We Can't Ignore the Latest Lawsuit Against Trump's Kangaroo Voting Commission

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

13 November 17

The assault on voting rights is getting messy.

he Presidential Commission on Voter Integrity, headed by noted friend of the franchise—and the immigrant—Kris Kobach of Kansas, has fallen rather clamorously off the radar since its disastrous open hearing in New Hampshire back in September. Not that the commission hasn’t been busy. So far 15 lawsuits of one kind or another have been filed against the Commission, and that will keep your staff pretty damn occupied. The whole puppet show has fallen into disarray, largely because it was founded in deeply bad faith, and because Kris Kobach is the Midwest distributor of Bad Faith on behalf of James Crow, Esq. LLC.

But the latest lawsuit is one we can’t ignore. The commission is being sued by one of its own members, as we learn from the invaluable Ari Berman at Mother Jones.

Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap, a Democrat whom Trump appointed to the commission in May, sued the commission in federal court on Thursday, alleging violations of the Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972, which requires presidential advisory committees to operate in a bipartisan and transparent manner. The lawsuit says Dunlap is being deliberately kept in the dark about the commission’s work. “The law and good conscience require Secretary Dunlap to participate meaningfully in the work of the Commission; however, despite diligent efforts to gain access, Secretary Dunlap has been, and continues to be, blocked from receiving Commission documents necessary to carry out his responsibilities,” the lawsuit states. “By obstructing certain commissioners’ access to information and failing to allow substantive participation of commissioners with balance in terms of points of view, the Commission and its staff have compromised the legitimacy of any findings that may emerge from this process.”

Dunlap’s cause of action can probably best be explained by the brothers of the Faber College chapter of Delta Tau Chi.

Though a few Democrats, including Dunlap, were eventually appointed, “the Commission’s superficial bipartisanship has been a façade,” the lawsuit states.

The suit cites a number of examples of how Dunlap and others have been excluded from the commission’s work. Kobach consulted with von Spakovsky and another hardline conservative commission member prior to requesting extensive voter data from all 50 states, but did not inform the full commission of the action. Dunlap alleges he was not consulted beforehand about the agenda of commission meetings or documents introduced at them. He also claims he’s been told that the commission’s work is “on hold” pending the outcome of litigation against the commission, but a right-wing group in Minnesota said it had been invited to speak at a commission meeting in December, which Dunlap is unaware of. When he asked commission staffer Andrew Kossack for “copies of any and all correspondence between Commission members,” Dunlap said “Kossack did not provide any documents or agree to provide any documents.”

The assaults on the franchise are going to intensify, especially if Tuesday night’s results prove to be the precursor to the 2018 midterms that a lot of people believe them to be. Perhaps the last best hope that defenders of voting rights have against this kangaroo confab is that interested parties can sue the commission to tatters, leaving what’s left to public scorn and mockery. After all, remember, it wasn’t over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor.