Local Quisling Accused of Drunken Affair with Subordinate

One of the few tiny specks of light in the 2024 election was that voters in my congressional district ousted our one-term Republican incumbent, Rep. Lori Chavez-Deremer, in favor of Democratic challenger Janelle Bynum. Turns out Portland was America's last bastion of normalcy.

Chavez-Deremer parlayed that loss to fall upward into the position of Trump's Secretary of Labor. On face, it was a payoff to the Teamsters for functionally backing Trump not endorsing Harris, since Chavez-Deremer had a somewhat stronger pro-labor background than most Republicans. In reality, Chavez-Deremer has cheerily enacted Trump's agenda of gutting labor protections, thus proving the already-obvious point that even "sympathetic" Republicans are useless when push comes to shove because they'll always ultimately accommodate whatever is the alpha ideology in their party, and right now the alpha GOP ideology towards unions is "bust them up and send the workers back into peonage where they belong."

Aside from that, Chavez-Deremer's most prominent entry into the news came when she publicly backed President Trump's announced military invasion of Portland, making her quite the little quisling. But I woke up today to read reports that Chavez-Deremer is under investigation after allegedly having a drunken affair with one of her Department of Labor subordinates.

"Chavez-DeRemer, 57, has welcomed her alleged paramour at least three times to her DC apartment and twice into her hotel room while traveling, alleges a complaint filed with the Department of Labor’s (DOL) Office of Inspector General last week, which has since begun a probe," said the report. DeRemer "is also accused of drinking in her office during the workday and committing 'travel fraud' by having her chief of staff and deputy chief of staff 'make up' official trips to destinations where Chavez-DeRemer can spend time with family or friends on the taxpayers’ dime."

Additionally, the complaint alleged, Chavez-DeRemer has abused her authority to force department aides to run personal errands for her — an issue that has gotten a number of previous Trump administration officials, like former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, in trouble as well.

Now, nobody should get their hopes up. Alcohol abuse and sexual misconduct are less "scandals" in the Trump administration and more "job requirements." One even wonders if -- her job head-faking towards a "pro-worker" Trump administration policy complete -- she might get tossed overboard to make room for a true believer to really go to town on labor.

But still, every news story that breaks about the brazen corruption, graft, and abuse that characterizes this administration, the better. So I raise my glass to you, Secretary (feel free to raise one or several of your own -- we know you've got them). I hope you've enjoyed your time in DC, because you sure as hell aren't welcome back here.

N(R)IMBY

There's a common debate that pops up every time a celebrity or some other figure runs into a scandal, one that's serious enough to threaten their career, but not serious enough to put them in prison. A lot of #MeToo cases fall into this category, though this isn't the only case, but it works as one to keep in mind (think Louis C.K.). At some point, after apologizing (whether sincerely or opportunistically) and laying low for awhile, they'll try to restart their profession. Once this happens, the pattern is almost rote:

1. Some group of people will condemn the person for trying to restart his career ("You won't believe who's attempting a comeback!"), and/or condemn the venue for hosting him.
2. A different group of people will defend the celebrity, asking whether or not his "whole life should be ruined" and whether he should be prevented from making a living in perpetuity.
3. The first group of people will retort that not having access to some celebrity spaces is hardly the same as having one's life ruined nor is it a complete bar on any money-making endeavor. Lots of people, I'm told, live perfectly comfortable and money-earning lives without getting standup comedy specials or starring movie roles. Meanwhile, the person's re-entry into the professional space also will have the effect of rendering it unsafe and/or uncomfortable for members of the group the celebrity had previously victimized.

I think there's reasonable purchase in that third move. However, it does carry with it an implicit promise -- that there is some space where the erstwhile celebrity could enter into which would be legitimate (as a means of making money, continuing with their life, etc.). When one says "'not here' is not the same thing as 'life-ruining'", there is tacit "try over there." And that raises the question: where is the "there" that is okay?

Let's take Louis C.K.. Suppose in the wake of his scandal he takes a random, normal-person job -- I don't know, he's working at a call center. Being a former celebrity, he's quickly recognized. And some of the employees are uncomfortable with him around, knowing what he had done to people like them. What happens if they complain, and say "we don't want Louis C.K. in our office?"

The implicit promise in position #3 requires that, for at least some non-theoretical set of cases, that complaint has to be turned aside; notwithstanding that part of the force of position #3 is precisely that Louis C.K.'s presence in a given space exacts costs upon the women already occupying it (and that applies with similar, if not identical, force, if he's working at a call center compared to a club). Given that, do we have confidence that the advocates of position #3 will be able to find circumstances where they say "no, we do not support hounding this person out of this space -- they may not be allowed to redeem themselves in the celebrity sphere, but this place is okay."

It seems we have a classic NIMBY problem, or perhaps a N(R)IMBY problem (No Redemption in My Back Yard). Most of us probably are fine in concept that there exist some space where Louis C.K. goes off to live his life, perhaps not as a celebrity, but not in a state of utter banishment either. But none of us want it to be in our backyard. Redemption is a social good, we agree, but it shouldn't occur here but ... elsewhere -- an objection that will attach to virtually all "heres" with nary a suggestion of viable "elsewheres". Ironically, the most likely "elsewhere" that will be stuck with him over their own objection is an elsewhere populated by people who largely lack social power and influence. Indeed, to some extent, this is a feature of the "he can live his life, but not as a celebrity" account -- it's fine for him to seek redemption, but it should occur among the normies.

This is a problem I've puzzled over, and I don't have a really good solution to it. It's no answer to say that the person should do the work of repentance and redemption before they can make a claim to "live their life" in any space -- the work of repentance and redemption occurs in occupied space; it is impossible to do it from a place of social banishment. And if you're accusing me of a strawman -- nobody is arguing for outright "social banishment" -- then my goal here is to call the bluff a little bit and ask "okay, so where is good?" Is it low-level performances in their field? Interviews with journalists about their misconduct? Working at charities? Can we honestly say that in any of these cases, that we haven't seen at least some pushback -- "they shouldn't be here"? And again, it's not that I lack sympathy for what's motivating that pushback. But I am not sure how far it should go, and how far it can limit itself in going.

Duncan Hunter Screws His Wife, and Apparently Every Other Woman in His Vicinity

When Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) was charged with misusing campaign finance funds, he made headlines by quickly moving to throw his wife under the bus. It was an impressively classless move even by his standards, but now we might have some insight as to why his forever partner received such limited loyalty. Apparently, Rep. Hunter used his misappropriated campaign cash to finance five -- five -- different affairs.

His I-have-to-imagine-soon-to-be-ex- wife has already plead guilty and is apparently cooperating with the prosecution.

The Tide Never Goes Out Roundup

I've been relying on roundups more than I'd like recently, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

* * *

Potential blockbuster lawsuit by a former top staffer accuses ZOA chieftain Mort Klein of massive financial improprieties. I don't think I can even cover this story I want it to be true so badly.

Chris LeBron reviews Charles Mills on American liberalism and race.

Robin DiAngelo's article on "White Fragility" has been making the rounds forever (and nearly from the moment I've read it I've wanted to write about "Gentile Fragility"), but now she's turned it into a book.

First explicitly joint Jewish-Arab pride event in Israel held in the city of Lod.

Labour continues its aggressive campaign against antisemitism .... reporters. Meanwhile, another Labour Councilor suggests that the entire antisemitism controversy is a Mossad plot to undermine Corbyn, while Corbyn himself (in 2012 comments) went on Iranian State TV to suggest that a terrorist attack on Egyptian police was actually an Israeli false flag ("I suspect the hand of Israel in this whole process of destabilisation" could, at this point, be Labour's motto). But they did suspend their "Jews are blood-drinkers and should be executed" Councilor, so there's that.

Any time I read one of these "I'm a conservative professor and my students refuse to read any White Male author" screeds, all I think is "Really? Because my students never give me a fuss about reading those same authors you listed. Maybe you're just terrible at teaching?"

What Jeff Flake Can Do

Some more churlish reactors to Senator Jeff Flake's highly public call-out of President Trump -- for example, myself -- have been in turn criticized by those who think we're basically expecting Republicans to stop being Republicans. They're not going to stop supporting conservative policy priorities just because Trump is now backing them. And so Kevin Drum asks what, short of impeachment, someone like Flake can realistically do to tangibly oppose Trump (other than deliver rousing speeches to that effect)?

First, we might observe that if opposing Trump shouldn't convert conservatives into liberals, neither does opposing Trump convert terrible policies into acceptable ones. But the easy answer to the above question is "oversight". Holding hearings, launching investigations, having probes. There's no shortage to choose from, and a few well-positioned GOP Senators could really force these issues into the public eye in a way that'd be impossible for the Trump administration to ignore.

And here's where we do see a tension between "being a Republican" and "opposing Trump" where we can reasonably expect someone like Flake to pick the latter, and where he has not yet to date done so. There's no question that these probes and investigations would hurt the Republican Party. Rep. Trey Gowdy, he of BENGHAZI! fame, not only admitted as much, but basically said that's why he had no interest in launching any serious investigations. If the public narrative becomes "Trump administration mired in scandal", that will hurt the GOP nationwide, up and down the ballot.

But while it might be unreasonable to say "Jeff Flake should become pro-choice in order to 'stop Trump'," it's not unreasonable to say "Jeff Flake should be willing to sacrifice Republican political success in order to stop Trump."

We saw a similar dynamic recently when Paul Ryan refused to endorse censuring President Trump over his Charlottesville comments because it would be "partisan". On one level, it was a transparently absurd dodge: if Ryan endorsed the censure motion, it'd literally be the opposite of partisan -- it'd be bipartisan. But on another level, what Ryan almost certainly meant was "passing such a resolution would help Democrats more than Republicans." Speaker Ryan made clear that he wasn't willing to condemn White supremacy if doing so would hurt his party. Likewise, he won't encourage meaningful oversight of the Trump administration if doing so will hurt his party. It's not a policy barrier, but a partisan one -- Ryan won't take actions against Trump insofar as they might damage Republican political standing. And there's no justifying that.

So that's an arena where we can reasonably demand Flake do certain, tangible things. He can keep his far-right, substantively atrocious policy views, and keep voting on them. But if he isn't willing to use his remaining time as a Senator to investigate Trump -- hold hearings, launch probes, support subpoenas -- even where doing so likely will give Republican politicians an ongoing series of bad news cycles, then I think it's entirely fair to say that his "opposition" is of a false and cowardly kind.

You've Got a Friend in Me

Michael Flynn, of late the National Security Advisor to President Trump, has resigned. Many are cheering, but Flynn still has some backers outraged that Trump cut Flynn loose so quickly -- including the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

To be sure, it's the chair of the Russian Foreign Affairs Committee. But it's still nice to see that Flynn still has some friends in high places.

The End of Scandal Norms

I haven't been paying super close attention to the story that Russia has some damning info on Trump that it's holding over his head. Maybe they do. Maybe they don't. This sort of raw intelligence is always -- at best -- hit or miss. But even if it is true that they've got it, I'm skeptical that it matters.

Let's say that this info is out there. Maybe it's Trump watching Russian prostitutes piss on the bed the Obamas slept in. Or maybe it's something else. Doesn't matter. And let's say it leaks. Here's the sequence of events:

• Media reports on the news breathlessly, insists that Trump's administration can never survive a scandal of this magnitude.
• Democrats seize on the news, demand hearings, resignations, hearings, and more hearings.
• A few Republicans issue murmurs about "inappropriate behavior." More than a few denounce the leak as Russian interference (now it's a problem) and suddenly demand we focus on that.
• Somebody -- probably in the National Review -- writes a "clever" column on how leftists are hypocritical because they oppose revenge porn. Mary Anne Franks gets more citations from conservative columnists than she ever dreamed nightmared.
• Republican congressional leaders do nothing. Media starts asking "are they really going to do nothing?"
• Republican congressional leaders continue to do nothing. Eventually the storm dies down.
• Scene.

This has been the great, terrible discovery of Mitch McConnell and the 21st century GOP: nobody can force them to do anything.

I first noticed this with former Bush AG Alberto Gonzales, who nearly rode out a seemingly-infinite array of scandals. And when he finally did resign, it was impossible to figure out why. There was no legal obligation to do so. Normally, we chalk up that sort of behavior to "norms" -- but the norms had already been shredded. Gonzales already demonstrated that the sorts of "norms" which would "normally" compel a resignation could be ignored more or less indefinitely. For whatever reason, he just didn't ride the train to the end.

It was Mitch McConnell who decided to take that train all the way to the terminus. You can't make a filibuster-proof majority mandatory for every bill? Why not? You can't just refuse to even hold hearings on a Supreme Court nominee for a year? Watch him! Other politicians caught on to the act. Remember Scott Desjarlais, the pro-life Republican from Tennessee who, as a doctor, had slept with several patients(!) and was caught on tape pressuring his mistress(!!) to have an abortion(!!!)? Everyone assumed he just had to resign. You know where he is now? Still in Congress.

Turns out, you don't have to do much of anything if you don't want to. There is an extraordinarily narrow range of levers through which one can be compelled to act in Washington: impeachments, being voted out of office, mandatory court orders ... it's not all that large, and it doesn't cover all that much. Much of what we take for granted our government will do is not legally compelled, but is based on politicians following established patterns of political culture. Among those patterns is that a major scandal will lead to an investigation and some measure of accountability. But nobody forces Congress to launch an investigation, and nobody forces administration officials to resign or even acknowledge scandals reported in the media.

If they ignore it long enough, the storm will eventually pass. And that is what will happen if Russia does have something on Trump and it does eventually leak. The media will convince itself that something has to happen. And then nothing will.

Chaos Muppets

Impeachment is the word of the day, as after faux-scandal after faux-scandal have failed to stick, Republicans have finally found a government act that everyone agrees was an abuse of power (the IRS audits). Now, from what we know if the IRS scandal at this stage talk of impeachment is obviously ludicrous. Nonetheless, Jon Chait argues that Republicans should let the crazy fly.

It's an interesting question, to be honest. Our constitutional system depends on norms to function, and what we've seen these past few years is what happens when these norms start to breakdown -- when it becomes acceptable to try and kneecap entire wings of government by refusing outright to confirm any agency appointees, or to hold the entire economy hostage through the debt ceiling, or, for that matter, by tossing "impeachment" around every time Obama hears a sneeze without saying "God bless you." Our political system (defined crudely as who wins and loses elections), by contrast, is zero-sum -- it doesn't matter how much the American people hate you so long as they hate the other guy more. Chaos, as Littlefinger reminds us, is a ladder, and a calculated decision to sow chaos certainly can end up redounding to one party's benefit. The system is calibrated to respond to people who stay within well-defined borders, and when a player comes along who openly flouts those rules, he can gain a distinct advantage. This is why the Joker is Batman's most dangerous foe -- his behavior defies even those norms which govern how criminals behave.

But that chaos can aid its progenitors does not mean it always will, and the truly chaotic actor is by definition incapable of ceasing setting fires just because its no longer in his interest. The problem for Republicans is that I don't think this is planned chaos. The Clinton impeachment, for example, was obviously farcically weak on its merits, but at least it could be plausibly sold as a political strategy. It turned out to be a bad gambit -- the American people reacted badly, and the GOP was tarred as a bunch of overzealous hypocritical loons -- but they at least could claim that outcome was apparent only with the benefit of hindsight.

By contrast, today it seems quite clear that all the impeachment chatter is not a calculated strategy but simply an uncontrollable reflex. Impeachment was uttered about Solyndra and Fast and Furious. A number of high-profile Republicans have contemplated it for one alleged offense or another. World Net Daily convened a panel to discuss impeaching Obama over no less than a dozen different "scandals" ranging from the Libya war to Cap and Trade. Rob Portman gets elder statesman points for not being ready to commit to impeachment yet.

Republicans were convinced in 2012 that Benghazi was their ticket to victory, and were shocked that American voters didn't seem to think the Obama administration did anything wrong. One could say they've learned nothing. But I think the problem is deeper. The impeachment talk is no longer a political strategy -- its just the raw result of the conservative id flailing about, and Republicans can no longer keep it under control.

Just the Latest Victim of the Gay Agenda

A gay activist has sent an open letter to former Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch (R), formally apologizing for destroying the sanctity of her marriage after she admitted to an affair with a younger (male) subordinate. Koch had been a critical figure in Minnesota Republican's quest to bar gay marriage, and now its evident why -- her own marriage was teetering on the precipice, and even the slightest breeze that marriage equality might bring could push her over the edge.

Stand By Your Man

The bad news: The wife of Wisconsin State Sen. Randy Hopper (R), one of the 8 GOP senators being targeted for removal, is signing the petition to get him recalled.

The good news: Sen. Hopper has moved out of his house and in with a 25 year-old mistress, so his "wife" likely will soon be his "ex-wife". Because otherwise, that'd be really embarrassing.

Why Now?

I'm not sure how I feel about Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN) resigning after admitting an affair today. The fact that Souder is an abstinence-only crusader adds some irony, the fact that he shot a video promoting abstinence with his mistress adds yet more. But while I am pleased that for once a Republican actually has to leave politics due to sexual shenanigans (a Democratic affair, Bill Clinton excepted, seems to be death-on-sight), how is it that Souder has to resign while Senator David Vitter (R-LA) is still around?

Bragging Rights

A conservative, "family values" state representative from California has resigned after being caught tape bragging to a colleague about the not one but two affairs he's currently carrying on.

What. A. Moron.

I Guess You Could Say They're Improving

Florida Democratic Rep. Tim Mahoney paid his former mistress $121,000 after she threatened to sue. The women, who was on Mahoney's staff and began the affair with him during his 2006 Congressional election campaign, tried to break off the relationship after she learned that Mahoney was also involved in yet other extra-marital affairs.

Mahoney, of course, was elected to the seat formerly held by Rep. Mark Foley (R), who resigned due to his own sex scandal involving male teenage Congressional Pages. So I guess you could say that the district is improving -- at least this scandal involved adults.

UPDATE: Mahoney has asked the House Ethics Committee to investigate his conduct. That's interesting.

The AG with a Thousand Lives

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales mis-handled classified data (shades of Sandy Berger?), according to a just-released DoJ report. In classic Gonzales fashion, he reported that

he did not remember whether he took home notes regarding the government's most sensitive national security programs and did not know they contained classified information despite notations on the papers that they were "eyes only -- top secret," according to a report released this morning.

The Justice Department's inspector general concluded that Gonzales had improperly handled materials about the government's most sensitive national security programs, carrying the notes home in an unlocked briefcase for an "indeterminate" period of time. Gonzales failed to keep them in a safe at his Northern Virginia home because he "could not remember the combination," according to the report.

And, also in classic Gonzales fashion, the upshot of this ordeal will be....nada:

Improper handling of classified material can result in criminal charges, but prosecutors in the department's National Security Division declined to bring a case after reviewing the allegations and consulting with senior career officials at Justice, according to the report and lawyers involved in the case.

Is this guy made of teflon or what?

No Secret Service Agent is an Island

I don't have much to comment on the story, summarized by Steve Benen, regarding a man's lawsuit for against the Secret Service for illegally arresting him after he confronted Dick Cheney, then covering it up. But I thought one part was amusing:

The agent who made the arrest, Virgil D. Reichle Jr., said in a deposition that he was left hanging with an untenable arrest because two agents assigned to the vice president had at first agreed with a Denver agent that there had been assault on Mr. Cheney by Mr. Howards, then changed their stories to say that no assault had occurred.
[...]
Mr. McLaughlin said Mr. Reichle, who has since been transferred to Guam, asked him in a call several hours after the encounter to say that there had been an assault to bolster justification for the arrest.

Emphasis added.

Now, I want to stress that there is no reason to think that this is punitive (indeed, the essence of the story is that both sets of Secret Service agents are claiming the others are lying, so it's difficult to know who are the "good guys"). Indeed, I can very much imagine Guam being considered quite a cushy job.

But there something tickling -- if only in a purely literary sense -- about reading a report about a scandal involving this administration where a key player appears to have been summarily banished to a remote island.

The Real Reason To Say No To Giuliani

Steve Benen has the scoop on the latest Giuliani scandal to hit -- this one having to do with him using official resources to conduct (and cover up) his affair with Judith Regan Nathan (too many scandals, too little time....).

Eh. I mean, maybe I'm just jaded. But while I certainly find this very distasteful, it annoys me that we have to use this has the route to derail his campaign. Giuliani is a nut. He has authoritarian instincts, a foreign policy that seems to consisted of blowing up any country that winks at us the wrong way, and really just doesn't seem to have the skill set needed to be an effective President. I'd be far happier if that became the reason his campaign lost steam.

Too idealist, I guess.

Gonzo News

Okay, now that I've finished celebrating (for now, anyway) the departure of el terrible himself from the Attorney General's office, the next question to consider is: Why? Or rather, why now? Nobody can seem to figure it out. Dan Markel and the folks at Slate take stabs at it (with varying degrees of seriousness), but as the Washington Post's analysis noted, the facial appearance is that this is the absolute worst time Gonzalez could have left. He'd seemed to have extracted the maximum possible damage from the administration, and leaving now just insures that his sins remain in the public eye even longer. Unless it was that Gonzalez finally remembered he had a duty to the country to leave before he did anymore to destroy the DoJ's integrity (snicker), it's really rather inexplicable.

Unless....Both Henry Farrell and Kevin Drum (well, his wife) noticed something odd about Gonzalez's departure. Specifically, that it came during a vacation break for The Daily Show.

Could it really be....nah.

Update: I should add that by calling Gonzalez "el terrible", I mean absolutely no disrespect to Erik Morales, a fine man whose own recent retirement should be celebrated because of his great performances across his boxing career (Gonzalez could be rather pugilistic himself at times--but his "great performances" were rather few and usually unintentional).

86ing the Voter Fraud Panic

Following up on my post regarding the Bush Administration's fraudulent presentation of voter fraud evidence, the New York Times did the legwork on voter fraud prosecutions for the 2006 election.

Five years after the Bush administration began a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department has turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections, according to court records and interviews.

Although Republican activists have repeatedly said fraud is so widespread that it has corrupted the political process and, possibly, cost the party election victories, about 120 people have been charged and 86 convicted as of last year.

Most of those charged have been Democrats, voting records show. Many of those charged by the Justice Department appear to have mistakenly filled out registration forms or misunderstood eligibility rules, a review of court records and interviews with prosecutors and defense lawyers show.

Let's see...86 convictions, across four years, even assuming they were all in one electoral jurisdiction (unlikely), that gives us....almost no impact on the democratic process!

So am I saying people who do commit voter fraud shouldn't be prosecuted? No. Well, except sometimes yes. Like in this case:

Ms. Prude’s path to jail began after she attended a Democratic rally in Milwaukee featuring the Rev. Al Sharpton in late 2004. Along with hundreds of others, she marched to City Hall and registered to vote. Soon after, she sent in an absentee ballot.

Four years earlier, though, Ms. Prude had been convicted of trying to cash a counterfeit county government check worth $1,254. She was placed on six years’ probation.

Ms. Prude said she believed that she was permitted to vote because she was not in jail or on parole, she testified in court. Told by her probation officer that she could not vote, she said she immediately called City Hall to rescind her vote, a step she was told was not necessary.

“I made a big mistake, like I said, and I truly apologize for it,” Ms. Prude said during her trial in 2005. That vote, though, resulted in a felony conviction and sent her to jail for violating probation.

Careless? Sure. Worthy of criminal prosecution? I don't think so. Greatest threat to democracy ever? Oh please.

Rich Hasen of the Election Law Blog (Loyala-Los Angeles) comments:

Together, these two reports show that despite tremendous efforts by the DOJ and others to ferret out instances of voter fraud taking place at polling places (as opposed to, for example, vote buying occurring with absentee ballots), there is very little evidence at this point. It is now incumbent upon those who still believe a great deal of voter fraud is taking place at the polls to come forward with a plan with sound methodology to show that such fraud is occurring on any kind of scale that would justify efforts such as the new recent onerous voter identification laws that have been put in place by some legislatures. But some who raise the fraud arguments do not appear to have an interest in relying on more than anecdote. The stories show the unfortunate politicization of election administration reform efforts in recent years.

The litany of laws that put ever-higher hurdles to voting is truly staggering (for my source-demanding friends, Publius is citing to NYU's Brennan Center for Justice) is staggering. The laws work to disenfranchise disempowered communities--and that's when the administrators aren't deliberately targeting them for removal from the rolls. They stop some people who can't vote legally, sure, but they disenfranchise many, many more law abiding US citizens whose right to vote is constitutionally protected. This is a travesty. And given the history that I already mentioned, it's a travesty that we have no valid plea of ignorance towards.

I'll Show You A Fraud

The topic of the day is voter fraud, as this article detailing Bush administration "edits" to a report on voter fraud has been racing around the blogosphere. Basically, a bipartisan panel concluded that there was a solid consensus that voter fraud in the 2006 elections was minimal--specifically, "there is widespread but not unanimous agreement that there is little polling place fraud." By some magical coincidence, this rather definitive conclusion was morphed by Bush's political appointees into "there is a great deal of debate on the pervasiveness of fraud."

Obviously, I have a lot to say as to how this impacts the voter fraud/voter disenfranchisement debate. Since placing more stringent laws to combat voter fraud will inevitably deter some legitimate votes (and vice versa, more liberal voting laws make it easier to commit fraud), a fair examination of the issue needs to look at whether the we should care more about fraud or disenfranchisement, because from a policy perspective we can only pursue one or the other. I have blogged at length on this point before, and the empirical data is beyond question that voter disenfranchisement is a more serious problem than voter fraud. Voting rights expert Spencer Overton has estimated that there is 1000:1 ratio of legitimate to fraudulent votes deterred caused by imposing voter ID requirements. Indiana managed to justify its voter ID law on fraud-prevention grounds, despite never having a prosecuted instance of voter fraud in the history of the state. In the America we live in today, the quantity of evidence that voter disenfranchisement is a more serious problem for electoral integrity than voter fraud rivals that for gravity. The mendacity of the boys who cry fraud is akin to Young Earth Creationists, except that I'm more inclined to chalk up the former to pure hackery, with the latter ascribed to mere ignorance.

But before we get there, I think it's important to link this revelation into the scandal d'jour for the Bush administration--the attorney purge. There is a nexus point between the two stories, and it stems from a concerted conservative effort to lock out of democratic participation its political enemies--often racial minorities. Quoteth Josh Marshall:

You have to put all these pieces together to see the whole picture. The Republican party is heavily invested in hyping and inventing claims of voter fraud which they then use to stymie legitimate voter registration drives and institute 'ballot integrity' efforts which have the actual goal of limiting voting by racial minorities and under-income voters. The truth can hurt but that's the unvarnished truth. And the backdrop to the US Attorney Purge was a concerted effort to enlist US Attorneys to put the power of the state criminal prosecution apparatus behind this partisan gambit.

This is a crucial point. The firings of the New Mexico and Oregon attorneys, especially, are being linked to these public servant's refusal to pursue politically motivated voter fraud charges against Democrats. These activities have a long and sordid history in America. Scott Lemuiex summarizes:

It should be noted as well that the use of ostensibly neutral franchise-restricting measures to suppress the vote along racial and class lines has an extensive and incredibly ugly history in this country. A lot of people aren't aware of this, but even in its most conservative periods, the Supreme Court wouldn't allow direct violations (or transparent evasions, like the grandfather clause) of the 15th Amendment. But the use of facially neutral techniques like poll taxes and literacy tests allowed states to disenfranchise African-Americans anyway. "Vote ID" laws, felon disenfranchisement that results in the purging of some non-felons, and other techniques repeat the pattern at a lower (but, in a tightly divided electorate, potentially decisive) level.

Consider this passage from Michael J. Klarman's magisterial work on the Jim Crow era, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights:

Southern whites carefully avoided open contravention of the [15th] amendment. They assumed that the implementation of explicit racial conditions on suffrage would prompt federal intervention—either court action or reduction of southern congressional representation under section 2 of the Fourteenth amendment. Thus, in 1910, southern politicians were alarmed by Maryland’s disfranchisement proposal, which denied that the Fifteenth Amendment was binding and expressly qualified the suffrage based on race. Critics thought the nation would ‘not submit without a protest to the barefaced nullification’ of the Fifteenth Amendment and feared that Maryland’s scheme would endanger more subtle disfranchisement measures. Even southern state courts might have felt compelled to invalidate laws expressly barring black political participation, much as they reversed convictions of blacks where jury commissioners had deliberately and openly excluded blacks jurors. In 1904, a Georgia court invalidated a law forbidding blacks from voting in municipal elections.

Yet most white southerners thought the Fifteenth Amendment was illegitimate. A leading Louisiana disfranchiser stated a prevalent view when he called the amendment ‘the greatest crime of the Nineteenth Century’; crazed Republicans bent on partisan gain had imposed ignorant ‘negro domination’ on the South. Deterred from explicitly nullifying the amendment, white southerners generally felt ‘morally justified in evading and defeating [its] admitted purpose.’ Disfranchisers were not subtle about their objectives. At the Virginia convention, Carter Glass acknowledged that his mission was ‘to discriminate to the very extremity of permissible action under the limitations of the Federal Constitution, with a view to the elimination of every negro voter who can be gotten rid of, legally.’(33)

We tell the history of racist oppression in America as one of Southerners openly and proudly passing laws that said, in substance, "No Blacks." But often times, that wasn't what happened, and they specifically drew up the laws to pass formalist muster.

Here's a primary source from the era saying much the same thing:

Largely through the foresight and sagacity of the late Hon. J.Z. George, the Mississippi Constitution of 1890 securely guards against the registration of Negroes in large numbers. Its provisions relating to the prerequisites to registration as an elector, impose the following requirements: Two years of residence in the state; one year of residence in the election district; payment of all taxes for the preceding two years (the applicant must produce evidence to the satisfaction of the election officials that all taxes have been paid); freedom from disqualification by a prior conviction of certain crimes; payment of a poll tax; and a literacy requirement.
[...]
Large numbers of Negroes are automatically disqualified from the exercise of the franchise by moving from one county to another to make crops at the first of each year.

Most the [sic] Negroes in Mississippi are poverty-stricken. That fact, coupled with the natural improvidence of the race, will lead to a default of many in the payment of taxes….
[…]
In specifying those crimes which would disqualify a citizen from exercise of the privilege of voting, upon conviction, the compilers of the Mississippi Constitution listed those offenses which the irresponsible and impulsive class of uneducated Negroes are most prone to commit….
[…]
The illiteracy of the Negro population of the South is well known. Few have more than the rudiments of education. Wholesale disqualification would follow the imposition of a literacy test, in the event of any general tendency of Negroes to apply for registration. The Mississippi Constitution requires that an elector shall

‘be able to read any section of the constitution of this state; or he shall be able to understand the same when read to him, or give a reasonable interpretation of the same.’

The constitution leaves to the choice of the election officials the selection of the section to be interpreted. The most illiterate white man could readily give a clear interpretation of the provision that ‘The governor shall be at least thirty years of age,’ but it would tax the wits of any Negro applicant not educated in law (and lawyers may not serve as jurors) to adequately explain just what is meant [*203] by the provision that ‘The writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended,’ or that ‘Ex post facto laws shall not be passed.’[J.F. Barbour, Note and Comment Mississippi Law Journal 8 (1935): 196-204, pp. 201-203]

Barbour, mind you, wrote this in an article agreeing that laws which explicitly forbade Blacks from voting or serving on juries were unconstitutional. This was the section where he explained why acceding to that formalistic principle would not threaten White Supremacy.

I stress these points because we simply cannot discuss this issue blind to the history behind these sorts of policies, and the manner in which formally neutral voting laws were a key pillar in America's racist hierarchy. The willful blindness exhibited on this issue is simply unbecoming of genuine deliberative dialogue, and ought to be called out more often.

Here's a round-up of other views

Steve Benen

Hilzoy's post explains why, if you want to steal an election, voter fraud is a really dumb way to do it.

FireDogLake

PoliBlog offers a strong and sober analysis of the story.

Mark Kleiman discusses the Bush Administration's efforts to suppress reports contrary to their policy on voter fraud and related issues.

Politburo Diktat certainly sounds like "a conservative whose been mugged by reality" in this post.

Brilliant at Breakfast: "It can no longer be denied: Republicans will rig the system to ensure Republican power by any means necessary. The question now is this: What are we going to do about it?" Maybe a bit hyperbolic, but its tough to argue with the trend line.

Kevin Drum finds the "great deal of debate" line echoing eerily of global warming "skeptics." No kidding.

And finally, Matthew Yglesias' short but sweet post has been a reference point for many of the top bloggers--for good reason.