Category Archive

NPR and Wise Latinas – A researcher at Harvard has concluded that black federal trial judges get overturned at a rate 10 percent higher than white federal trial judges. Now, I’m skeptical that this proves anything about anything, but what’s interesting is the way this National Public Radio story looks at the study.  All kinds of explanations are considered, except for the most obvious one: If, in the name of “diversity,” less qualified African Americans are appointed to the bench, then they would be more likely to commit reversible errors.  NPR gives more credence to the possibility of “unconscious biases” or, …

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about Governor Terry McAuliffe’s lamentable decision last month to reenfranchise over 200,000 felons in Virginia.  But the news coverage of that decision calls me to make a couple of additional points. Over eleven years ago, I had a column on National Review Online debunking the claim that racism explains why felons are currently disenfranchised.  I was prompted to write it because a number of bien-pensants were making this claim at that time, which I suspected could be traced to misinformation being fed to them by the “the well-funded and ubiquitous felon-reenfranchisement movement.” It’s …

Last Friday, Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe signed an order that reenfranchised over 200,000 felons in that state.  This week I’m devoting my email to two pieces I wrote in response, one for the New York Times (addressing the issue of felon voting in general terms) and the other, with Hans von Spakovsky, for National Review Online (which focused on Virginia in particular). First, here’s what I said in the New York Times: We have certain minimum standards of responsibility and commitment to our laws before entrusting someone with a role in the solemn enterprise of self-government. People who commit serious …

The Maryland state legislature is back in session, and the Democrats have announced that one of their priorities is overriding Governor Larry Hogan’s veto last year of a bill that would automatically re-enfranchise felons when they are released from prison, even if they are still on parole or probation (Maryland already automatically re-enfranchises felons once they are no longer on probation or parole). Governor Hogan is adamant that this is a bad bill. And Governor Hogan is right, so here’s hoping that the scheduled veto-override effort fails in the state senate this week (alas, the override passed the house last month, with …

This month marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, and I was asked by the National Constitution Center to write something on that topic for them, which I was happy to do: Let’s Keep the 1965 Voting Rights Act Focused on Actual Racial Discrimination The 1965 Voting Rights Act was passed because of the appalling denial to African Americans of the right to vote in, especially, the Deep South.  There was and is an overwhelming national consensus that such discrimination is wrong, and this consensus was and is bipartisan.  Indeed, it’s interesting that Republicans voted in favor of …

Two observations on Hillary Clinton’s voting-rights speech last Thursday:  First, it contained the predictable race-baiting demagogy — e.g., “what is happening is a sweeping effort to disempower and disenfranchise people of color . . .” No, what is happening is the usual effort to strike the right balance between facilitating voting by eligible voters and preventing voting by ineligible voters. If there is evidence of racial discrimination, the courts are open for business.  Second, she showed, again predictably, her impatience with constitutional limits on federal power, in this case by endorsing federal legislation that would force states to allow felons …

Predictably, the Left has tried to use the Selma anniversary, along with the Oscars, to push its very bad amendments to the Voting Rights Act. Thankfully, there does not seem to be much interest, and rightly so.  No new legislation is needed. The Supreme Court decision that the bill supposedly addresses struck down only one provision in the Voting Rights Act, because it was indeed unjustified and outdated; there are plenty of other voting-rights laws available to ensure that the right to vote is not violated. And indeed there is no shortage of lawsuits being filed. If plaintiffs can prove their case, they can …

The Heritage Foundation has just published a paper that I co-wrote on legislative efforts to re-enfranchise felons.  In this email, I’ve excerpted the second part of the paper (along with the paper’s “Abstract”).  This part of the paper argues that automatic re-enfranchisement of felons is unwise as a matter of policy.  But the paper begins by demonstrating in lawyerly detail that, whatever you think as a matter of policy, the Constitution clearly commits this issue to the states.  So it is disturbing that Sen. Rand Paul, for example, who claims to be a great champion of the Constitution and its …

It’s being widely noted that this week, on July 2, we’ll be celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  Below are excerpts from my discussion, posted earlier this month on the Liberty Forum website, of why “the approach taken in the bill was a conservative one, that it ought to be updated to strengthen and clarify that essentially conservative approach, and that it is the Left that has strayed from the Act’s principles and that now wants to repudiate them.” *          *          * The Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned much government and private-sector …