OPINION:
There’s more – and less – than meets the eye regarding the recent Department of Justice lawsuit filed against Georgia’s new election integrity law. The complaint alleges that several provisions of SB 202 were passed with a discriminatory purpose in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
The complaint relies heavily on the implication that Georgia is an inherently racist state. A DOJ press release refers to “Georgia’s history of discrimination against Black Georgians, demographic shifts in the state leading to an increase in the number of Black voters and other voters of color,” as well as “Black Georgians’ unprecedented recent successes in electing candidates of choice.” The lawsuit decries the state’s “history of racially polarized voting” and that many “elected officials in Georgia have not been responsive to the particularized needs of Black residents.” Even raising the question of fraud is evidence of racism, the lawsuit submits.
That race-based analysis lines up nicely with radical critical race theory. Proponent Khiara Bridges explains that, among other things, CRT is an acknowledgment that “racism is a normal feature of society and is embedded within systems and institutions, like the legal system, that replicate racial inequality.” And sure enough, another leading adherent of the doctrine, Ibram Kendi, ties his racialist ideology to leftist and partisan attacks on voter integrity measures.
The threat from this extremist ideology isn’t just in your child’s classroom. The tenets of CRT are guiding principles across the federal government. Contracted trainers lecture white Homeland Security employees that they’ve been “socialized into oppressor roles” and that the very concept of “colorblindness” is racist. At other agencies, trainers tell classes that “virtually all white people contribute to racism.” While federal employees are challenged to “struggle to own their racism” and “invest in race-based growth.”
And what we see in the high-profile case against Georgia’s election integrity law is the Biden administration’s weaponized application of CRT through its hyper-politicized Department of Justice. Unfortunately for this administration, facts do matter in the courtroom. And as far as lawsuits go, the administration’s case is notably weak.
As evidence against the Georgia law, the official complaint offers up that “It passed along party lines with no support from Black (sic) legislators.” So the Biden Justice Department would have a court believe that whites voting for a bill is necessarily evidence of racism and suggests that black Americans can only be represented by those who share their skin color. Not only is this embarrassingly flimsy legal reasoning, but it’s also pure CRT balderdash.
Thankfully, the Supreme Court’s 6-3 powerful ruling in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee on July 1 involving a similar dispute in Arizona could spell the end of the Biden DOJ’s CRT assault on Georgia. The decision reaffirms that states may prevent election fraud without waiting for it to occur within their own borders. The ruling also soundly rebuffs the race-baiting of the leftist CRT partisans who pretend that neutral provisions to combat voter fraud (such as voter ID requirements and bans on ballot harvesting) are, by definition, racist.
States can be confident that they can go full speed ahead to strengthen elections and protect voting rights with security measures such as voter ID requirements and other sensible measures to make it harder to steal elections.
And the Biden DOJ must acknowledge that the decision most certainly seems to destroy the foundation of its assault on Georgia’s election reform laws. The DOJ should withdraw its CRT sham lawsuit immediately.
But the rule of law was never the Biden DOJ’s true object, and its race-baiting legal attack on Georgia should not be taken at face value. This is about producing CRT political theater for national consumption. The administration hopes to thwart state election security reforms by inciting racial discord as a means to move leftist and partisan voting bills through Congress that would enshrine in federal law the critical race theory approach to election security measures. These CRT voting bills would, for example, approach measures such as voter id are presumptively racist.
The administration deliberately plays the CRT race card as its weapon of choice for building power and driving its agenda. Power politics and racial strife are an ugly and combustible mix.
• Tom Fitton is the President of the legal watchdog group Judicial Watch.
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