The Civil Rights Division has been dubbed the “crown jewel” of the Justice Department. President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized the Division as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, and three months later, it was born. The Division was forged in the Civil Rights Movement in response to massive resistance against racial integration. The Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education, 344 U.S. 1 (1952), and our Nation’s new voting laws gave the Division its first missions. Even in its infancy, the Division stood at the forefront of the federal government’s efforts to protect Americans’ right to vote. And since then, generations of Civil Rights Division attorneys and staff have worked to protect that right—a sacred right that gives our citizenry a say in its government and secures all other individual rights against government interference.
Against that backdrop, this case is anomalous. The Plaintiffs, a voting-rights organization and four individual voters, allege that the Civil Rights Division has set out on a mission an hetical to its purpose and history: to remove voters from voter rolls across the country, including United States citizens. They challenge a policy adopted by the current Civil Rights Division seeking unprecedented influence over states’ longstanding authorities to register eligible voters and maintain their voter rolls. Under the policy, the Plaintiffs say, the Division is demanding voter registration lists from all states, comparing those lists against a citizenship-status database plagued with inaccuracies, and urging states to remove voters who the Division deems ineligible. This policy, the Plaintiffs contend, has left untold numbers of disenfranchised voters in its wake and inflicted injuries to the Plaintiffs’ privacy and informational rights to boot.
The Defendants, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Attorney General, insist that DOJ has the statutory authority to adopt this policy. But their claimed sources of authority raise eyebrows. The Defendants claim that statutes aimed at expanding the Civil Rights Division’s tools to protect the right to vote—the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the National Voter Registration Act, and the Help America Vote Act—give the Division the authority to demand that states remove United States citizens from their rolls. In furtherance of this position, the Defendants make other startling arguments. They suggest that every American citizen who registers to vote is the subject of a voter fraud investigation underway in the Civil Rights Division simply because they registered to vote. And the Defendants downplay the risk of voter disenfranchisement—despite knowingly relying on an inaccurate database to check voter eligibility. Behind all the window dressing, the challenged policy represents the federal government’s attempt to decide who gets to vote. But Congress has left that authority where our Cons ution has always placed it: with the states.
DOJ cannot run roughshod over longstanding laws that were carefully crafted to protect the rights of the American people. The Civil Rights Division’s policy is unlawful in several respects. First, the Defendants’ claimed authorities—Civil Rights Act of 1960, the National Voter Registration Act, and the Help America Vote Act—do not authorize the policy. Second, the policy is arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act. Third, the policy violates both substantive and procedural protections in the Privacy Act, a statute designed to ban federal data banks and preserve the American tradition of limited, transparent government. And fourth, the policy violates limits imposed by the Paperwork Reduction Act.
The Court therefore sets aside and vacates the challenged policy under the Administrative Procedure Act.
Today’s decision does not prevent the federal government from taking lawful steps to support states’ efforts to maintain accurate voter rolls. Neither does it prevent states from maintaining their own voter rolls. And to state the obvious, the Court’s decision does not pave the way for ineligible voters to vote in our elections. Rather, the Court vacates a policy that has removed United States citizens from the voter rolls in their home states and risks disenfranchising many more—a policy that flies in the face of duly enacted laws designed to protect Americans. When the federal government defies federal laws, our system of checks and balances permits individuals to turn to federal courts for recourse. And if they prevail, courts are duty-bound to step in under the Cons ution.
Reply With Quote
