A federal judge declined Tuesday a request by voting rights groups to block temporarily a new voting restriction in three states. The groups are suing a federal official over his unilateral move to approve a proof-of-citizenship requirement to register to vote in Kansas, Georgia and Alabama.
In his order refusing to issue a temporary restraining order on the measure, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon in Washington suggested that he was skeptical the challengers would succeed when a full case was heard on the merits. The order comes after the Department of Justice had signaled it was siding with the voting rights groups, at least when it came to temporarily blocking the requirement.
The League of Women Voters, Project Vote and other civil rights groups are challenging the decision of Brian Newby — the recently appointed executive director of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission — to change the federal voting registration forms for the three state to include a requirement that registering voters show a proof of citizenship. The groups say the requirement violates the National Voter Registration Act and that Newby broke commission protocols in how he went about changing the form. Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (pictured above) has joined Newby in defending the move.
Leon said in Tuesday’s order that the groups’ argument for blocking the mandate did not meet the requirements of a temporary restraining order, but that he was also “not convinced” they had “demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success.”
Read Leon’s order below:
Can you imagine that? From a GW Bush appointee.
The American Putsch comes in the courts, not the streets nor the nature reserves.
Judge Leon is a Dubya apiopntee who has become a go-to jurist for the RWNJs. He slapped down the NSA (but only under Obama), he slapped down the State Department in the FOIA case in which the right was trying to get all of Huma Abedin’s employment history with State and now this. HE IS THE JACKASS WHO RULED IN 2005 THAT PRISONERS AT GITMO HAVE NO RIGHT TO CHALLENGE THEIR IMPRISONMENT OR SEEK RELEASE (he only changed his tune on the subject after the SCOTUS issued a stinging rebuke of that decision). IN his history, he also helped investigate Whitewater and advised Cheney during the Iran-Contra investigation. I can’t fucking stand this guy and you should take not of him, because he’s precisely who a President Cruz or Trump might appoint in 2017. He hangs out with Clarence Thomas.
He is a dillhole who revels in his power and is clearly a conservative ideologue. He also went to my law school (Suffolk Univ.)…to my shame…but I suppose the conservative bent is to be expected from some Suffolk alum. Suffolk hosts the Beacon Hill Institute, which is a conservative economic think tank funded by the Coors and it holds great sway there…surprisingly conservative bent for a MA school, especially one that produces most of MA’s litigators.
He is dangerous and a dangerous possiblity, and if you don’t believe me, consider this: his fellow conservatives try to put him in the same category as Learned Hand.
If only it was an oil company rather than The League of Women voters…
YES!!! Hammer hit nail on head! That’s why the SCOTUS fuss. It’s not about “balance” or “tradition”. It’s about victory and getting it from the Bench. The whole fucking American thing is broken and the Constitution Lovers broke it. Doing it the Founders way didn’t work for them in these times so they just fucked up the whole thing with partisan Judicial appointments, lawsuits which they object to when others do them and lying though their teeth. They have a media structure, cowered opposition and the American Majority, consisting of uneducated dumb asses voting for them.
They won.