Democrats want to strip states and local jurisdictions of their control over elections and hand power to President Joe Biden’s weaponized Department of Justice and its left-wing allies to override election integrity laws.
Sens. Raphael Warnock, Dick Durbin, and Chuck Schumer reintroduced HR 14, dubbed the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, on March 1, more than two years after it failed to make headway in the Senate after being passed by the House in 2021.
If the bill were to pass, it would enable the Department of Justice to “intervene anywhere in the country to overrule local or state authorities whenever the left alleges that changes in the laws could theoretically disadvantage minority voters,” as Jonathan Tobin explained in these pages in 2022.
Shelby County v. Holder
The legislation is a power grab meant to circumvent the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision that restrained the federal government’s overreach into elections.
In 1965, a section of the Voting Rights Act barred certain jurisdictions — “states or political subdivisions that maintained tests or devices as prerequisites to voting and had low voter registration or turnout” at the time — from making changes to their voting laws without federal approval or “preclearance.” Despite an initial sunset of five years, Congress continued to reauthorize the provision, but never updated the 1960s-era formula by which the law determined which jurisdictions were subject to federal scrutiny.
In Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court found that the formula was outdated and ruled
