GOP calls in experts on voter suppression to testify against Democrats' For the People Act

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/1/29/1830592/-GOP-calls-in-experts-on-suppressing-votes-to-testify-against-Democrats-For-the-People-Act

GOP calls in experts on voter suppression to testify against Democrats’ For the People Act
Kerry Eleveld
Daily Kos Staff
Tuesday January 29, 2019 · 12:04 PM EST


As debate begins on one of the most important civil rights bills in decades, Republicans are preparing to combat the Democrats' initiative with lies. HR1, the first bill of the session that doesn't involve government funding, is called the For the People Act and is intended to expand voting rights nationwide by making it both easier to register and more accessible. In support of the bill, House Judiciary Democrats have called on voting rights lawyers.

Meanwhile, Republicans have lined up the two voter-suppression experts: Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation and J. Christian Adams of the Public Interest Legal Foundation. As Mother Jones' Ari Berman writes, both men sat on Donald Trump's now-humiliated and decommissioned "election integrity commission" (ya know, the effort to find the supposed "millions" of fraudulent votes cast against Trump). Both men also worked to dismantle voting rights in the Civil Rights Division of George W. Bush's Justice Department. Writes Berman, “Von Spakosvky was special counsel to Bradley Schlozman, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, who said he wanted to ‘gerrymander all of those crazy libs’ out of the division’s voting section.”

Adams specialized in prosecuting reverse-discrimination cases against African-Americans. Together, the two men helped "integrity commission" chief Kris Kobach devise a letter requesting voter data from all 50 states. When 20-some states refused to send the sensitive data to the controversial commission, it was the beginning of its end.

But there's no end to the GOP's need for discrimination crusaders, and so Von Spakovsky and Adams will surface again at the House Judiciary panel on Tuesday.