to-unanimously-back-voting-rights-act-not-any-more/Nate Persily saw through the “veneer of bipartisanship” immediately and how it “glossed over serious disagreements between the parties over the meaning of the central provision of the new VRA.” Nathaniel Persily, The Promise and Pitfalls of the New Voting Rights Act, 117 Yale Law Journal 174 (2007).
https://www.yalelawjournal.org/article/the-promise-and-pitfalls-of-the-new-voting-rights-actIn the days after Shelby County, Sarah Binder of Brookings understood the 2006 debate in a fuller context: “First, we should be wary of overestimating GOP enthusiasm for the VRA in 2006 … deep pockets of more conservative GOP weren’t shy about going on record in favor of a sharply different VRA.” https://www.brookings.edu/articles/reading-congressional-tea-leaves-from-the-2006-renewal-of-the-voting-rights-act/
3. Smother the Voting Rights Act in the courts: The most complete history of this argument comes from Jesse Rhodes terrific Ballot Blocked, published in 2017 by Stanford University Press
https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=264934. Federalist Society … who would do it for them: Rhodes, Ballot Blocked.
Also, Ian Millhiser, The Agenda, Columbia Global Reports, 2021. Republicans who supported Voting Rights Act now oppose bill Democrats say would strengthen its provisions, by Mariana Alfaro, Washington Post, January 19, 2022
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/19/republicans-voting-rights/Nathaniel Persily, The Promise and Pitfalls of the New Voting Rights Act, 117 Yale Law Journal 174 (2007).
https://www.yalelawjournal.org/article/the-promise-and-pitfalls-of-the-new-voting-rights-act5. “I made a conscious decision”: Sensenbrenner interviews with the author
6. He vividly recalled: Sensenbrenner’s commitment detailed in Inside the Republican Plot for Permanent Minority Rule by David Daley, New Republic, Oct. 15, 2020
https://newrepublic.com/article/159755/republican-voter-suppression-2020-electionImportance of his role also highlighted by Persily
Nathaniel Persily, The Promise and Pitfalls of the New Voting Rights Act, 117 Yale Law Journal 174 (2007).
https://www.yalelawjournal.org/article/the-promise-and-pitfalls-of-the-new-voting-rights-act7. “I would fight off the people on the left”: Watt interviews with the author, and included in Inside the Republican Plot for Permanent Minority Rule by David Daley, New Republic, Oct. 15, 2020
https://newrepublic.com/article/159755/republican-voter-suppression-2020-election8. Over twelve hearings…: Links to hearings, votes, and reports available at https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/house-bill/9/all-info
9. The case they built in favor of reauthorization:
https://commdocs.house.gov/committees/judiciary/hju26411.000/hju26411_0f.htmhttps://www.usccr.gov/files/pubs/docs/051006VRAStatReport.pdf
10. Lynn Westmoreland: The congressman explained his viewpoint on C-SPAN
https://www.c-span.org/video/?193067-4/voting-rights-actAs well as in the New York Times, Extension of Voting Act Is Likely Despite Criticism, by Rick Lyman, March 29, 2006
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/29/us/extension-of-voting-act-is-likely-despite-criticism.html11. “We have repented and we have reformed:” Westmoreland quoted in Congressional Record, July 13, 2006
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CREC-2006-07-13/pdf/CREC-2006-07-13-pt1-PgH5143-2.pdfas well as Voter Beware by Jeffrey Toobin, New Yorker, March 2, 2009
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/03/02/voter-bewareAnd PBS’s Frontline, February 26, 2013
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/do-we-still-need-the-voting-rights-act/12. “That was a long time ago!”: Westmoreland interview with the author
13. “I called him Smiley”: Westmoreland interview with the author
14. “Milwaukee had more voting rights violations”: Westmoreland interview with the author
15. “It was political expediency”: Westmoreland interview with the author
16. All four amendments: Rhodes, Ballot Blocked, and Persily, The Promise and Pitfalls of the New Voting Rights Act, 117 Yale Law Journal 174 (2007).
https://www.yalelawjournal.org/article/the-promise-and-pitfalls-of-the-new-voting-rights-act17. “We knew we didn’t have a chance”: Westmoreland interview with the author
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18. Wheeled over more than 12,000 pages: Inside the Republican Plot for Permanent Minority Rule by David Daley, New Republic, Oct. 15, 2020
https://newrepublic.com/article/159755/republican-voter-suppression-2020-election
“It felt good”: Sensenbrenner interview with the author and included in Inside the Republican Plot for Permanent Minority Rule by David Daley, New Republic, Oct. 15, 2020
https://newrepublic.com/article/159755/republican-voter-suppression-2020-election
“We came up short today”: Inside the Republican Plot for Permanent Minority Rule by David Daley, New Republic, Oct. 15, 2020
https://newrepublic.com/article/159755/republican-voter-suppression-2020-election
Judges who would do it for them: Rhodes, Ballot Blocked
Bush made his two most consequential appointments: Rhodes, Ballot Blocked
Harriet Miers … Samuel Alito: The conservative pipeline to the Supreme Court, by Jeffrey Toobin, the New Yorker, April 10, 2017
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/17/the-conservative-pipeline-to-the-supreme-court
“A significant motivation”: Rhodes, Ballot Blocked
The National Archives had released memo after memo: Roberts involvement known as far back as 2005. Roberts Helped to Shape 80's Civil Rights Debate by Robin Toner and Jonathan D. Glater, New York Times, Aug. 4, 2005
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/04/us/roberts-helped-to-shape-80s-civil-rights-debate.html
Which counted Roberts as an early recruit: Roberts Listed in Federalist Society '97-98 Directory by Charles Lane, Washington Post, July 24, 2005
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2005/07/25/roberts-listed-in-federalist-society-97-98-directory/07462c8a-f148-4b4f-97f5-b44cfc3c1333/
Bound to face grave judicial threats: Persily, The Promise and Pitfalls of the New Voting Rights Act, 117 Yale Law Journal 174 (2007).
https://www.yalelawjournal.org/article/the-promise-and-pitfalls-of-the-new-voting-rights-act
“I was very impressed with Roberts”: Russell Feingold interview with the author
17 hours in the witness chair: Roberts confirmation hearings transcript online at:
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CHRG-ROBERTS/pdf/GPO-CHRG-ROBERTS.pdf
Kennedy did not mince words: Roberts confirmation hearings transcript online at:
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CHRG-ROBERTS/pdf/GPO-CHRG-ROBERTS.pdf
“The articulation of views that you read from”: Roberts confirmation hearings transcript online at:
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CHRG-ROBERTS/pdf/GPO-CHRG-ROBERTS.pdf
Feingold reminded Roberts: Roberts confirmation hearings transcript online at:
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CHRG-ROBERTS/pdf/GPO-CHRG-ROBERTS.pdf
It was the policy of President Reagan: Roberts confirmation hearings transcript online at:
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CHRG-ROBERTS/pdf/GPO-CHRG-ROBERTS.pdf
Crafting the policy, leading the charge: The complete set of Roberts papers released from the National Archives can be found here: https://www.archives.gov/news/john-roberts
“No basis for viewing it as constitutionally suspect”: Roberts confirmation hearings transcript online at:
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CHRG-ROBERTS/pdf/GPO-CHRG-ROBERTS.pdf
“Voting rights wasn’t an issue then”: Feingold interview with the author
“We weren’t concerned that it’s ever going to become an issue”: Feingold interview with the author
They did want to build a legislative record: Persily: Nathaniel Persily, The Promise and Pitfalls of the New Voting Rights Act, 117 Yale Law Journal 174 (2007).
https://www.yalelawjournal.org/article/the-promise-and-pitfalls-of-the-new-voting-rights-act
Conservatives did not trust the committee chairman: Among others, Arlen Specter stumbles into dream role by Ed Whelan
https://www.confirmationtales.com/p/arlen-specter-stumbles-into-dream-role
And Hill calls on heavyweight advisers in Supreme Court battle, Washington Times, September 5, 2005
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2005/sep/5/20050905-114119-3586r/
“I was specifically called by Republicans”: Rick Hasen interview with the author
“The groundwork was being laid”: Rick Hasen interview with the author
“These guys are patient”: Rick Hasen interview with the author
Gregory Coleman testimony: Online at https://www.congress.gov/congressional-report/109th-congress/senate-report/295/1
Played fast and loose with the facts: Nathaniel Persily, The Promise and Pitfalls of the New Voting Rights Act, 117 Yale Law Journal 174 (2007). https://www.yalelawjournal.org/article/the-promise-and-pitfalls-of-the-new-voting-rights-act
Artificial rush … foregone conclusion: Nathaniel Persily, The Promise and Pitfalls of the New Voting Rights Act, 117 Yale Law Journal 174 (2007).
https://www.yalelawjournal.org/article/the-promise-and-pitfalls-of-the-new-voting-rights-act
Road map for future judges: Nathaniel Persily, The Promise and Pitfalls of the New Voting Rights Act, 117 Yale Law Journal 174 (2007).
https://www.yalelawjournal.org/article/the-promise-and-pitfalls-of-the-new-voting-rights-act
“They were playing a very long game”: Rick Hasen interview with the author
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Chapter Eleven
Wyeth and Penobscot Bay:
Visit with Blum at his home, also
https://www.farnsworthmuseum.org/exhibition/andrew-wyeth-islands-in-maine/ also noted by Anemona Hartocolis in He Took On the Voting Rights Act and Won. Now He’s Taking On Harvard, New York Times, Nov. 19, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/19/us/affirmative-action-lawsuits.html
Giant American flag:
https://tinyurl.com/4ppk8ujm
Blum never attended a day of law school: Blum has told his story in a very similar manner over many decades. He has used the same several anecdotes and sometimes the same language. We had a long interview at his home in Maine in October 2022. Some of the best profiles that I also drew on here for background include:
Special Report: Behind U.S. race cases, a little-known recruiter by Joan Biskupic, Reuters, Dec. 4, 2012
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE8B30V9/
Shape Up by Gregory Curtis, Texas Monthly, October 1994
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/shape-up/
He Took On the Voting Rights Act and Won. Now He’s Taking On Harvard, by Anemona Hartocolis, New York Times, Nov. 19, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/19/us/affirmative-action-lawsuits.html
Meet Edward Blum, the man behind the Harvard affirmative action case by Hilary Burns, Boston Globe, May 29, 2023
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/05/29/metro/harvard-affirmative-action-case-meet-ed-blum/
Doggedly Colorblind: Ed Blum Returns Again and Again to SCOTUS, by Miriam Rozen, Texas Lawyer, April 4, 2016
https://www.law.com/texaslawyer/almID/1202753137019/
How one man brought affirmative action to the Supreme Court. Again and again. By Robert Barnes, Washington Post, Oct. 24, 2022
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/24/edward-blum-supreme-court-harvard-unc/
UT’s biggest admissions critic turns sights to Harvard, North Carolina by Ralph K.M. Haurwitz, Austin American Statesman, November 28, 2011
https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2014/11/28/uts-biggest-admissions-critic-turns-sights-to-harvard-north-carolina/10148241007/
Conservative legal strategist has no office or staff, just a surprising Supreme Court track record by David Savage, Los Angeles Times, Dec. 22, 2015
https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-supreme-court-strategist-20151222-story.html
2007 Austin American Statesman profile screenshot on Twitter by James Murphy at
https://x.com/James_S_Murphy/status/1095312479347982336
SCOTUSblog on camera: Edward Blum (Complete)
https://www.scotusblog.com/media/scotusblog-on-camera-edward-blum-complete/
Meet The Jewish Texan Who’s Fighting Affirmative Action by Josh Nathan-Kazis, The Forward, August 8, 2017
https://forward.com/news/379375/meet-the-jewish-texan-whos-fighting-affirmative-action/
Bopp had intended to join: The man behind Citizens United is just getting started by Stephanie Mencimer, Mother Jones, May/June 2011
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/05/james-bopp-citizens-united/
Terra Haute’s Jim Bopp a conservative titan, by Mark Gardner, Associated Press, June 29, 2014
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/29/terre-hautes-jim-bopp-jr-a-conservative-titan/
Alienated by the Left: Terre Haute: The man behind Citizens United is just getting started by Stephanie Mencimer, Mother Jones, May/June 2011
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/05/james-bopp-citizens-united/
Terra Haute’s Jim Bopp a conservative titan, by Mark Gardner, Associated Press, June 29, 2014
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/29/terre-hautes-jim-bopp-jr-a-conservative-titan/
Meet The Jewish Texan Who’s Fighting Affirmative Action by Josh Nathan-Kazis, The Forward, August 8, 2017
https://forward.com/news/379375/meet-the-jewish-texan-whos-fighting-affirmative-action/
Replaced on Citizens United: David Bossie replaced Bopp with Ted Olson before the case went to the Supreme Court. As Toobin notes, “Bossie may have arrived in Washington as a flame-throwing outsider, but during the previous decade he had become part of the conservative establishment. He knew that Bopp had just won the Wisconsin Right to Life case before the Justices, but Bossie’s financial life and potentially his place in history were on the line in Citizens United. He wasn’t going to leave his fate in the hands of a lawyer from Terre Haute.”
Money Unlimited: How John Roberts orchestrated the Citizens United decision by Jeffrey Toobin, New Yorker, May 14, 2012
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/05/21/money-unlimited
Both freely borrowed rhetoric and strategies: Blum iterview with the author, plus: Edward Blum’s crusade against affirmative action used legal strategy of civil rights activists by Julian Maxwell Hayter, Arkansas Advocate, December 4, 2023
https://arkansasadvocate.com/2023/12/04/edward-blums-crusade-against-affirmative-action-used-legal-strategy-of-civil-rights-activists/
James Bopp: What Citizens United Means for Campaign Finance, Frontline, by Sarah Childress, October 30, 2012
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/james-bopp-what-citizens-united-means-for-campaign-finance/
One man standing against race-based laws, by Morgan Smith, Texas Tribune, February 23, 2012
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/us/edward-blum-and-the-project-on-fair-representation-head-to-the-supreme-court-to-fight-race-based-laws.html
“How can a nice person be doing such awful things?”: Edward Blum defies odds in getting cases to Supreme Court, by Krissah Thompson, Washington Post, February 25, 2013
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/edward-blum-defies-odds-in-getting-cases-to-supreme-court/2013/02/25/2d6e06ac-7b8e-11e2-a044-676856536b40_story.html
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Inheritors of the true mission: Blum interview with the author, and, among others He Worked for Years to Overturn Affirmative Action and Finally Won. He’s Not Done by Lulu Garcia-Navarro, New Yoyk Times, July 8, 2023
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/08/us/edward-blum-affirmative-action-race.html
The Rise and Fall of Affirmative Action, the New Yorker, October 15, 2018
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/15/the-rise-and-fall-of-affirmative-action
And The Man Behind the Push to End Affirmative Action by Douglas Belkin, Wall Street Journal, June 29, 2023
https://www.wsj.com/articles/affirmative-action-supreme-court-ed-blum-100b36c3
Meet the man trying to end affirmative action, by Henry Gass, Christian Science Monitor, April 5, 2023
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2023/0405/Meet-the-man-trying-to-end-affirmative-action
First Republican mom ever met: Interview with the author, and Blum has told his biography with great consistency over three decades of interviews. He shared these stories about his family with me, but also with Special Report: Behind U.S. race cases, a little-known recruiter by Joan Biskupic, Reuters, Dec. 4, 2012
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE8B30V9/
He Took On the Voting Rights Act and Won. Now He’s Taking On Harvard, by Anemona Hartocolis, New York Times, Nov. 19, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/19/us/affirmative-action-lawsuits.html
Meet Edward Blum, the man behind the Harvard affirmative action case by Hilary Burns, Boston Globe, May 29, 2023
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/05/29/metro/harvard-affirmative-action-case-meet-ed-blum
Doggedly Colorblind: Ed Blum Returns Again and Again to SCOTUS, by Miriam Rozen, Texas Lawyer, April 4, 2016
https://www.law.com/texaslawyer/almID/1202753137019/
How one man brought affirmative action to the Supreme Court. Again and again. By Robert Barnes, Washington Post, Oct. 24, 2022
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/24/edward-blum-supreme-court-harvard-unc/
SCOTUSblog on camera: Edward Blum (Complete)
https://www.scotusblog.com/media/scotusblog-on-camera-edward-blum-complete
Meet The Jewish Texan Who’s Fighting Affirmative Action by Josh Nathan-Kazis, The Forward, August 8, 2017
https://forward.com/news/379375/meet-the-jewish-texan-whos-fighting-affirmative-action/
FDR on wall, Jewish parents, Yiddish, resettle concentration camps: Interview with the author, and Blum has told his biography with great consistency over three decades of interviews. He shared these stories about his family with me, but also with Special Report: Behind U.S. race cases, a little-known recruiter by Joan Biskupic, Reuters, Dec. 4, 2012
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE8B30V9/
He Took On the Voting Rights Act and Won. Now He’s Taking On Harvard, by Anemona Hartocolis, New York Times, Nov. 19, 2017 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/19/us/affirmative-action-lawsuits.html
Meet Edward Blum, the man behind the Harvard affirmative action case by Hilary Burns, Boston Globe, May 29, 2023
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/05/29/metro/harvard-affirmative-action-case-meet-ed-blum/
Doggedly Colorblind: Ed Blum Returns Again and Again to SCOTUS, by Miriam Rozen, Texas Lawyer, April 4, 2016
https://www.law.com/texaslawyer/almID/1202753137019/
How one man brought affirmative action to the Supreme Court. Again and again. By Robert Barnes, Washington Post, Oct. 24, 2022
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/24/edward-blum-supreme-court-harvard-unc/
UT’s biggest admissions critic turns sights to Harvard, North Carolina by Ralph K.M. Haurwitz, Austin American Statesman, November 28, 2011
https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2014/11/28/uts-biggest-admissions-critic-turns-sights-to-harvard-north-carolina/10148241007/
Conservative legal strategist has no office or staff, just a surprising Supreme Court track record by David Savage, Los Angeles Times, Dec. 22, 2015
https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-supreme-court-strategist-20151222-story.html
2007 Austin American Statesman profile screenshot on Twitter by James Murphy at
https://x.com/James_S_Murphy/status/1095312479347982336
SCOTUSblog on camera: Edward Blum (Complete)
https://www.scotusblog.com/media/scotusblog-on-camera-edward-blum-complete/
Meet The Jewish Texan Who’s Fighting Affirmative Action by Josh Nathan-Kazis, The Forward, August 8, 2017 https://forward.com/news/379375/meet-the-jewish-texan-whos-fighting-affirmative-action/
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His parents’ experiences: Blum has told his biography with great consistency over three decades of interviews. He shared these stories about his family with me, but also with Special Report: Behind U.S. race cases, a little-known recruiter by Joan Biskupic, Reuters, Dec. 4, 2012
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE8B30V9/
He Took On the Voting Rights Act and Won. Now He’s Taking On Harvard, by Anemona Hartocolis, New York Times, Nov. 19, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/19/us/affirmative-action-lawsuits.html
Meet Edward Blum, the man behind the Harvard affirmative action case by Hilary Burns, Boston Globe, May 29, 2023
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/05/29/metro/harvard-affirmative-action-case-meet-ed-blum/
Doggedly Colorblind: Ed Blum Returns Again and Again to SCOTUS, by Miriam Rozen, Texas Lawyer, April 4, 2016
https://www.law.com/texaslawyer/almID/1202753137019/
How one man brought affirmative action to the Supreme Court. Again and again. By Robert Barnes, Washington Post, Oct. 24, 2022
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/24/edward-blum-supreme-court-harvard-unc/
UT’s biggest admissions critic turns sights to Harvard, North Carolina by Ralph K.M. Haurwitz, Austin American Statesman, November 28, 2011
https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2014/11/28/uts-biggest-admissions-critic-turns-sights-to-harvard-north-carolina/10148241007/
Conservative legal strategist has no office or staff, just a surprising Supreme Court track record by David Savage, Los Angeles Times, Dec. 22, 2015
https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-supreme-court-strategist-20151222-story.html
2007 Austin American Statesman profile screenshot on Twitter by James Murphy at
https://x.com/James_S_Murphy/status/1095312479347982336
SCOTUSblog on camera: Edward Blum (Complete)
https://www.scotusblog.com/media/scotusblog-on-camera-edward-blum-complete/
Meet The Jewish Texan Who’s Fighting Affirmative Action by Josh Nathan-Kazis, The Forward, August 8, 2017
https://forward.com/news/379375/meet-the-jewish-texan-whos-fighting-affirmative-action/
Bellaire High photo: James Murphy found Blum’s high school yearbook
https://x.com/James_S_Murphy/status/1095312472955854848
Blum clubs: James Murphy found Blum’s high school yearbook
https://x.com/James_S_Murphy/status/1095312472955854848
Randy Quaid: James Murphy found Blum’s high school yearbook
https://x.com/James_S_Murphy/status/1095312472955854848
“You know, I am not on the faculty at Purdue”: Edward Blum interview with the author
Campus liberal, taskforce on the improvement of minority education, studied fiction: Interview with the author, plus Special Report: Behind U.S. race cases, a little-known recruiter by Joan Biskupic, Reuters, Dec. 4, 2012
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE8B30V9/
Meet The Jewish Texan Who’s Fighting Affirmative Action by Josh Nathan-Kazis, The Forward, August 8, 2017
https://forward.com/news/379375/meet-the-jewish-texan-whos-fighting-affirmative-action/
2007 Austin American Statesman profile screenshot on Twitter by James Murphy at
https://x.com/James_S_Murphy/status/1095312479347982336
Thriller bookstore and Commentary: Interview with the author, and, among others, Special Report: Behind U.S. race cases, a little-known recruiter by Joan Biskupic, Reuters, Dec. 4, 2012
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE8B30V9/
Meet The Jewish Texan Who’s Fighting Affirmative Action by Josh Nathan-Kazis, The Forward, August 8, 2017
https://forward.com/news/379375/meet-the-jewish-texan-whos-fighting-affirmative-action/
2007 Austin American Statesman profile screenshot on Twitter by James Murphy at
https://x.com/James_S_Murphy/status/1095312479347982336
Meet The Jewish Texan Who’s Fighting Affirmative Action by Josh Nathan-Kazis, The Forward, August 8, 2017
https://forward.com/news/379375/meet-the-jewish-texan-whos-fighting-affirmative-action/
“I’m a one-trick pony”: Edward Blum interview with the author
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Finance world solidified move to the right … dismayed to learn: Interview with the author, as well as Special Report: Behind U.S. race cases, a little-known recruiter by Joan Biskupic, Reuters, Dec. 4, 2012
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE8B30V9/
He Took On the Voting Rights Act and Won. Now He’s Taking On Harvard, by Anemona Hartocolis, New York Times, Nov. 19, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/19/us/affirmative-action-lawsuits.html
Meet Edward Blum, the man behind the Harvard affirmative action case by Hilary Burns, Boston Globe, May 29, 2023
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/05/29/metro/harvard-affirmative-action-case-meet-ed-blum/
Doggedly Colorblind: Ed Blum Returns Again and Again to SCOTUS, by Miriam Rozen, Texas Lawyer, April 4, 2016
https://www.law.com/texaslawyer/almID/1202753137019/
How one man brought affirmative action to the Supreme Court. Again and again. By Robert Barnes, Washington Post, Oct. 24, 2022
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/24/edward-blum-supreme-court-harvard-unc/
UT’s biggest admissions critic turns sights to Harvard, North Carolina by Ralph K.M. Haurwitz, Austin American Statesman, November 28, 2011
https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2014/11/28/uts-biggest-admissions-critic-turns-sights-to-harvard-north-carolina/10148241007/
Conservative legal strategist has no office or staff, just a surprising Supreme Court track record by David Savage, Los Angeles Times, Dec. 22, 2015
https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-supreme-court-strategist-20151222-story.html
Shape Up by Gregory Curtis, Texas Monthly, October 1994
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/shape-up/
2007 Austin American Statesman profile screenshot on Twitter by James Murphy at
https://x.com/James_S_Murphy/status/1095312479347982336
SCOTUSblog on camera: Edward Blum (Complete)
https://www.scotusblog.com/media/scotusblog-on-camera-edward-blum-complete/
Meet The Jewish Texan Who’s Fighting Affirmative Action by Josh Nathan-Kazis, The Forward, August 8, 2017
https://forward.com/news/379375/meet-the-jewish-texan-whos-fighting-affirmative-action/
Blum hired a national pollster: 18th Congressional contest blends unusual mix of ideas by Alan Bernstein, Houston Chronicle, October 18, 1992
“If the people of Russia and Czechoslovakia can rise up”: U.S. Representative District 18 by Alan Bernstein, Houston Chronicle, March 1, 1992
Majority minority districts: https://civilrights.uslegal.com/voting-rights/minority-majority-districts/
Largest since Reconstruction: CRS, Black Members of the United States Congress: 1870-2005
https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/20050804_RL30378_475793f7c9c016f9eef75e6360e21c959aa35741.pdf
Contorting the 18th: Shape Up by Gregory Curtis, Texas Monthly, October 1994
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/shape-up/
The Imperfect Plaintiffs, More Perfect, WNYC, June 28, 2016
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolabmoreperfect/episodes/imperfect-plaintiff?tab=transcript
Special Report: Behind U.S. race cases, a little-known recruiter by Joan Biskupic, Reuters, Dec. 4, 2012
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE8B30V9/
Airport to the old Astrodome: “Hopskotches from Intercontinental Airport to the Astrodome and grabs some of the cities richest and poorest neighborhoods” in 18th Congressional contest blends unusual mix of ideas, by Alan Bernstein, Houston Chronicle, October 18, 1992
Not supporting Houston’s billion-dollar space industry: Washington vote against space station flayed by Lisa Teachey, Houston Chronicle, July 31, 1992
“An effort unmatched”: 18th Congressional contest blends unusual mix of ideas, by Alan Bernstein, Houston Chronicle, October 18, 1992
34 percent: Shape Up by Gregory Curtis, Texas Monthly, October 1994
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/shape-up/
“Harvested individuals”: Blum interview with the author
“It happened dozens and dozens of times”: Blum interview with the author, but similar sentiments conveyed in the other cited profiles
“We used to have separate drinking fountains”: Shape Up by Gregory Curtis, Texas Monthly, October 1994
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/shape-up/
Texas delegation in 1991: https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_congressional_delegations_from_Texas
1990 census in Texas: https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1990/cp-1/cp-1-45-1.pdf
“They said my district was political apartheid”: Mel Watt interview with the author
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Chapter Eleven (Cont'd)
Blum had read a New York Times piece: It might have been this one, which begins “Except for a few bulges and detours, North Carolina's 12th Congressional District is barely wider than Interstate 85, which it hugs for 160 miles, from Durham to Gastonia, like some long-distance trucker. Even its designers call it "serpentine" and "ugly" and "uncouth," a shape only a political cartographer could love. Now the 12th District is the focus of a Supreme Court case challenging the very purpose for which it was drawn: to create this and one other district with majorities of black voters. The plaintiffs -- five white Democrats -- say such districts are nothing more than racial gerrymandering, unconstitutional because they amount to reverse discrimination against white voters. The defendants say such districts, however bizarre they may look on a map, are necessary if states are to elect representatives who are actually representative -- people like Melvin Watt, a 47-year-old Charlotte lawyer who represents the 12th and took his seat this year as one of North Carolina's first two black members of Congress in the 20th century.” Fairness or Racial Gerrymander? Justices Study 'Serpentine' District By Ronald Smothers, New York Times, April 16, 1993 https://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/16/news/fairness-or-racial-gerrymander-justices-study-serpentine-district.html
Blum sues Texas: Shape Up by Gregory Curtis, Texas Monthly, October 1994
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/shape-up/
Special Report: Behind U.S. race cases, a little-known recruiter by Joan Biskupic, Reuters, Dec. 4, 2012
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE8B30V9/
Wins in 1996: High court voids race-based plans for redistricting by Linda Greenhouse, New York Times, June 14, 1996
https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/14/us/supreme-court-decision-high-court-voids-race-based-plans-for-redistricting.html
“My interest in public finance and investments started to wane”: Blum interview with the author, similar feelings expressed over the years
“One by one, we went after the others”: Blum interview with the author
“This is over”: Blum interview with the author
“I’m kind of confused”: Blum interview with the author
The entire meeting lasted about fifteen minutes: Blum interview with the author
“Through the courts”: Blum interview with the author
The choices of this midwestern Catholic: Bopp biographical details from: The man behind Citizens United is just getting started by Stephanie Mencimer, Mother Jones, May/June 2011
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/05/james-bopp-citizens-united/
Terra Haute’s Jim Bopp a conservative titan, by Mark Gardner, Associated Press, June 29, 2014
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/29/terre-hautes-jim-bopp-jr-a-conservative-titan/
Money Unlimited by Jeffrey Toobin, The New Yorker, May 21, 2012
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/05/21/money-unlimited
“Another way to fight the left”: Bopp quoted in The man behind Citizens United is just getting started by Stephanie Mencimer, Mother Jones, May/June 2011
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/05/james-bopp-citizens-united/
Terra Haute: Bopp quoted in Jim Bopp a conservative titan, by Mark Gardner, Associated Press, June 29, 2014
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/29/terre-hautes-jim-bopp-jr-a-conservative-titan/
Right to Life: Terra Haute’s Jim Bopp a conservative titan, by Mark Gardner, Associated Press, June 29, 2014
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/29/terre-hautes-jim-bopp-jr-a-conservative-titan/
The man behind Citizens United is just getting started by Stephanie Mencimer, Mother Jones, May/June 2011
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/05/james-bopp-citizens-united/
Money Unlimited by Jeffrey Toobin, The New Yorker, May 21, 2012
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/05/21/money-unlimited
Voter guides played a crucial role: Money Unlimited by Jeffrey Toobin, The New Yorker, May 21, 2012
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/05/21/money-unlimited
Money and the abortion debate by Mary Ziegler, Yale University Press, January 26, 2024
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/2024/01/26/money-and-the-abortion-debate/
Everyday citizens to amplify their voices: Money Unlimited by Jeffrey Toobin, The New Yorker, May 21, 2012
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/05/21/money-unlimited
“What’s at stake is the ability of average citizens to participate”: Bopp quoted in James Bopp: What Citizens United means for campaign finance, by Sarah Childress, Frontline, October 30, 2012
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/james-bopp-what-citizens-united-means-for-campaign-finance/
Loophole in the liberal-minded Tax Reform Act: Reaganland: America’s Right Turn by Rick Perlstein, Simon and Schuster, New York, 2020
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Reaganland/Rick-Perlstein/9781476793078
Mildred Jefferson: “So much romantic noise” quoted by Perlstein in Reaganland: America’s Right Turn by Rick Perlstein, Simon and Schuster, New York, 2020
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Reaganland/Rick-Perlstein/9781476793078
Issue advocacy ads: Among others, Supreme Inequality by Adam Cohen, 2020, Penguin Press, New York.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/546351/supreme-inequality-by-adam-cohen/
Saturated the airwaves: Campaign finance reform study by the Pew Center
https://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/wwwpewtrustsorg/reports/campaign_finance_reform/publicpolicymcfeinpdf.pdf
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And We interrupt this message by Arianna Huffington, Salon, March 17, 2001
https://www.salon.com/2001/03/17/ads_13/
Wisconsin Right to Life wanted to run: Justices Ask Court to Reconsider Campaign Finance Case by Linda Greenhouse, New York Times, January 23, 2006
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/23/politics/justices-ask-court-to-reconsider-campaign-finance-case.html
He also had a problem: As Toobin explains: “How could Bopp challenge a law that had just been upheld? He knew that the 2003 case was a challenge to McCain-Feingold “on its face”—that is, a claim that the law was going to be unconstitutional in all circumstances. A new case would challenge the law “as applied” against Wisconsin Right to Life. He would claim that this specific application of the law violated the group’s First Amendment rights. And Bopp didn’t wait around for the F.E.C. (a notoriously slow-moving agency) to charge his clients. Rather, he decided to bring a preëmptive lawsuit objecting to the ban on issue advertisements before elections.” Money Unlimited: How John Roberts orchestrated the Citizens United decision by Jeffrey Toobin, New Yorker, May 14, 2012
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/05/21/money-unlimited
Wisconsin Right to Life: FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., 551 U.S. 449 (2007)
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/551/449/
Hollis-Brusky on role of Federalist Society in laying campaign finance groundwork: Ideas With Consequences: The Federalist Society and the Conservative Counter-Revolution by Amanda Hollis-Brusky, Oxford University Press, New York, 2015. pp 65-89.
Launch of free speech group: Ideas With Consequences: The Federalist Society and the Conservative Counter-Revolution by Amanda Hollis-Brusky, Oxford University Press, New York, 2015. pp 65-89.
“Horrified by the professional reformers”: Ideas With Consequences: The Federalist Society and the Conservative Counter-Revolution by Amanda Hollis-Brusky, Oxford University Press, New York, 2015. pp 65-89.
Bopp jeremaid against FEC: Ideas With Consequences: The Federalist Society and the Conservative Counter-Revolution by Amanda Hollis-Brusky, Oxford University Press, New York, 2015. pp 65.
38 pieces, keynote presentations, arguments: Ideas With Consequences: The Federalist Society and the Conservative Counter-Revolution by Amanda Hollis-Brusky, Oxford University Press, New York, 2015. pp 67.
“These arguments helped to arm the Supreme Court majority”: Hollis-Brusky quoted from Ideas With Consequences: The Federalist Society and the Conservative Counter-Revolution by Amanda Hollis-Brusky, Oxford University Press, New York, 2015. pp 65-89.
Echoing Federalist Society arguments: Ideas With Consequences: The Federalist Society and the Conservative Counter-Revolution by Amanda Hollis-Brusky, Oxford University Press, New York, 2015. pp 65-89.
Federalist Society amici: Ideas With Consequences: The Federalist Society and the Conservative Counter-Revolution by Amanda Hollis-Brusky, Oxford University Press, New York, 2015. pp 65-89.
Intellectual capital from Federalist Society network scholarship: Hollis-Brusky quoted from Ideas With Consequences: The Federalist Society and the Conservative Counter-Revolution by Amanda Hollis-Brusky, Oxford University Press, New York, 2015. pp 65-89.
“We will presumably be asked in a future case to do so”: Alito concurrence in Wisconsin Right To Life, FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., 551 U.S. 449 (2007)
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/06-969.ZC.html
Long been portrayed as a solo operator: The Absurd, Enduring Myth of the “One-Man” Campaign to Abolish Affirmative Action by Jeannie Park and Kristin Penner, Slate, October 25, 2022
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/10/supreme-court-edward-blum-unc-harvard-myth.html
The white nationalist ties of the next big civil rights case, by Sergio Munoz, Media Matters of America, December 21, 2020
https://www.mediamatters.org/justice-civil-liberties/white-nationalist-ties-next-big-civil-rights-case
Blum funded by DonorsTrust: From Alabama, an epic challenge to voting rights by Joan Biskupic, Reuters, June 4, 2012
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE85304N/
Also, After Dismantling Affirmative Action, Right-Wing Extremists Take Aim At Fund That Supports Black Women In Business, Atlanta Daily World, August 7, 2023
https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/other-sources/article/?id=13658263&title=After-Dismantling-Affirmative-Action,-Right-Wing-Extremists-Take-Aim-At-Fund-That-Supports-Black-Women-In-Business
SFFA Funded by Large Conservative Trusts, Public Filings Show, by Nia L. Orakwue and Leah J. Tiechholtz, Harvard Crimson, October 28, 2022
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/10/28/donors-sffa-conservative-trusts/
Bradley and Searle: Numbers from From Alabama, an epic challenge to voting rights by Joan Biskupic, Reuters, June 4, 2012
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE85304N/
Post Shelby: After Dismantling Affirmative Action, Right-Wing Extremists Take Aim At Fund That Supports Black Women In Business, Atlanta Daily World, August 7, 2023
https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/other-sources/article/?id=13658263&title=After-Dismantling-Affirmative-Action,-Right-Wing-Extremists-Take-Aim-At-Fund-That-Supports-Black-Women-In-Business
SFFA Funded by Large Conservative Trusts, Public Filings Show, by Nia L. Orakwue and Leah J. Tiechholtz, Harvard Crimson, October 28, 2022
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/10/28/donors-sffa-conservative-trusts/
The white nationalist ties of the next big civil rights case, by Sergio Munoz, Media Matters of America, December 21, 2020
https://www.mediamatters.org/justice-civil-liberties/white-nationalist-ties-next-big-civil-rights-case
The wealthy donors behind the assault on affirmative action by Connie Matthiesson, Inside Philanthropy, August 10, 2022
https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2023/8/10/the-wealthy-donors-behind-the-assault-on-affirmative-action
The Absurd, Enduring Myth of the “One-Man” Campaign to Abolish Affirmative Action by Jeannie Park and Kristin Penner, Slate, October 25, 2022
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/10/supreme-court-edward-blum-unc-harvard-myth.html
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“Dark money ATM for the right”: Exposed: The Dark-Money ATM of the Conservative Movement, by Andy Kroll, Mother Jones, February 5, 2013
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/donors-trust-donor-capital-fund-dark-money-koch-bradley-devos/
Diagonal Street:
https://www.donorstrust.org/where-to-start/contact-us/
Donors Trust board:
https://www.donorstrust.org/who-we-are/directors-and-staff/
Over time we have too often witnessed:
https://www.donorstrust.org/who-we-are/mission-principles/
“Our DNA floats in the bloodstream of his work”: DonorsTrust Grows Liberty Beyond Grant-Making by Lawson Bader, November 1, 2018
https://www.donorstrust.org/grows-liberty-beyond-grant-making/
“What many may not realize”: DonorsTrust Grows Liberty Beyond Grant-Making by Lawson Bader, November 1, 2018
https://www.donorstrust.org/grows-liberty-beyond-grant-making/
Internal program of Donors Trust in 2006 and 2012:
2006: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/522166327/2007_08_EO%2F52-2166327_990_200612
2012: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/522166327/2013_12_EO%2F52-2166327_990_201212
The white nationalist ties of the next big civil rights case, by Sergio Munoz, Media Matters of America, December 21, 2020
https://www.mediamatters.org/justice-civil-liberties/white-nationalist-ties-next-big-civil-rights-case
Spun into something called Project Liberty:
The white nationalist ties of the next big civil rights case, by Sergio Munoz, Media Matters of America, December 21, 2020
https://www.mediamatters.org/justice-civil-liberties/white-nationalist-ties-next-big-civil-rights-case
Documents available at:
https://pp-990.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2014_03_EO/27-3542181_990_201303.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIA266MJEJYTM5WAG5Y%2F20240520%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20240520T185643Z&X-Amz-Expires=1800&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=5f2b304ea0e0ee01f98a08881a0bc99e12c4d1c6b6067643678a094b1c5d40a2
Pays legal bills to Wiley Rein:
https://pp-990.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2015_03_EO/27-3542181_990_201403.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIA266MJEJYTM5WAG5Y%2F20240520%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20240520T185737Z&X-Amz-Expires=1800&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=922c0f4e58cd9a3871bd8b2cf4e900c13812a390c9dfb37ea898f55c57ecb483
DonorsTrust, the parent, is listed first: See page 31
https://pp-990.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2014_03_EO/27-3542181_990_201303.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIA266MJEJYTM5WAG5Y%2F20240520%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20240520T185839Z&X-Amz-Expires=1800&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=3096a3c309249cb08bc50c397983982dfe58299b90a1201165f493845bec61cd
Federalist Society: See page 32
https://pp-990.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2014_03_EO/27-3542181_990_201303.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIA266MJEJYTM5WAG5Y%2F20240520%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20240520T185839Z&X-Amz-Expires=1800&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=3096a3c309249cb08bc50c397983982dfe58299b90a1201165f493845bec61cd
Defined by the IRS: “Related organizations are organizations that stand in a parent/subsidiary relationship, brother/sister relationship, sponsoring organization of or contributing employer to a VEBA, or supporting/supported organization relationship. Supporting and supported organizations are defined in section 509(a)(3) and 509(f)(3). The first two relationships depends on a definition of control set forth in the Form 990 instructions and Schedule R instructions. The definition of control depends on whether the organization has owners or persons with beneficial interests.”
https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/exempt-organizations-annual-reporting-requirements-form-990-schedule-r-meaning-of-related-organization#:~:text=Related%20organizations%20are%20organizations%20that,or%20supporting%2Fsupported%20organization%20relationship.
“Judges have to have the humility”: These comments follow Roberts’s famous statement on calling “balls and strikes” from his opening statement https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/chief-justice-roberts-statement-nomination-process
“First Amendment requires us to err on the side of protecting political speech”: FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., 551 U.S. 449 (2007)
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/551/449/
“No occasion to revisit that determination today”: FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., 551 U.S. 449 (2007)
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/551/449/
As Toobin writes, ““Today.” To those who know the language of the Court, the Chief Justice was all but announcing that five Justices would soon declare the McCain-Feingold law unconstitutional.” Money Unlimited: How John Roberts orchestrated the Citizens United decision by Jeffrey Toobin, New Yorker, May 14, 2012
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/05/21/money-unlimited
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Chapter Twelve
Game respects game: In an April 2018 speech at the Republican National Lawyers Association Conference, Bossie said that: “Fahrenheit 911 is anti-Bush and it was an incredibly well-done documentary, and to this day, 14 years later, the number-one grossing documentary film of all time.” Transcript available on C-SPAN
https://www.c-span.org/video/?444716-7/republican-national-lawyers-conference-david-bossie
Knew his side needed to push back: “After seeing Michael Moore’s film “Fahrenheit 9/11,” which came out during the Presidential campaign and fuelled attacks on George W. Bush, Bossie decided to get into filmmaking himself. Citizens United quickly produced the documentary “Celsius 41.11,” which mounted a right-wing defense of the President and was released just weeks before the election.” How Hollywood remembers Steve Bannon, the New Yorker, May 1, 2017
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/01/how-hollywood-remembers-steve-bannon
“Incredibly powerful”: David Bossie interviewed by C-SPAN, February 12, 2010
https://www.c-span.org/video/transcript/?id=8216
“We needed to have an answer for this”: David Bossie interviewed by C-SPAN, February 12, 2010
https://www.c-span.org/video/transcript/?id=8216
The film’s commercials seemed to air everywhere else: Bossie told the the Republican National Lawyers Association Conference that “the film, which was good from their view of the world, was not the most important thing. The most important thing was the 30-second commercials they made to advertise.” Transcript available on C-SPAN
https://www.c-span.org/video/?444716-7/republican-national-lawyers-conference-david-bossie
“A lot better than John Kerry’s commercials”: David Bossie interviewed by C-SPAN, February 12, 2010
https://www.c-span.org/video/transcript/?id=8216
A veteran of political dark arts: In 1995, the New York Times included Bossie as part of what they called “The Attack Machine,” noting that “Over the past 25 years, a formidable network of organizations has emerged to promote the conservative political agenda. Players range from research institutions, like the Heritage Foundation, to gadfly entrepreneurs, like Floyd Brown. The groups and individuals in the accompanying chart form a subsection of the conservative establishment: specialists in bare-knuckle attacks on political opponents.” Bossie’s entry calls him “A (North Carolina senator Lauch) Faircloth aide on Whitewater who apprenticed with Floyd Brown, a Clinton hater, and established himself as a clearinghouse for Whitewater tips and documents.”
Mentor Floyd Brown: The Secret Spinner, by Mark Miller, Newsweek, February 18, 1996
https://www.newsweek.com/secret-spinner-179922
Changed race in campaigns: Analysis: Trump is making racism boring again by John Blake, CNN, November 1, 2018
https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/01/politics/trump-ad-blake-analysis/index.html
Chief peddler of sleaze: Bossie’s antics have made him well-profiled well-in-demand. When he joined Donald Trump’s team in 2016, an array of comprehensive recaps followed, including: The Trump Campaign Just Hired a Notorious Clinton Antagonist by Stephanie Mencimer, Mother Jones, September 2, 2016.
Mencimer includes one of the most infamous Bossie stories, that Floyd Brown “That year, he sent the young Bossie to investigate rumors about one of Bill Clinton’s alleged mistresses, who supposedly committed suicide in the 1970s after an affair with Clinton left her pregnant. Bossie allegedly tailed the woman’s mother and followed her to an Army hospital where her husband was recovering from a stroke. CBS reported that Bossie “burst into the sick man’s room and began questioning the shaken mother about her daughter’s suicide.””
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/09/meet-donald-trumps-new-deputy-campaign-manager-david-bossie/.
Trump's new hire David Bossie has decades-long history attacking Clintons by Lauren Gambino, The Guardian, September 3, 2016.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/03/citizens-united-david-bossie-trump-campaign
Meet the New Bossie, Same as the Old Bossie by Michelle Cottle, The Atlantic, September 2016
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/meet-the-new-bossie-same-as-the-old-bossie/498698/
David Bossie’s long and wild ride through Republican politics by Fredreka Schouten, CNN, May 11, 2019
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/11/politics/david-bossie-donald-trump-fundraising-group/index.html
Trump enlists veteran operative David Bossie as deputy campaign manager by Robert Costa, Washington Post, September 1, 2016
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/09/01/trump-enlists-veteran-operative-david-bossie-as-deputy-campaign-manager/
Bossie watched enviously: Bossie speech before Republican National Lawyers Conference. Transcript available on C-SPAN
https://www.c-span.org/video/?444716-7/republican-national-lawyers-conference-david-bossie
Bossie took the question: Are 'Fahrenheit 9/11' Ads Campaign Spots? By Peter Overby, NPR, June 28, 2004
https://www.npr.org/2004/06/28/3023147/are-fahrenheit-9-11-ads-campaign-spots
Studio vowed it had no intention: Pic’s Bush whacked by Gabriel Snyder and Susan Crabtree, Variety, June 24, 2004
https://variety.com/2004/film/markets-festivals/pic-s-bush-whacked-1117906990/
“They laughed at me”: “I had every smart lawyer in this town, and a lot of them, you know, they laughed at me when I came up with the concept to open the case. They said there is no way to do that, no way.” Bossie April 2018 speech before the Republican National Lawyers Association Convention. Transcript available on C-SPAN
https://www.c-span.org/video/?444716-7/republican-national-lawyers-conference-david-bossie
Bossie moved ahead, undeterred: Bossie’s transformation into documentary filmmaker is well-covered in this 2010 C-SPAN q-and-a with Brian Lamb. David Bossie interviewed by C-SPAN, February 12, 2010
https://www.c-span.org/video/transcript/?id=8216
Hillary: The Movie: David Bossie interviewed by C-SPAN, February 12, 2010
https://www.c-span.org/video/transcript/?id=8216
The eagerness of the Roberts Court to eradicate precedent: Jeffrey Toobin, as always, brings the crucial behind the scenes detail; this chapter is informed by his reporting. Money Unlimited: How John Roberts orchestrated the Citizens United decision by Jeffrey Toobin, New Yorker, May 14, 2012
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/05/21/money-unlimited
It blossoms with Bopp: As Toobin writes, “How could Bopp challenge a law that had just been upheld? He knew that the 2003 case was a challenge to McCain-Feingold “on its face”—that is, a claim that the law was going to be unconstitutional in all circumstances. A new case would challenge the law “as applied” against Wisconsin Right to Life. He would claim that this specific application of the law violated the group’s First Amendment rights. And Bopp didn’t wait around for the F.E.C. (a notoriously slow-moving agency) to charge his clients. Rather, he decided to bring a preëmptive lawsuit objecting to the ban on issue advertisements before elections. Bopp knew that he had an important advantage over the failed challenge to McCain-Feingold in 2003. As part of a five-to-four majority, Sandra Day O’Connor had voted to uphold most of the law, but she had been succeeded by Samuel A. Alito, Jr.” Money Unlimited: How John Roberts orchestrated the Citizens United decision by Jeffrey Toobin, New Yorker, May 14, 2012
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/05/21/money-unlimited
“I certainly was hoping”: Lamb’s understated, curious approach brings out the conversationalist in Bossie.
“LAMB: Did you know at the time you'd end up in the Supreme Court with Hillary: The Movie?
BOSSIE: I certainly was hoping.
LAMB: At that time.
BOSSIE: Sure.
LAMB: Did you talk it over with your colleagues, your friends?
BOSSIE: You know I probably - I probably went around town talking to different lawyers, including Ted Olson - I might add - in 2004. And I said, hey, I think I really have an interesting idea here. You know you never know what happens. It's all hypothetical at that point in time.” David Bossie interviewed by C-SPAN, February 12, 2010
https://www.c-span.org/video/transcript/?id=8216
“Roberts was willing to drive a truck through precedent:” Trevor Potter interview with the author
A new pro-business direction: Supreme Court Inc. by Jeffrey Rosen, New York Times, March 16, 2008
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/magazine/16supreme-t.html
Security fraud, corporate misconduct, the regulatory state, punitive damage limits and much more: A 2010 New York Times study conducted by the University of Chicago and Northwestern looked at 1,450 decisions since 1953. “It showed that the percentage of business cases on the Supreme Court docket has grown in the Roberts years, as has the percentage of cases won by business interests. The Roberts court, which has completed five terms, ruled for business interests 61 percent of the time, compared with 46 percent in the last five years of the court led by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who died in 2005, and 42 percent by all courts since 1953.”
Justices Offer Receptive Ear to Business Interests by Adam Liptak, New York Times, December 19, 2010
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/us/19roberts.html
Another study cited by Liptak in the Times, from the Minnesota Law Review and some of the same scholars, including Lee Epstein, ranked the 36 justices who served on the court over those 65 years by the proportion of their pro-business votes; all five of the current court’s more conservative members were in the top 10. But the study’s most striking finding was that the two justices most likely to vote in favor of business interests since 1946 are the most recent conservative additions to the court, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., both appointed by President George W. Bush. Corporations find a friend in the Supreme Court by Adam Liptak, New York Times, May 5, 2013
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/business/pro-business-decisions-are-defining-this-supreme-court.html
Supreme Court Inc. by Jeffrey Rosen, New York Times, March 16, 2008
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/magazine/16supreme-t.html
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5-4 decisions: Supreme Court Inc. by Jeffrey Rosen, New York Times, March 16, 2008,
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/magazine/16supreme-t.html
Corporations find a friend in the Supreme Court by Adam Liptak, New York Times, May 5, 2013
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/business/pro-business-decisions-are-defining-this-supreme-court.html
The chamber, 26 percent: Supreme Court Inc. by Jeffrey Rosen, New York Times, March 16, 2008, citing SCOTUSBlog.
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/magazine/16supreme-t.html
A 2017 study by three legal scholars: The most recent version of this scholarship, which began with Epstein, Posner and William Landes and is now conducted by Epstein and Mitu Gulati shows the number up to 63 percent. Epstein, Lee and Gulati, Mitu, A Century of Business in the Supreme Court, 1920-2020 (February 26, 2023). MINNESOTA LAW REVIEW HEADNOTE, Vol. 107, 2022, Virginia Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper No. 2022-55, Virginia Law and Economics Research Paper No. 2022-16, Available at SSRN:
https://ssrn.com/abstract=4178504 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4178504
“Suspicious of government attempts”: Biskupic, The Chief, Basic Books, New York, 2019
https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/joan-biskupic/the-chief/9780465093281/?lens=basic-books
Barely-dried precedent: As Toobin writes of WRTL: “Chief Justice Roberts assigned the opinion to himself. He was still trying to prove that he was cautious and respectful of precedent, as he had claimed to be during his 2005 confirmation hearing. But now he was part of a majority that was, in effect, gutting a four-year-old opinion. Roberts completed this mission with typical finesse, declaring that “the First Amendment requires us to err on the side of protecting political speech rather than suppressing it.” Money Unlimited: How John Roberts orchestrated the Citizens United decision by Jeffrey Toobin, New Yorker, May 14, 2012
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/05/21/money-unlimited
McConnell v FEC: McConnell v. FEC, 540 U.S. 93 (2003)
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2003/02-1674
“Different justices”: Russell Feingold interview with the author
Roberts added a new loophole: Roberts opinion in Wisconsin Right to Life at:
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/551/449/
“This faux judicial restraint”: Scalia concurrence at
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/551/449/
“There is no justification”: Souter dissent at
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/551/449/
Bossie and Bopp knew more was possible: A quest to end spending rules for campaigns by David D. Kirkpatrick, New York Times, Jan. 24, 2010
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/25/us/politics/25bopp.html
Money Unlimited: How John Roberts orchestrated the Citizens United decision by Jeffrey Toobin, New Yorker, May 14, 2012
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/05/21/money-unlimited
Supreme Inequality by Adam Cohen, 2020, Penguin Press, New York.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/546351/supreme-inequality-by-adam-cohen/
“If we do it right i think we can pretty much dismantle”: Bopp quoted in A quest to end spending rules for campaigns by David D. Kirkpatrick, New York Times, Jan. 24, 2010
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/25/us/politics/25bopp.html
“Most unusual”: As Toobin notes, “It seemed like a case of modest importance. The issue before the Justices was a narrow one. … There did not seem to be a lot riding on the outcome. After all, how many nonprofits wanted to run documentaries about Presidential candidates, using relatively obscure technologies, just before elections?” Money Unlimited: How John Roberts orchestrated the Citizens United decision by Jeffrey Toobin, New Yorker, May 14, 2012
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/05/21/money-unlimited
They turned Citizens United into a vehicle: Money Unlimited: How John Roberts orchestrated the Citizens United decision by Jeffrey Toobin, New Yorker, May 14, 2012
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/05/21/money-unlimited
Alito barrages Malcolm Stewart on books: Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), March 24, 2009
https://www.supremecourt.gov/pdfs/transcripts/2008/08-205.pdf
Kennedy in oral arguments: Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), March 24, 2009
https://www.supremecourt.gov/pdfs/transcripts/2008/08-205.pdf
Roberts in oral arguments: Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), March 24, 2009
https://www.supremecourt.gov/pdfs/transcripts/2008/08-205.pdf
When the justices met in conference: Money Unlimited: How John Roberts orchestrated the Citizens United decision by Jeffrey Toobin, New Yorker, May 14, 2012
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/05/21/money-unlimited
Supreme Inequality by Adam Cohen, 2020, Penguin Press, New York.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/546351/supreme-inequality-by-adam-cohen/
“If you are asking me, Mr. Chief Justice”: Oral arguments for the Citizens United rehearing available at
https://www.supremecourt.gov/pdfs/transcripts/2008/08-205[Reargued].pdf
The 5-4 decision: Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310 (2010)
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/558/310/#tab-opinion-1963051
Kennedy, speech is essential mechanism: Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310 (2010)
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/558/310/#tab-opinion-1963051
Stevens dissent: Stevens dissent in Citizens United at
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/558/310/#tab-opinion-1963047
Longest: Money Unlimited: How John Roberts orchestrated the Citizens United decision by Jeffrey Toobin, New Yorker, May 14, 2012
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/05/21/money-unlimited
So they changed the case to change the law: Stevens dissent in Citizens United at
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/558/310/#tab-opinion-1963047
Read it from the bench: Stevens can be heard reading his dissent aloud at
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2008/08-205
Obama criticism: Gloves come off after Obama rips Supreme Court ruling by Alan Silverleib, CNN, January 28, 2010
https://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/28/alito.obama.sotu/index.html
Leads to the SuperPAC: The Citizens United era of money in politics, explained by Andrew Prokop, Vox, July 15, 2015
https://www.vox.com/2015/2/9/18088962/super-pacs-and-dark-money
How Does the Citizens United Decision Still Affect Us in 2024? Report by the Campaign Legal Center, January 15, 2024
https://campaignlegal.org/update/how-does-citizens-united-decision-still-affect-us-2024Since Citizens United, a Decade of Super PACs. Report by the Brennan Center, Ian Vandewalker, January 14, 2020
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/citizens-united-decade-super-pacs
13 Years of Impact: The Long Reach of ‘Citizens United.’ Report by the National Council of State Legislatures by Adam Kuckuk, February 28, 2023
https://www.ncsl.org/state-legislatures-news/details/13-years-of-impact-the-long-reach-of-citizens-united
This was a tsunami: Reports by Equal Citizen and Open Secrets, among others: https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2023/01/dark-money-groups-have-poured-billions-into-federal-elections-since-the-supreme-courts-2010-citizens-united-decision/
And https://equalcitizens.us/ending-super-pac-corruption/
No anticorruption interest: See Corruption in America by Zephyr Teachout, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2016, among others
March 2010 lower court strikes down limits:
https://www.fec.gov/legal-resources/court-cases/speechnoworg-v-fec/
Arizona law unconstitutional that allowed for public financing: Arizona Free Enterprise Club's Freedom Club PAC, et al. v. Bennett, et al; McComish, et al. v. Bennett, et al., 564 U.S. 721 (2011)
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2010/10-238
Supreme Court strikes Arizona’s ‘matching funds’ for publicly financed candidates by Robert Barnes, Washington Post, June 26, 2011
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-strikes-arizona-system-of-matching-funds-to-publicly-financed-candidates/2011/06/26/AG92xenH_story.html
Supreme Inequality by Adam Cohen, 2020, Penguin Press, New York.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/546351/supreme-inequality-by-adam-cohen/
Montana law that banned corporate political spending: Am. Tradition P'ship, Inc. v. Bullock, 567 U.S. 516 (2012)
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2011/11-1179
Supreme Inequality by Adam Cohen, 2020, Penguin Press, New York.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/546351/supreme-inequality-by-adam-cohen/
McCutcheon v FEC: McCutcheon v. FEC, 572 U.S. 185 (2014)
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2013/12-536
“Ingratiation and access … are not corruption”: Roberts opinion at
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/564/721/#tab-opinion-1963627
“Fails to recognize the difference:” Breyer dissent at
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/572/185/#tab-opinion-1970857
“It’s more or less just too bad:” Roberts interview at C-SPAN
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4752999/most-important-thing-public-understand-political-branch-government-dont-elect-us-dont-were-doi
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Chapter Thirteen
1. George W. Bush signed:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?193617-1/voting-rights-reauthorization-signing
2. “In the four decades”: Bush’s complete remarks, President Bush Signs Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006 online at
https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/07/20060727.html
3. New phase was getting started: Jesse Rhodes’s Ballot Blocked is the authority on this phase
4. Canyon Creek: The student population has more recently dropped to 351
https://roundrockisd.org/schools/elementary/canyon-creek/
5. Don Zimmerman spent election day: A Showdown on Voting Rights, by Jess Bravin, Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2009
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123820648702763441
6. Convinced, correctly: Canyon Creek residents win partial victory in double taxation MUD case, Austin Monitor, November 18, 2008
https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2008/11/canyon-creek-residents-win-partial-victory-in-double-taxation-mud-case/
7. Casting another ballot in Jack Steuber’s garage: High court to test voting rights in Texas case, Associated Press, April 27, 2009,
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna30431618
A Showdown on Voting Rights, by Jess Bravin, Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2009
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123820648702763441
8. Atop a card table: A Showdown on Voting Rights, by Jess Bravin, Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2009 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123820648702763441
9. Nobody wants to go vote twice: Zimmerman interview with the author
10. On election morning: High court to test voting rights in Texas case, Associated Press, April 27, 2009
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna30431618
A Showdown on Voting Rights, by Jess Bravin, Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2009
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123820648702763441
11. One of his first goals: A Showdown on Voting Rights, by Jess Bravin, Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2009 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123820648702763441
12. “This is politics”: Blum interview with author
13. “You know, I think I know a guy”: Blum interview with author
14. “Section 5? I didn’t even know what it was:” Zimmerman interview with the author
15. Coleman’s history explained in interviews with Blum and Zimmerman, as well as
High court to test voting rights in Texas case, Associated Press, April 27, 2009
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna30431618
A Showdown on Voting Rights, by Jess Bravin, Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2009
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123820648702763441
Austin MUD v Voting Rights Act, by Anthony Zurcher, Texas Observer, May 15, 2009
https://www.texasobserver.org/3045-austin-mud-v-voting-rights-act-will-conservative-activists-in-a-small-texas-utility-district-take-down-a-key-piece-of-american-civil-rights-law/
16. Few in Canyon Creek even realized: Two people showed up at the meeting, according to the minutes. As the WSJ reported, “The utility board treated Mr. Coleman's proposal as a typical agenda item, providing no special notice or opportunities for residents to discuss the issue. Mr. Zimmerman says the legal issues were too complex for lay persons to contribute to the debate. Besides, "apathy is the rule of the day in my neighborhood," he says. "If we called a forum, there'd be a handful of radicals pouring in" to oppose the suit, but "there's no handful of people on my side" certain to attend. Some residents, though, were disturbed to discover that their utility board had filed suit to invalidate part of the Voting Rights Act. "No one knew about it. It was a stealth action," says Chris Bowers, 40, a computer-engineering manager who has lived in Canyon Creek for eight years. He began attending board meetings to question members about the decision. "The response was very much, 'We were elected and this is what we're doing, so too bad,';" Mr. Bowers says.
A Showdown on Voting Rights, by Jess Bravin, Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2009 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123820648702763441
17. The people here have no history: Zimmerman interview with the author. He said similar things in other interviews, including that he saw no racial issues in his community, or in Texas, at all. According to Austin Chronicle, “In deposition testimony he reiterated for me, he said he had never known or heard of any racial discrimination in Texas, in all of his 46 or so years in the state. "I don't know of any – if there's been some, educate me!"” MUD in your eye, by Michael King, Austin Chronicle, Nov. 9, 2007
https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2007-11-09/559094/
He told the Wall Street Journal that, "It's insulting to me to be accused of having a racial bias just because you live in Texas," said Zimmerman, an engineer.
A MUD board colleague agreed: "I'm sort of embarrassed that we're still subject to this because it makes us look like dumb crackers. I don't think it's appropriate anymore."
18. Congress cannot forever rely: Coleman’s complaint is online at:
https://law.osu.edu/electionlaw/litigation/documents/nwamudfirstamendedcomplaint.pdf
19. Tatel and baseball: Judge David Tatel’s lack of eyesight never defined him, but his blindness is woven into the culture of the influential appeals court in D.C by Ann E. Marimow, Washington Post, July 8, 2021
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/dc-judge-david-tatel-career/2021/07/07/bf48778e-c486-11eb-8c18-fd53a628b992_story.html
20. Radio transmitter and super-strong shoelace. A Judge of Character : Although he’s blind, David Tatel skis, runs and climbs mountains. By summer’s end, he may be a top jurist too. By Barbara Slavin, Los Angeles Times, July 28, 1994
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-07-28-ls-21024-story.html
21. Complicated statute by memory: 'Prodigious': Judge David Tatel leaves mark on influential federal appeals court, by John Fritze, USA Today, Dec. 28. 2021
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/12/28/judge-david-tatel-blind-since-his-30-s-leaves-mark-d-c-circuit/8941681002/?gnt-cfr=1
22. When President Clinton appointed: President Clinton names David S. Tatel to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. White House press release, June 20, 1994
https://clintonwhitehouse6.archives.gov/1994/06/1994-06-20-president-names-tatel-to-dc-circuit-court-of-appeals.html
23. Model conservative: 'Prodigious': Judge David Tatel leaves mark on influential federal appeals court, by John Fritze, USA Today, Dec. 28. 2021
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/12/28/judge-david-tatel-blind-since-his-30-s-leaves-mark-d-c-circuit/8941681002/?gnt-cfr=1
24. Tatel opinion in Northwest Austin: All details of decision available at Northwest Austin Mun. Util. Dist. One v. Mukasey, 557 F. Supp. 2d 9 (D.D.C. 2008)
https://casetext.com/case/northwest-austin-mun-util-dist-one-v-mukasey
25. Tatel on the MUD boards and utility districts with history of race issues: Northwest Austin Mun. Util. Dist. One v. Mukasey, 557 F. Supp. 2d 9 (D.D.C. 2008)
https://casetext.com/case/northwest-austin-mun-util-dist-one-v-mukasey
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Chapter Fourteen
Obama’s first 100 days: Obama’s First Hundred Days, Washington Post,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/obama/100days/index.html?hpid=artslotThe 44th President: First 100 days, CNN
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2009/44.president/first.100.days/
The first 100 days: The Obama Years, an oral history, The History Channel
https://www.history.com/the-obama-years/first-100-days.html
“To be honest”: Eric Holder interview with the author
Oral arguments: Northwest Austin Mun. Util. v. Holder, April 29, 2009, Supreme Court of the United States
https://www.c-span.org/video/?285573-1/challenge-voting-rights-act-1965-oral-arguments
“The question is whether it’s right”: Northwest Austin Mun. Util. v. Holder, April 29, 2009, Supreme Court of the United States
The court upheld Indiana’s new voter ID law: Crawford v Marion County Election Board, 553 US 181 (2008)
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-21.ZO.html#12ref:
Passed on a party-line vote: "House OKs Strict Voter ID Bill: Government-Issued Photo would be Required; GOP Cites Ballot Integrity as Dems Fear for Rights." Indianapolis Star, March 22, 2005.
Indiana remained competitive enough: Democrats held control of the Indiana House from 1997-2004, and again from 2007-10
https://ballotpedia.org/Party_control_of_Indiana_state_government
The bill’s backers insisted: "House OKs Strict Voter ID Bill: Government-Issued Photo would be Required; GOP Cites Ballot Integrity as Dems Fear for Rights." Indianapolis Star, March 22, 2005.
Indiana could not point: Even the federal judge who upheld the constitutionality of the law observed that the state did not demonstrate any reason for it. U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker pointed out that “the State of Indiana is not aware of any incidents or person attempting vote, or voting, at a voting place with fraudulent or otherwise false identification” (Indiana Democratic Party v. Rokita).”
https://jharden.nd.edu/assets/483847/voter.pdf
Most researchers agreed: In the Daily Beast, Rick Hasen broke the case down with his usual erudition. It’s not that voter ID opponents discovered new evidence, or that proponents found examples of fraud. The problem after the Indiana case is that “First, Republican legislatures have ratcheted up the attempts at suppression. The strictness of early voter ID laws, such as those in Georgia, were offset by state officials who went out of their way to help voters get the underlying documents they needed to get free ID. But after Crawford and the courts’ green light, legislatures have gotten tougher by restricting the types of ID’s allowed and shrunk the number of places to get them. As well, while the earlier voter ID laws do not appear to have disenfranchised thousands of people, the new ones well could.” Then he explains the early days of a world after Shelby County. “And the fight is hardly just about voter identification anymore. Consider North Carolina’s monster elections bill which also cut back on the number of days of early voting, eliminates same day voter registration, fails to count voters’ ballots cast in the wrong precinct even if caused by poll worker error, and eliminates pre-registration for 16- and 17-year olds. Most of these laws have no plausible anti-fraud purpose, and arguments about efficient administration are laughable.” Why Judge Posner changed his mind, by Rick Hasen, Daily Beast, October 23, 2013
https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-judge-posner-changed-his-mind
Small but extraordinarily consequential: As the MIT Election Lab notes, “One topic of great interest has been the disparate impact photo ID laws have had on racial minority groups and turnout. Research associated with litigation in which voter rolls have been matched against driver’s license lists has confirmed this finding in states such as North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin. (Whether these differences have been sufficient to invalidate the laws has varied across courts.) Whether the lack of IDs leads to a decrease in turnout is still open to dispute.”
https://electionlab.mit.edu/research/voter-identification
Proving Who You Are: The legal battle over voter ID laws by Myrna Perez, the Brennan Center, 2014
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/proving-who-you-are-legal-battle-over-voter-id-laws
Onslaught of state legislatures: MIT tracks the numbers here
https://electionlab.mit.edu/research/voter-identification
Crosses the line: As Hasen notes, “But after Crawford and the courts’ green light, legislatures have gotten tougher by restricting the types of ID’s allowed and shrunk the number of places to get them.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-judge-posner-changed-his-mind
A blank check: Trump’s voter fraud yarn is unraveling. But it can still help the GOP by Jay Willis, the Washington Post, Dec. 5, 2020
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/12/05/trump-republicans-concede-fraud/
Oral arguments, “It’s hard to detect”: Crawford v Marion County, Supreme Court of the United States, January 29, 2008
https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2007/07-21.pdf
Yet if that had actually been the case: Or it is hard to detect because it doesn’t happen. The definitive report on voter fraud is from the Brennan Center, The Truth About Voting Fraud. The report reviewed elections that had been meticulously studied for voter fraud, and found incident rates between 0.0003 percent and 0.0025 percent. Given this tiny incident rate for voter impersonation fraud, it is more likely, the report noted, that an American “will be struck by lightning than that he will impersonate another voter at the polls.””
https://www.brennancenter.org/publication/truth-about-voter-fraud
Brennan also mantains a list of new voter fraud studies. That page can be found here
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/debunking-voter-fraud-myth
It includes:
A Columbia study that concludes even the rare claim of fraud can usually be attributed to “false claims by the loser of a close race, mischief and administrative or voter error.”
http://www.projectvote.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/Politics_of_Voter_Fraud_Final.pdf
A Washington Post report that covers 1 billion ballots cast between 2000 and 2014, and finds 31 credible instances of impersonation fraud. Brennan concludes that even this handful of votes is likely too high, as the scholars counted not just prosecutions or convictions, but any and all credible claims.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/08/06/a-comprehensive-investigation-of-voter-impersonation-finds-31-credible-incidents-out-of-one-billion-ballots-cast/
And two studies from Arizona State. The first looked at every vote nationwiode between 2000 and 2012 and found 10 cases of impersonation fraud. The second, from 2016, zeroed on on five states where legislators have maintained the problkem is most serious and found zero cases.
http://votingrights.news21.com/article/election-fraud/.
https://votingwars.news21.com/voter-fraud-is-not-a-persistent-problem/
One attempt at voter impersonation: All Justice Stevens could find in his decision – which he later backed away from – was this: “For example, after a hotly contested gubernatorial election in 2004, Washington conducted an investigation of voter fraud and uncovered 19 “ghost voters.” Borders v. King Cty., No. 05–2–00027–3 (Super. Ct. Chelan Cty., Wash., June 6, 2005) (verbatim report of unpublished oral decision), 4 Election L. J. 418, 423 (2005). After a partial investigation of the ghost voting, one voter was confirmed to have committed in-person voting fraud. Le & Nicolosi, Dead Voted in Governor’s Race, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Jan. 7, 2005, p. A1.”
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2007/07-21
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Noted this glaring disparity: “No doubt most people who don't have photo ID are low on the economic ladder and thus, if they do vote, are more likely to vote for Democratic than Republican candidates,” Posner wrote. “Thus the new law injures the Democratic Party by compelling the party to devote resources to getting to the polls those of its supporters who would otherwise be discouraged by the new law from bothering to vote.” The court also noted that, “The real problem is that this law will make it significantly more difficult for some eligible voters-I have no idea how many, but 4 percent is a number that has been bandied about-to vote. And this group is mostly comprised of people who are poor, elderly, minorities, disabled, or some combination thereof. I would suspect that few, if any, in this class have passports (which cost in the neighborhood of $100), and most don't have drivers licenses (who needs a drivers license if you don't drive a car?) or state-issued ID cards which require valid (certified) birth certificates. And it's not particularly easy for a poor, elderly person who lives in South Bend, but was born in Arkansas, to get a certified copy of his birth certificate.”
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-7th-circuit/1256297.html
Partisan effects: The Legislative Legacy of Voter Identification Laws* Forthcoming, Journal of Politics Alejandra Campos, University of Arkansas Jeffrey J. Harden, University of Notre Dame Austin Bussing, Trinity University
Proving Who You Are, the Brennan Center, by Myrna Perez
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/proving-who-you-are-legal-battle-over-voter-id-laws
“Not persuaded by the fact that Indiana could not point to a single instance of voter fraud, or that significant hurdles existed for eligible voters in obtaining appropriate photo IDs, the Court upheld Indiana’s voter ID law. Five years since Crawford, evidence of significant voter fraud has yet to be uncovered in the United States, despite many concerted attempts to do so. David M. Faherty, The Post-Crawford Rise in Voter ID Laws: A Solution Still in Search of a Problem, 66 Me. L. Rev. 269 (2013).
https://digitalcommons.mainelaw.maine.edu/mlr/vol66/iss1/9/
Post-Crawford: Were Recent Changes to State Voter ID Laws Really Necessary to Prevent Voter Fraud and Protect the Electoral Process? By Tracey Carter, Belmont University College of Law
https://repository.belmont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1041&context=lawfaculty
Reality later mugged Posner: In his book “Reflections on Judging,” (Harvard University Press, 2013), Posner writes that “I plead guilty to having written the majority opinion” in the case. He noted that the Indiana law in the Crawford case is “a type of law now widely regarded as a means of voter suppression rather than of fraud prevention.” In subsequent interviews with the New York Times and Huffington Post, Posner went a step further. As the Times tells it, “Asked whether the court had gotten its ruling wrong, Judge Posner responded: “Yes. Absolutely.” Back in 2007, he said, “there hadn’t been that much activity in the way of voter identification,” and “we weren’t really given strong indications that requiring additional voter identification would actually disenfranchise people entitled to vote.” The member of the three-judge panel who dissented from the majority decision, Terence T. Evans, “was right,” Judge Posner said. The dissent by Judge Evans, who died in 2011, began, “Let’s not beat around the bush: The Indiana voter photo ID law is a not-too-thinly-veiled attempt to discourage election-day turnout by certain folks believed to skew Democratic.”
Judge in Landmark Case Disavows Support for Voter ID, by John Schwartz, New York Times, October 15, 2013.
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/16/us/politics/judge-in-landmark-case-disavows-support-for-voter-id.html
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/judge-posner-and-judicial_b_4177336
In a later piece in the New Republic, Posner argued that he hadn’t necessarily been wrong, but that “We judges weren’t given, in Crawford, the data we would have needed to balance the good and bad effects of the Indiana law.” The sentence “now” in his book, Posner said, referred “to the fact there has been a flurry of such laws since 2007, when my opinion in the Crawford case was issued, and they have been sharply criticized.” As he told the Times, “(Voter ID) hadn’t reached the peak of ferocity that it’s since achieved,” and “One wasn’t alert to this kind of trickery.”
“I did not recant my opinion on voter ID,” by Richard Posner, The New Republic, Oct. 27, 2013
https://newrepublic.com/article/115363/richard-posner-i-did-not-recant-my-opinion-voter-id
“Fairly unfortunate decision”: Stevens says Supreme Court decision on voter ID was correct, but maybe not right, by Robert Barnes, Washington Post, May 15, 2016
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/stevens-says-supreme-court-decision-on-voter-id-was-correct-but-maybe-not-right/2016/05/15/9683c51c-193f-11e6-9e16-2e5a123aac62_story.html
What’s in the record: Justin Levitt walks through the majority decision’s issues with misconstruing facts
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/crawford-just-facts
“Preclearance is not affecting anything,” Northwest Austin:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/pdfs/transcripts/2008/08-322.pdf
Quietly adding, “it has never stopped”:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?285573-1/challenge-voting-rights-act-1965-oral-arguments&event=285573&playEvent
Adegbile and “Sesame Street”: Justice’s Civil Rights nominee has resume that includes ‘Sesame Street’ and voting rights by Timothy M. Phelps, Washington Post, December 13, 2013
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/justices-civil-rights-nominee-has-resume-that-includes-sesame-street-and-voting-rights/2013/12/31/7e321eee-7236-11e3-8def-a33011492df2_story.html
Old elephant whistle: Northwest Austin oral arguments
https://www.supremecourt.gov/pdfs/transcripts/2008/08-322.pdf
As Toobin tells the story in the New Yorker, Roberts removed his glasses and stared down at Katyal. “That’s like the old elephant whistle,” he said. “You know, ‘I have this whistle to keep away the elephants.’ You know, well, that’s silly. ‘Well, there are no elephants, so it must work.’ ” No More Mr. Nice Guy by Jeffrey Toobin, the New Yorker, May 18, 2009.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/05/25/no-more-mr-nice-guy
When do they have to stop: Here Roberts’ impatience sadly echoes with the Reconstruction courts of Cruikshank and the Civil Rights Cases that similarly thought there should be a short time limit before equity could be declared; our modern dream of multi-racial democracy is being derailed by eroding the same amendments whose cramped interpretation in the 1860s and 1870s choked off Reconstruction and led to Jim Crow.
Coleman billion-dollar figure: Katyal did the case no favors by not coming prepared with the Coleman’s authorship of this dubious statistic
https://www.congress.gov/congressional-report/109th-congress/senate-report/295/1
JUSTICE KENNEDY: Do you quarrel with the assessment -- the testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee that it costs the States and the municipalities a billion dollars over 10 years to comply?
MR. KATYAL: Again, I don't quarrel with that, but Congress certainly --
JUSTICE KENNEDY: But you think that is -- that is relevant?
MR. KATYAL: I -- I certainly think the burden on the States is relevant.
Northwest Austin oral arguments
https://www.supremecourt.gov/pdfs/transcripts/2008/08-322.pdf
Interrupted with a charged question:
Northwest Austin oral arguments
https://www.supremecourt.gov/pdfs/transcripts/2008/08-322.pdf
“A practice in the Sanhedrin”:
JUSTICE SCALIA: . . . What was the vote on this 2006 extension – 98 to nothing in the Senate, and what was it in the House? Was –
MR. ADEGBILE: It was – it was 33 to 390, I believe.
JUSTICE SCALIA: 33 to 390. You know, the – the Israeli Supreme Court, the Sanhedrin, used to have a rule that if the death penalty was pronounced unanimously, it was invalid, because there must be something wrong there.
Northwest Austin oral arguments
https://www.supremecourt.gov/pdfs/transcripts/2008/08-322.pdf
As Pamela Karlan wrote in the Harvard Law Review, “Sometimes the Justices seem barely able to hide their disdain for the other branches of government. Take the oral argument three Terms ago in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. One v. Holder. Justice Scalia pointed to the overwhelming congressional vote in favor of amending and extending section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 – the “crown jewel” of the Second Reconstruction – as a reason not for deference, but for suspicion.”
https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-126/democracy-and-disdain/
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“An uncomfortable way to learn”: Adegbile interview with the author
“They made a deal,” “It’s a compromise,” “Wasn’t exactly a principled”: Interviews with Blum, Adegbile and Tatel all with the author
“Powerful statement”: “In opting to put off such a ruling, the justices nonetheless made a powerful statement. They took a hard look at the current historical moment and decided that it has not yet come fully into focus.” Justices Retain Oversight by U.S. on Voting by Adam Liptak, New York Times, June 22, 2009
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/us/23scotus.html
Noted NPR, “The decision is being widely interpreted as an effort by Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion, and other justices to avoid a split decision that had the potential to overturn strongly supported, bipartisan congressional action.”
https://www.npr.org/2009/06/22/105762087/supreme-court-avoids-voting-rights-act-showdown
Court insiders leaked: Jeffrey Rosen writes that, According to a source who was briefed on the deliberations in the case, Anthony Kennedy was initially ready to join Roberts and the other conservatives in issuing a sweeping 5-4 decision, striking down the Voting Rights Act on constitutional grounds. But the four liberal justices threatened to write a strong dissent that would have accused the majority of misconstruing landmark precedents about congressional power. What happened next is unclear, but the most likely possibilities are either that Kennedy got cold feet or that Roberts backed down. The Voting Rights Act survived, but what looked from the outside like an act of judicial statesmanship by Roberts may have in fact been a strategic retreat.” (It was not, of course, the liberal justices, along with the pundits, were outsmarted.) Roberts v Roberts, The New Republic, March 2, 2010
https://newrepublic.com/article/73200/roberts-versus-roberts
“Things have changed in the South”: Northwest Austin decision
Northwest Austin Municipal Util. Dist. No. One v. Holder, 557 U.S. 193 (2009)
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/557/193/
“Imposes current burdens”: Northwest Austin decision
Northwest Austin Municipal Util. Dist. No. One v. Holder, 557 U.S. 193 (2009)
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/557/193/
While liberals crowed: As Rosen astutely observes, “Moreover, rather than following the principled alternative suggested by David Souter at the oral argument--holding that the people who were challenging the Voting Rights Act had no standing to bring the lawsuit--Roberts opted to rewrite the statute in a way that Congress never intended. That way, Roberts was still able to express his constitutional doubts about the law-as well as his doubts about landmark Supreme Court precedents from the civil rights era, which he mischaracterized and seemed ready to overrule.”. Roberts v Roberts, The New Republic, March 2, 2010
https://newrepublic.com/article/73200/roberts-versus-roberts
The statute’s coverage formula: Northwest Austin decision
Northwest Austin Municipal Util. Dist. No. One v. Holder, 557 U.S. 193 (2009)
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/557/193/
Made one additional stealth play: As the veteran civil rights lawyer Armand Derfner observed, “The decision in Northwest Austin may have seemed uncontroversial, but the opinion by Chief Justice Roberts was anything but routine. The main feature of the opinion was the invention of a doctrine that the chief justice called “equality of the states” or “equal sovereignty.” Such a doctrine had already been tried by South Carolina and thoroughly rejected by the Supreme Court in South Carolina v. Katzenbach (1966). In the Northwest Austin case Chief Justice Roberts resurrected South Carolina’s “states’ rights” vision and declared it to be constitutional doctrine, even “fundamental.” He claimed support from the Supreme Court’s 1966 decision, but only by leaving out key words and thus changing the meaning of the quotation. Thus, his doctrine rested on a basis that really did not exist.” How the Roberts Court laid the groundwork for 2021’s all out assault on voting rights, Talking Points Memo, June 17, 2021
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/how-the-roberts-court-laid-the-groundwork-for-2021s-all-out-assault-on-voting-rights
It doesn’t exist: Eric J. Segall, Chief Justice John Roberts: Institutionalist or Hubris-in-Chief?, 78 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. Online 107 (2021), https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr-online/vol78/iss1/4
Leah M. Litman, Inventing Equal Sovereignty, 114 Mich. L. Rev. 1207 (2016).
https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol114/iss7/1
Roberts created it with an ellipsis: Eric J. Segall, Chief Justice John Roberts: Institutionalist or Hubris-in-Chief?, 78 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. Online 107 (2021), https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr-online/vol78/iss1/4
As David Kow observes, “Simultaneously drawing from and ignoring the long history of the unequal application of the equal footing doctrine for newly admitted states, it appears the Chief Justice cleverly (or not so cleverly) dissected the definition of the doctrine to equate “equal sovereignty” with an “equal footing,” created a principle from within the doctrine, and then called it “fundamental,” all with remarkable expediency. The so-called “equal sovereignty” principle – made up of cut and pasted words and concepts – has far reaching implications beyond weakening the Voting Rights Act and the issue of voter suppression in areas previously covered by the statute.” An Equal Sovereignity Principle born in Northwest Austin, Texas, raised in Shelby County, Alabama by David Kow, 2015
https://digitalcommons.tourolaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1030&context=jrge
After Shelby County, Liptak recognized what Roberts had done in Northwest Austin, and how the media consensus missed the actual story. As he told Fresh Air, “Four years ago, in a case called Northwest Austin, the court was asked to consider the constitutionality of Section 5, the heart of the Voting Rights Act. And in what at the time was called an act of statesmanship by Chief Justice Roberts, he persuaded eight of his colleagues, including four of the liberals, not to rule on the case. But the cost seemed to be that the liberals had to sign on to language agreeing that things had changed in the South, agreeing that there were serious federalism problems with Section 5, agreeing that there's a concept that not everybody agrees that there's a constitutional principle called the equal dignity of the states. So, all of that language four years ago goes into a decision that at the time upheld Section 5. Four years later, last week, in Holder - Shelby County against Holder, the chief justice drew on that very language that the liberals had agreed to in order to strike down, essentially strike down Section 5.” Yet even here it is seen as a savvy long-term strategy and not as a sign of dishonesty or manipulative horse-trading in the highest court. “Reporter: In Court Rulings, Roberts Takes Long-Term Approach,” Fresh Air, July 2, 2013.
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/197713270
Cut the clauses he didn’t want: Eric J. Segall, Chief Justice John Roberts: Institutionalist or Hubris-in-Chief?, 78 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. Online 107 (2021), https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr-online/vol78/iss1/4
“The problem, of course, is that Chief Justice Roberts’ reliance on “the fundamental principle of equal sovereignty” is reliance on a constitutional principle that, to the extent it exists at all, is wholly inapplicable to the situation the Court faced in Shelby County.”
Jon Greenbaum et al., Shelby County v. Holder: When the Rational Becomes Irrational, 57 HOW. L.J. 811, 814-15 (2014)
https://lawyerscommittee.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/0477.pdf
Black dissent: South Carolina v. Katzenbach, SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, 383 U.S. 301
https://www.hugoblacklibrary.org/research/u-s-supreme-court-opinions/south-carolina-v-katzenbach/
“A fine first chop of the log”: Blum in interview with me, but also a phrase he has used with Berman and others, and in his own writing. The court kicks the can. What’s next? AEI, June 25, 2009
https://www.aei.org/articles/the-court-kicks-the-can-whats-next/
Blum told me that the decision to give the Court the option to take a first step was Coleman’s, and praised it as genius. That lines up with what he wrote at the time. “There is plenty of speculation from all quarters as to why the Court kicked the can down the road, but the best explanation is that this is exactly what the district asked for in its original complaint. Greg Coleman, counsel for the district, was asked at the argument, “Do you acknowledge that if we find in your favor on the bailout point we need not reach the constitutional point?” His simple answer was, “I do acknowledge that.”” Then he approvingly notes Lyle Denniston’s analysis at SCOTUSblog that “Lyle Denniston goes further by remarking that, “The main opinion, in fact, provides what could easily be read as a roadmap for such a future constitutional complaint.” Indeed it did.
The court kicks the can. What’s next? AEI, June 25, 2009
https://www.aei.org/articles/the-court-kicks-the-can-whats-next/
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Chapter Fifteen
Fastest growing: “As of the 2010 census Calera had a population of 11,620, more than tripling its total in 2000, making it the fastest-growing city in Alabama.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calera,_Alabama#
Limestone: Official city website: “Incorporated on February 21, 1893, Calera gets its name from a Spanish word meaning limestone. Before its incorporation, the town was known as “Lime Kiln Station,” because of its location in the heart of the vast lime producing area of the State. This area is one of the largest chemical lime producing areas in the United States.”
https://www.shelbyal.com/789/Calera
Lynchings: https://www.genealogytrails.com/ala/deaths_lynchings.html and From Alabama, an epic challenge to voting rights by Joan Biskupic, Reuters, June 4, 2012
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE85304N/
Water fountain and confederate flag: From Alabama, an epic challenge to voting rights by Joan Biskupic, Reuters, June 4, 2012
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE85304N/
Second Black:
https://www.naacpldf.org/shelby-first-anniversary-countdown/shelby-first-anniversary-countdown-day-19/
177 annexations: In a 2008 Voting Determination Letter sent to an attorney at Butch Ellis’s firm, acting assistant attorney general Grace Chung Becker writes: “For 13 years, the city has failed to submit their adopted annexations for Section 5 review. Our Department has not received an annexation submission from the city since 1993, and the city admits that it is at fault for not submitting the 177 annexations. The only submission in the last 13 years was a proposed redistricting plan based on the 2000 Census which included no mention of the missing annexations.”
https://www.justice.gov/crt/voting-determination-letter-48
13 percent to 16 percent, 71 percent to 30 percent: “The black voting-age population had grown from 13 percent in 2004 to 16 percent in 2008, but the new maps eliminated the City Council’s lone majority-black district, represented by Ernest Montgomery since 2004. The city decreased the black voting-age population in Montgomery’s district from 71 to 30 percent by adding three overwhelmingly white subdivisions while failing to include a large surrounding black neighborhood.” Why are conservatives trying to destroy the Voting Rights Act? By Ari Berman, the Nation, Feb. 6, 2013 https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/why-are-conservatives-trying-destroy-voting-rights-act/
A blunt three-page letter: Becker also informed officials that “The demographic data provided by the city regarding total population and voting age population in the city as a whole is also unreliable,” that “The estimate of racial composition in the city has no basis.” She also observed that “According to the geographer hired by the city, he was willing to provide information for the city to consider alternative methods of election that would have provided black voters a better opportunity to elect a candidate of choice, but the city council expressed no interest in these alternatives.”
https://www.justice.gov/crt/voting-determination-letter-48
Ignored that warning: “Lawyers for the city disagreed,” Biskupic writes, “and thought they could persuade federal authorities to accept the new map. Plus, they had a city council election scheduled for the next day, which they believed could not be postponed under state law. So on August 26, 2008, Calera went to the polls.” From Alabama, an epic challenge to voting rights by Joan Biskupic, Reuters, June 4, 2012
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE85304N/ and, among others, Justice Department officials again refuse to approve Calera's 2008 elections, AL.com, March 24, 2009
https://www.al.com/spotnews/2009/03/us_department_of_justice_offic.html
Shelby County was attractive: Edward Blum interview with the author
“He hated Section Five”: Edward Blum interview with the author
Baby steps: U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The Voting Rights Act: The First Few Months.
https://www2.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/usccr/documents/cr12V942.pdf
The Hidden History of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 by William Sturkey, African American Intellectual History Society, February 8, 2018
https://www.aaihs.org/the-hidden-history-of-the-civil-rights-act-of-1960/
Sixty Years of the Voting Rights Act: Progress and Pitfalls by Andrea Bernini, Giovanni Facchini, Marco Tabellini, Cecilia Testa, Harvard Business School, February 2024
https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/Bernini%20et%20al.%20(2024)%20-%20VRA%20-%20OxREP_59b58bac-5c86-4bb5-bc95-c4ada337fc8d.pdf
Stephen Plass, Exploring the Limits of Executive Civil Rights Policymaking, 61 OKLA. L. REV. 155 (2008)
https://digitalcommons.law.ou.edu/olr/vol61/iss1/3
Testimony of Debo P. Adegbile on Voting In America before the Committee on House Administration, Subcommittee on Elections, April 1, 2021
https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/111418/witnesses/HHRG-117-HA08-Wstate-AdegbileD-20210401-U1.pdf
Dallas County in 1961: Voting Rights In Alabama 1982-2006 by James Blacksher, Edward Still, Jon M. Greenbaum, Nick Wuinton, Cullen Brown and Royal Dumas
https://gould.usc.edu/students/journals/rlsj/issues/assets/docs/issue_17/04_Alabama_Macro.pdf
“Of course, we ran anyway”: Alabama Divided As Court Prepares To Hear Voting Rights Challenge, Debbie Elliott, Illinois Public Radio, February 25, 2013
https://will.illinois.edu/news/story//alabama-divided-as-court-prepares-to-hear-voting-rights-challenge
That wasn’t quite true: “I always point this out in interviews,” Montgomery said. “I did not know. That changed everything right there. I would have thought that with the denial by the DOJ we would have at least been told, especially myself because this is my district. That I would have been told by the attorneys or the mayor. And I wasn’t.” The Supreme Court Vs Black Voters In Alabama by Lou DeBose, Washington Spectator, Feb.1, 2013 https://washingtonspectator.org/the-supreme-court-vs-black-voters-in-alabama/
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May 7: DOJ letter of determination
https://www.justice.gov/crt/voting-determination-letter-48
Did not know: The Supreme Court Vs Black Voters In Alabama by Lou DeBose, Washington Spectator, Feb.1, 2013
https://washingtonspectator.org/the-supreme-court-vs-black-voters-in-alabama/
“Color of my skin”: Why are conservatives trying to destroy the Voting Rights Act? By Ari Berman, the Nation, Feb. 6, 2013 https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/why-are-conservatives-trying-destroy-voting-rights-act/ and From Alabama, an epic challenge to voting rights by Joan Biskupic, Reuters, June 4, 2012
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE85304N/
DOJ letter of determination
https://www.justice.gov/crt/voting-determination-letter-48
Shelby County Reporter story after election: Calera’s election may not be valid by Amy Gordon, Shelby County Reporter, September 10, 2008
Bobby Lee Harris: I first encountered Harris and his stoy in DuBose: The Supreme Court Vs Black Voters In Alabama by Lou DeBose, Washington Spectator, Feb.1, 2013 https://washingtonspectator.org/the-supreme-court-vs-black-voters-in-alabama/
“Consistently enacted at-large systems for local government during periods when there was a substantial threat”: Dillard v. Crenshaw County, 640 F. Supp. 1347 (M.D. Ala. 1986)
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/640/1347/1452064/
Alabaster: 58 uncleared annexations during 92 and 00:
Singer v City of Alabaster, U.S. Department of Justice amicus brief, Bill Lann Lee, assistant attorney general
https://www.justice.gov/crt/singer-v-city-alabaster
Voter Determination Letter from DOJ to attorney J. Frank Head, a partner in Butch Ellis’s firm, August 16, 2000
https://www.justice.gov/crt/voting-determination-letter-46
“They annexed Weatherly into my ward”: Harris interview with the author
A frustrated DOJ called the city out for a lack of transparency and honesty in the data it provided the Department: “The city has provided incomplete and inconsistent data and inaccurate maps in response to our July 10, 2000, request for additional information. Each map provided by the city has subsequently been represented to contain several mistakes. Moreover, the demographic statistics provided are out of date given the city's growth in the decade and it is unclear to which precise boundaries the statistics relate. While the 2000 Census data will provide a clearer picture of the current demographics in the city, we are only able to utilize the data provided to make population estimates. The city has acknowledged that it has had exponential growth, yet has provided no response to our request for information to quantify or assess this growth.” Voter Determination Letter from DOJ to attorney J. Frank Head, a partner in Butch Ellis’s firm, August 16, 2000
https://www.justice.gov/crt/voting-determination-letter-46
DOJ denied: Letter from DOJ to attorney J. Frank Head, a partner in Butch Ellis’s firm, August 16, 2000
https://www.justice.gov/crt/voting-determination-letter-46
“Extremely difficult,” Weatherly separate: From the DOJ amicus brief: “The City indicated that the ballots for the election had already been printed and it would be "extremely difficult" to get new ballots printed just for the Weatherly voters which did not include the council contest. Hence, the City planned to proceed with the election using the ballots it already had, which included both the mayoral and council contests. However, the City stated that the votes in the two annexed areas would be cast in a separate box, and "not mixed with the certified results" obtained from Ward 1. Again, the City was clear, "[t]he Ward 1 council candidate having the most votes, without consideration of the desired votes from the two Weatherly annexed areas, will be certified as the winner." Singer v City of Alabaster, U.S. Department of Justice amicus brief, Bill Lann Lee, assistant attorney general
https://www.justice.gov/crt/singer-v-city-alabaster
326-287: Singer v City of Alabaster, U.S. Department of Justice amicus brief, Bill Lann Lee, assistant attorney general
https://www.justice.gov/crt/singer-v-city-alabaster
103-101: Singer V. City Of Alabaster, DOJ amicus brief, https://www.justice.gov/crt/singer-v-city-alabaster
“I would have lost in 2000”: Harris interview with the author
“Some things change. Other things remain the same.” Harris interview with the author
Leven Handy Ellis led walkout: The Supreme Court Vs Black Voters In Alabama by Lou DeBose, Washington Spectator, Feb.1, 2013 https://washingtonspectator.org/the-supreme-court-vs-black-voters-in-alabama
Never cast their votes for any candidate associated with a civil rights program such as adopted: The Supreme Court Vs Black Voters In Alabama by Lou DeBose, Washington Spectator, Feb.1, 2013 https://washingtonspectator.org/the-supreme-court-vs-black-voters-in-alabama
“I really, truly believe”: Butch Ellis interview with the author
“Heavily white, as you know”: Butch Ellis interview with the author
“Every single thing we did”: Butch Ellis interview with the author
“They extended, and they extended”: Butch Ellis interview with the author
Dillard v Crenshaw County: Dillard v. Crenshaw County, 640 F. Supp. 1347 (M.D. Ala. 1986)
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/640/1347/1452064/
“They were smart-alecky about it”: Butch Ellis interview with the author
“About that time, Ed Blum showed up”: Butch Ellis interview with the author
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Chapter Sixteen
8,952 cases: Edward Blum defies odds in getting cases to Supreme Court by Krissah Thompson, Washington Post, February 25, 2013
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/edward-blum-defies-odds-in-getting-cases-to-supreme-court/2013/02/25/2d6e06ac-7b8e-11e2-a044-676856536b40_story.html
Higher percentage: Through May 4, 2024, there have been 20,606 major league baseball players, according to Baseball Almanac, and 273 players in the Hall of Fame.
https://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/ballplayer.shtml#:~:text=Did%20you%20know%20that%20through,of%2020%2C606%20Major%20League%20ballplayers%3F
https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-fame#:~:text=CLUB%20346,23%20managers%20and%2010%20umpires.
“I have the luxury”: Edward Blum interview with the author
Loses on merits in U.S. District Court: Shelby Cnty. v. Holder, 811 F. Supp. 2d 424 (D.D.C. 2011)
https://casetext.com/case/shelby-cnty-v-holder-3
“The odds are always lousy”: Bert Rein interview with the author
“Disenfranchise, disempower”: Eric Holder interview with the author
“Yeah, right”: Eric Holder interview with the author
Tatel’s decision: Shelby Cnty., Alabama v. Holder, 679 F.3d 848, 400 U.S. App. D.C. 367 (D.C. Cir. 2012)
https://campaignlegal.org/sites/default/files/Opinion_5-18-12.pdf
“Extraordinary federalism:”
https://campaignlegal.org/sites/default/files/Opinion_5-18-12.pdf
The 2006 Congressional report:
U.S. Congress, House Committee on the Judiciary, Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006, 109th Cong., 2nd sess., May 22, 2006, H.Rept. 109-478,
U.S. House hearings 2006:
https://www.govinfo.gov/app/collection/chrg/109/house/Committee%20on%20the%20Judiciary
105 actions for preclearance:
Tatel’s decision: Shelby Cnty., Alabama v. Holder, 679 F.3d 848, 400 U.S. App. D.C. 367 (D.C. Cir. 2012)
https://campaignlegal.org/sites/default/files/Opinion_5-18-12.pdf
622 election monitors:
Tatel’s decision: Shelby Cnty., Alabama v. Holder, 679 F.3d 848, 400 U.S. App. D.C. 367 (D.C. Cir. 2012)
https://campaignlegal.org/sites/default/files/Opinion_5-18-12.pdf
700 objections:
Tatel’s decision: Shelby Cnty., Alabama v. Holder, 679 F.3d 848, 400 U.S. App. D.C. 367 (D.C. Cir. 2012)
https://campaignlegal.org/sites/default/files/Opinion_5-18-12.pdf
800 withdrawals:
Tatel’s decision: Shelby Cnty., Alabama v. Holder, 679 F.3d 848, 400 U.S. App. D.C. 367 (D.C. Cir. 2012)
https://campaignlegal.org/sites/default/files/Opinion_5-18-12.pdf
Ellen Katz report: Katz, Ellen D., co-author. "Documenting Discrimination in Voting: Judicial Findings Under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act Since 1982." M Aisenbrey et al., co-authors. U. Mich. J. L. Reform 39, no. 4 (2006): 643-772.
https://repository.law.umich.edu/other/58/
Tatel’s conclusion:
Tatel’s decision: Shelby Cnty., Alabama v. Holder, 679 F.3d 848, 400 U.S. App. D.C. 367 (D.C. Cir. 2012)
https://campaignlegal.org/sites/default/files/Opinion_5-18-12.pdf
“I probably shouldn’t say anything about that”: Judge Tatel interview with the author
“He was done. That was it”: Judge Tatel interview with the author
“That’s because it’s not square-able”: Judge Tatel interview with the author
Bert Rein: Rein’s official biography
https://www.wiley.law/people-BertRein
Profile in Harvard Law alumni magazine
https://hls.harvard.edu/today/a-senior-rookie/
Washington College address, “Taking It to the Supreme Court”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqbdLY1SxCk
Harlan II: The justice dissented throughout the Warren Court’s reapportionment revolution of the 1960s that required, at long last, state legislative and Congressional districts to be redistricted based on equal population and established the principle of “one person, one vote.” Harlan rejected this principle. He dissented in Baker v Carr, Wesberry v Sanders and was the only dissenter in Reynolds v Sims. According to his analysis, the Fourteenth Amendment and equal protection clause were “never intended to encompass voting rights.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marshall_Harlan_II#
“Kept me out of jail”: Bert Rein by Jason McLure, National Law Journal, July 9, 2012
https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/almID/1202562039600/
Chamber of Commerce: Bert Rein Named a Leading Food & Drug Attorney, Wiley Law, September 19, 2005
https://www.wiley.law/pressrelease-173
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Rein as Washington wise man: Rein’s official biography
https://www.wiley.law/people-BertRein
Profile in Harvard Law alumni magazine
https://hls.harvard.edu/today/a-senior-rookie/
Washington College address, “Taking It to the Supreme Court”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqbdLY1SxCk
“I know he’s conservative”: Inside Roberts’ record by R. Jeffrey Smith and Jo Becker, NBC News, July 20, 2005
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna8635383
“Theoretically”: Bert Rein interview with the author
“Calera had a problem”: Bert Rein interview with the author
Judicial Education Project amicus brief: Brief of the Judicial Education Project as amicus curiae in support of petitioner, Carrie Severino, Tne Judicial Education Project, Richard K. Willard counsel of record
https://www.lawyerscommittee.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/12-96-tsac-Judicial-Education-Project.pdf
Former clerk for Clarence Thomas: Severino’s bio at the Federalist Society
https://fedsoc.org/contributors/carrie-severino
Funneled money to Ginni: Judicial activist directed fees to Clarence Thomas’s wife, urged ‘no mention of Ginni’ by Emma Brown, Shawn Boburg and Jonathan O'Connell, Washington Post, May 4, 2023 https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/0504/leonard-leo-clarence-ginni-thomas-conway/
“No mention of Ginni, of course”: Judicial activist directed fees to Clarence Thomas’s wife, urged ‘no mention of Ginni’ by Emma Brown, Shawn Boburg and Jonathan O'Connell, Washington Post, May 4, 2023 https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/0504/leonard-leo-clarence-ginni-thomas-conway/
Conway has Ginni invoice: Judicial activist directed fees to Clarence Thomas’s wife, urged ‘no mention of Ginni’ by Emma Brown, Shawn Boburg and Jonathan O'Connell, Washington Post, May 4, 2023 https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/0504/leonard-leo-clarence-ginni-thomas-conway/
How the money traveled: Judicial activist directed fees to Clarence Thomas’s wife, urged ‘no mention of Ginni’ by Emma Brown, Shawn Boburg and Jonathan O'Connell, Washington Post, May 4, 2023 https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/0504/leonard-leo-clarence-ginni-thomas-conway/
Thomas’s own financial disclosure: Clarence Thomas’s 2012 disclosure hosted by the Center for Public Integrity; Fix The Court has a link to all justices’ disclosures over the last decade-plus
https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/710471/thomas-2012-2012.pdf
https://fixthecourt.com/2020disclosures/
Thomas concurrence: Thomas’s concurrence in Shelby County opens: “The Voting Rights Act of 1965 employed extraordinary measures to address an extraordinary problem.” Ante, at 1. In the face of “unremitting and ingenious defiance” of citizens’ constitutionally protected right to vote, §5 was necessary to give effect to the Fifteenth Amendment in particular regions of the country. South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 309 (1966). Though §5’s preclearance requirement represented a “shar[p] depart[ure]” from “basic principles” of federalism and the equal sovereignty of the States, ante, at 9, 11, the Court upheld the measure against early constitutional challenges because it was necessary at the time to address “voting discrimination where it persist[ed] on a pervasive scale.” Katzenbach, supra, at 308. Today, our Nation has changed.”
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/pdf/12-96.pdf
The Judicial Education Project brief concludes with this paragraph: “More fundamentally however, it is hard to envision how a sui generis treatment of once-disfavored but currently compliant states demonstrates the necessary “congruence and proportionality” that the respondents need to establish. The record – to the extent there was a record at all when Congress reenacted the statute in 2006 – no longer supports disparate treatment of equal sovereigns. This Court signaled as much only two years ago in Northwest Austin, when it observed that “[t]he [VRA] differentiates between the States, despite our historic tradition that all the States enjoy ‘equal sovereignty.’ ... But a departure from the fundamental principle of equal sovereignty requires a showing that a statute's disparate geographic coverage is sufficiently related to the problem that it targets.” 557 U.S. at 203.
https://www.lawyerscommittee.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/12-96-tsac-Judicial-Education-Project.pdf
Verrilli spent the night before: A Lawyer Who Can Simplify the Complex Draws a Big One: Obama’s Health Overhaul by Ian Urbina, March 24, 2012
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/24/us/politics/donald-verrilli-the-lawyer-who-will-defend-obamas-health-law.html
Obergefell v Hodges: Oral arguments at U.S. Supreme Court, April 28, 2015
https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2014/14-556q1_l5gm.pdf
Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt: Oral arguments at U.S. Supreme Court, March 2, 2016
https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2015/15-274_d18e.pdf
Toobin mocks as disastrous: The CNN legal analyst called the oral argument “a trainwreck fo the Obama administration.” He added that, “This law looks like it’s going to be struck down,” and that “(a)ll the predictions including mine that the justices would not have a problem with this law were wrong. CNN's Toobin ruins SCOTUS for POTUS by Dylan Byers, Politico, March 27, 2012
https://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/03/cnns-toobin-ruins-scotus-for-potus-118843
“It was the biggest challenge”: Donald Verrilli interview with the author
“Well, how dare you”: Donald Verrilli interview with the author
“The Constitution gave the Congress”: Donald Verrilli interview with the author
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Chapter Seventeen
Filled with links: Berman, Give Us The Ballot
Vivian Malone Jones: A 2014 Politico profile notes that Holder’s wife Sharon Malone, Vivian’s younger sister, has told “the couple’s friends she feels the “presence of Vivian,” who died of a stroke in 2005, in Holder’s life and work—impelling him to live up to her sister’s civil rights legacy.”
The Survivor by Glenn Thrush, Politico magazine, July/August 2014
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-survivor-108018/
Sovereignty of this state: Wallace’s speech contains eerie echoes of Roberts’s decision in Shelby County. As he blocked Vivian Malone and James Hood at the University of Alabama on June 11, 1963 he proclaimed that, “Only the Congress makes the law of the United States. To this date no statutory authority can be cited to the people of this Country which authorizes the Central Government to ignore the sovereignty of this State in an attempt to subordinate the rights of Alabama and millions of Americans. There has been no legislative action by Congress justifying this intrusion
https://legacy.archives.alabama.gov/govs_list/schooldoor.html
Assuming I accept your premise: Audio from the Shelby County arguments can be heard here:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/audio/2012/12-96
The transcript is located here:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2012/12-96_7648.pdf
Kagan took the next shot:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2012/12-96_7648.pdf
Then it was Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s turn:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2012/12-96_7648.pdf
Sotomayor tried to refocus:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2012/12-96_7648.pdf
Who gets to make that judgement:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2012/12-96_7648.pdf
Rueful sarcasm: Ian Millhiser’s terrific look at the Court’s democracy jurisprudence highlights the work of Kagan in these cases. https://www.vox.com/22575435/voting-rights-supreme-court-john-roberts-shelby-county-constitution-brnovich-elena-kagan
On the defensive from the beginning:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2012/12-96_7648.pdf\
There was no escape: Many experts who followed the arguments that day recognized the effect of this misleading, gotcha assault. In the New York Times, Linda Greenhouse asked, “Is it better to be black these days in Mississippi or in Massachusetts? Not being likely to find myself black in either state, I wouldn’t presume to say, but Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. exhibited no such diffidence. Without having asked a single question of Shelby County’s lawyer, Bert W. Rein, he taunted Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli with statistics purporting to show that Mississippi has the better record of African-American voter registration and turnout. It was a “gotcha” performance beneath the dignity of a chief justice, and it turned out to be based on a – to put it charitably – misunderstanding of the data.”
A big new power, by Linda Greenhouse, New York Times, March 6, 2013
https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/a-big-new-power/
Also, Is the South still racist? By Emily Bazelon, Slate, Feb.. 27, 2013
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/02/the-supreme-court-hears-shelby-county-argument-the-courts-conservatives-seem-to-believe-that-the-voting-rights-act-has-outlived-its-purpose.html
Supreme Court poised to declare racism over, Adam Serwer, Mother Jones, Feb. 27, 2013
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/supreme-court-poised-declare-racism-over/
“Is it the government’s submission that the citizens in the South are more racist than citizens in the North?” In retrospect, Verrilli might have looked to an amicus brief for help. One amicus brief filed by several political scientists and law professors, by the civil rights attorney and future North Carolina state supreme court justice Anita Earls, clearly argued yes and cited “distinct conditions that are present in covered jurisdictions due to race-based discrimination”
https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legal-work/2013.2.1%20Brief%20of%20Political%20Science%20and%20Law%20Professors%20in%20Support%20of%20Respondents.pdf
Misconstrued: A close look at census statistics indicates the chief justice was wrong,” Totenberg reports, “or at least that he did not look at the totality of the numbers.” In Voting Rights Arguments, Chief Justice Misconstrued Census Data by Nina Totenberg, NPR
https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/03/01/173276943/in-voting-rights-arguments-chief-justice-may-have-misconstrued-census-data
Nate Silver: In Supreme Court Debate on Voting Rights Act, a Dubious Use of Statistics, by Nate Silver, New York Times, March 7, 2013
https://archive.nytimes.com/fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/07/in-supreme-court-debate-on-voting-rights-act-a-dubious-use-of-statistics/
William Galvin: Galvin: On Mass. Racial Voting Gap, Chief Justice Roberts Is Wrong, WBUR, March 1, 2012
https://www.wbur.org/news/2013/03/01/galvin-roberts-voting-disparity
Massachusetts official challenges Chief Justice Roberts’ claim about voting by Akilah Johnson, Feb. 28, 2013, Boston Globe
https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2013/02/28/massachusetts-official-challenges-chief-justice-roberts-claim-about-voting/
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“Well, the Marshall Plan was very good too:” https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2012/12-96_7648.pdf\
“The facts? The facts were irrelevant to them”: Donald Verrilli interview with the author
Racial entitlement: https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2012/12-96_7648.pdf\
Anyone who remembered his Washington University Law Quarterly article: The Disease As Cure by Antonin Scalia, Washington Univesity Law Quarterly.
Antonin Scalia, The Disease as Cure: “In Order to Get Beyond Racism, We Must First Take Account of Race”, 1979 WASH. U. L. Q. 147 (1979). https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_lawreview/vol1979/iss1/17
“That was one of the most stunning moments”: Donald Verrilli interview with the author
Adegbile:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/audio/2012/12-96
“Every one of them is worse”: https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/audio/2012/12-96
Capitol corruption: The federal judge who presided over the trial would say that Beason and another top witness demonstrated "a deep-seated racial animus" and a desire to suppress black voter turnout when they helped the FBI investigate claims of Statehouse vote buying.” According to an Associated Press report, “U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson said that during the trial, state Sen. Scott Beason, R-Gardendale, and former Rep. Benjamin Lewis, R-Dothan, portrayed themselves as lawmakers trying to root out corruption when they recorded meetings and phone calls with gambling proponents. But the judge said they were trying to keep a pro-gambling referendum off Alabama's 2010 general election ballot to suppress black voter turnout and help Republicans gain control of the Legislature.
https://www.tuscaloosanews.com/story/news/2011/10/21/judge-bingo-witnesses-aimed-to-suppress-black-voter-turnout/28392372007/
On the stand, state senator Beason said he didn’t know why he used the word “aborigines.”
Alabama Sen. Scott Beason unsure why he said 'aborigines' by Philip Rawls, Associated Press, June 17, 2011
https://www.gadsdentimes.com/story/news/local/2011/06/17/alabama-sen-scott-beason-unsure-why-he-said-aborigines/32148007007/
“Then it doesn’t seem to help you”: https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/audio/2012/12-96
“The Voting Rights Act? Come on”: Eric Holder interview with the author
“I was never optimistic at all”: Donald Verrilli interview with the author
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Chapter Eighteen
Congress, if it is to divide the states: Shelby County 570 U.S. 529 (more) 133 S. Ct. 2612; 186 L. Ed. 2d 651
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/570/12-96/case.pdf
History did not end in 1965: Shelby County 570 U.S. 529 (more) 133 S. Ct. 2612; 186 L. Ed. 2d 651
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/570/12-96/case.pdf
Leaves us today with no choice:
Shelby County 570 U.S. 529 (more) 133 S. Ct. 2612; 186 L. Ed. 2d 651
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/570/12-96/case.pdf
Dishonestly edited dicta: U.S. Reports: Northwest Austin Municipal Util. Dist. No. One v. Holder, 557 U.S. 193 (2009).
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/557/08-322/index.pdf
A deeply radical one: This chapter owes much to an interview with Rick Hasen, our preeminent voting rights scholar, and to his law review article Shelby County and the Illusion of Minimalism, William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal, 22 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 713 (2014).
https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1688&context=wmborj
Roberts coated the court’s decision in faux modesty: As Hasen writes so clearly, “Shelby County is an audacious opinion which ignores history, declines to engage the dissent’s powerful argument that the VRA’s bailout provisions solve any constitutional problem, and rejects the Roberts Court’s stated commitment to judicial minimalism in its treatment of facial challenges and severability. It pretends it is not overturning Section 5 of the VRA, yet it sets a standard under which any new coverage formula will likely fail a constitutional test.”
Richard L. Hasen, Shelby County and the Illusion of Minimalism, 22 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 713 (2014)
https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmborj/vol22/iss3/3
“No one can fairly say”: Shelby County 570 U.S. 529 (more) 133 S. Ct. 2612; 186 L. Ed. 2d 651
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/570/12-96/case.pdf
A policy of stopping all redheads: Hasen provides a deeper analysis of why the analogy fails in his William & Mary piece: “Pulling over a driver because he is a redhead is completely arbitrary. … Imagine that people who have been arrested for drunk driving have to put a special sticker on their car. Police then pull over people with the stickers more frequently than cars without the stickers to make sure former drunk drivers are obeying the law. Surely it is not random to apply greater driving scrutiny to those with DUIs on their record than to others, even if those DUI convictions are old. Similarly, it is not random to apply greater scrutiny in voting to those jurisdictions with a history of discrimination than others. It is in this sense that Shelby County is “no redhead.”
Richard L. Hasen, Shelby County and the Illusion of Minimalism, 22 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 713 (2014)
https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmborj/vol22/iss3/3
Shelby County 570 U.S. 529 (more) 133 S. Ct. 2612; 186 L. Ed. 2d 651
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/570/12-96/case.pdf
No redhead: Shelby County 570 U.S. 529 (more) 133 S. Ct. 2612; 186 L. Ed. 2d 651
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/570/12-96/case.pdf
Today the nation is no longer divided: Shelby County 570 U.S. 529 (more) 133 S. Ct. 2612; 186 L. Ed. 2d 651
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/570/12-96/case.pdf
A new day of racial equality: The historian Morgan Kousser undertook a systematic study of every DOJ lawsuit, preclearance objection, request for additional information, consent decree, and out of court settlement. In a Transatlantica paper, he concludes that “the Chief Justice’s factual assertions were incorrect, that the coverage formula was still congruent with proven violations, and that to the extent that recorded violations had decreased, that was not because problems had ended, but because the Supreme Court had made it more difficult to win lawsuits.”
Do The Facts of Voting Rights Support Chief Justice Roberts’s Opinion in Shelby County? By Morgan Kousser, Transatlantica, 2015.
https://doi.org/10.4000/transatlantica.7462.
April 2023 poll: Historical Supreme Court polling from Gallup collected at
https://news.gallup.com/poll/4732/supreme-court.aspx
Making the law up as they go along: The law professor Eric Segall walks through several examples of Roberts’s extensive willingness to resolve “questions in a lawless manner because of reliance on demonstrably false facts and obviously misleading descriptions of prior rulings and other legal materials” in The Roberts Court and the Rule of Lawlessness, Dorf on Law, May 1, 2024
https://www.dorfonlaw.org/2024/05/the-roberts-court-and-rule-of.html
“It’s made up”: Whose Term Was It? A Look Back At The Supreme Court by Nina Totenberg, NPR, July 5, 2013
https://www.npr.org/2013/07/05/198708325/whose-term-was-it-a-look-back-at-the-supreme-court
“There is no such principle”: The Supreme Court and the Voting Rights Act: Striking down the law is all about conservatives’ imagination by Richard A. Posner, Slate, June 26, 2013
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/06/the-supreme-court-and-the-voting-rights-act-striking-down-the-law-is-all-about-conservatives-imagination.html
“Yes, that’s right”: Leah Litman interview with the author
National authority: Leah M. Litman, Inventing Equal Sovereignty, 114 Mich. L. Rev. 1207 (2016).
https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol114/iss7/1
“Should not be made too easy to prove”: Talking Points For White House Meeting On Voting Rights Act, Memo by John Roberts to the attorney general, Jan. 26, 1982
https://www.archives.gov/files/news/john-roberts/accession-60-88-0498/030-black-binder1/folder030.pdf
“Turns out to be somewhat recent”: Leah M. Litman, Inventing Equal Sovereignty, 114 Mich. L. Rev. 1207 (2016).
https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol114/iss7/1
Shelby County decision: 570 U.S. 529 (more) 133 S. Ct. 2612; 186 L. Ed. 2d 651
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/570/12-96/case.pdf
Roberts had the statistics all wrong: It’s a Fact: Supreme Court Errors Aren’t Hard to Find, by Ryan Gabrielson, ProPublica, Oct. 17, 2017
https://www.propublica.org/article/supreme-court-errors-are-not-hard-to-find
Senate judiciary report: S. Rept. 109-295. Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King and Cesar E. Chavez Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006. 109th Congress (2005-2006)
https://www.congress.gov/109/crpt/srpt295/CRPT-109srpt295.pdf
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Roberts had the statistics all wrong: It’s a Fact: Supreme Court Errors Aren’t Hard to Find, by Ryan Gabrielson, ProPublica, Oct. 17, 2017
https://www.propublica.org/article/supreme-court-errors-are-not-hard-to-find
Senate judiciary report: S. Rept. 109-295. Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King and Cesar E. Chavez Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006. 109th Congress (2005-2006)
https://www.congress.gov/109/crpt/srpt295/CRPT-109srpt295.pdf
Roberts had the statistics all wrong: It’s a Fact: Supreme Court Errors Aren’t Hard to Find, by Ryan Gabrielson, ProPublica, Oct. 17, 2017
https://www.propublica.org/article/supreme-court-errors-are-not-hard-to-find
Roberts’ chart: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3891265-12-096.html#document/p15/a381881
That basic error: It’s a Fact: Supreme Court Errors Aren’t Hard to Find, by Ryan Gabrielson, ProPublica, Oct. 17, 2017
https://www.propublica.org/article/supreme-court-errors-are-not-hard-to-find
In Georgia: It’s a Fact: Supreme Court Errors Aren’t Hard to Find, by Ryan Gabrielson, ProPublica, Oct. 17, 2017
https://www.propublica.org/article/supreme-court-errors-are-not-hard-to-find
Which speak for themselves: It’s a Fact: Supreme Court Errors Aren’t Hard to Find, by Ryan Gabrielson, ProPublica, Oct. 17, 2017
https://www.propublica.org/article/supreme-court-errors-are-not-hard-to-find
This was Congress’s decision to make: Donald Verrilli interview with the author
We are not ignoring the record: 570 U.S. 529 (more) 133 S. Ct. 2612; 186 L. Ed. 2d 651
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/570/12-96/case.pdf
Congress’s decision: Hasen goes a step further and notes that four of same justices who brushed aside thousands of pages of Congressional fact-finding in the Shelby County decision demanded a higher respect for Congressional judgment in United States v. Windsor. A majority in that case found a section of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional and ruled that the federal government could not discriminate against married LGBTQ couples. “How ironic,” he writes. “As Justice Scalia wrote (for himself, the Chief Justice and Justice Thomas): ‘The majority concludes that the only motive for [the Defense of Marriage Act] was the “bare . . . desire to harm a politically unpopular group.” . . . Bear in mind that the object of this condemnation is not the legislature of some once-Confederate Southern state (familiar objects of the Court’s scorn . . .), but our respected coordinate branches, the Congress and Presidency of the United States. Laying such a charge against them should require the most extraordinary evidence, and I would have thought that every attempt would be made to indulge a more anodyne explanation for the statute.’”
Also important on the use of originalism in these cases is Windsor, Shelby County, and the Demise of Originalism: A Personal Account By Dawn Johnsen, October 2013.
https://www.acslaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Issue-brief-Johnsen_-_Demise_of_Originalism_0.pdf
Congress is given express power: Hasen expands on this point in his William & Mary article. “Chief Justice Roberts excoriates the federal government for acting as though history ended in 1965.Yet conspicuously absent from the majority opinion is any real appreciation of how the Civil War amendments, including the Fifteenth Amendment, changed the state-federal balance of power and the scope of the Tenth Amendment. Congressional power should be at its highest when it comes to passing laws aimed at preventing race discrimination in voting, one of the key issues following the Civil War and the readmission of the former confederate states back into the Union. Fairly understanding Congress’s enforcement powers under the Fifteenth Amendment, and specifically its power to pass laws preventing racial discrimination in voting, requires a deep analysis of the Fifteenth Amendment’s history, a discussion conspicuously absent from the majority’s breezy historical discussion.”
Richard L. Hasen, Shelby County and the Illusion of Minimalism, 22 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 713 (2014)
https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmborj/vol22/iss3/3
“The constitutional violation in Shelby County”: Leah M. Litman, Inventing Equal Sovereignty, 114 Mich. L. Rev. 1207 (2016).
https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol114/iss7/1
Cease to be the special favorites: In the Civil Rights Cases, from 1883, the Court rolled together five cases having to do with equal access to public transportation, theaters and other guarantees under the 1875 Civil Rights Act. An 8-1 majority held that Congress had no right to regulate private discrimination. The decision is worth quoting at length, especially since its desire to insist upon racial progress echoes in Shelby County. “When a man has emerged from slavery, and by the aid of beneficent legislation has shaken off the inseparable concomitants of that state, there must be some stage in the progress of his elevation when he takes the rank of a mere citizen, and ceases to be the special favorite of the laws, and when his rights as a citizen, or a man, are to be protected in the ordinary modes by which other men's rights are protected. There were thousands of free colored people in this country before the abolition of slavery, enjoying all the essential rights of life, liberty, and property the same as white citizens; yet no one, at that time, thought that it was any invasion of their personal status as freemen because they were not admitted to all the privileges enjoyed by white citizens, or because they were subjected to discriminations in the enjoyment of accommodations in inns, public conveyances, and places of amusement.”
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/109/3#:~:text=When%20a%20man%20has%20emerged,his%20rights%20as%20a%20citizen
“The thing that people didn’t fully appreciate”: Adegbile interview with the author
“Dressed up in sophisticated legal arguments”: Adegbile interview with the author
“It’s open season”: Adegbile interview with the author
“What’s your basis for saying that?”: Eric Holder interview with the author
“There was still a difference”: Eric Holder interview with the author
Ginsberg dissent: 570 U.S. 529 (more) 133 S. Ct. 2612; 186 L. Ed. 2d 651
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/570/12-96/case.pdf
None of these examples mattered: 570 U.S. 529 (more) 133 S. Ct. 2612; 186 L. Ed. 2d 651
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/570/12-96/case.pdf
“You did. You did”: Adegbile interview with the author. Adegbile also told the Lewis story on NPR’s All Things Considered. The Right To Vote: The Impact Of Shelby County V. Holder On Voting Rights, July 13, 2021
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/13/1015754818/the-right-to-vote-the-impact-of-shelby-county-v-holder-on-voting-rights
“I would’ve taken the court to task”: Eric Holder interview with the author
“Nothing had changed in the South”: Eric Holder interview with the author
“I just decided no”: Eric Holder interview with the author
“What I might have done differently”: Donald Verrilli interview with the author