The Washington Post reports on an — at best — highly misleading letter the Justice Department recently sent in response to an April 10 subpoena from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The committee, chaired by Representative Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), is investigating a quid pro quo deal engineered by Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, President…

The American Civil Rights Union wants local election officials to clean up voter rolls in Mississippi. Last Friday, the group filed suit against two counties that have more registered voters than the Census says they have voting-eligible citizens. The ACRU is stepping into the breach left by the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department. Under Assistant…

Imagine a world in which the moral code and the penal code were identical. At one time, that scenario existed. Centuries ago in England, there were only nine felonies, including murder, rape and robbery. Everyone knew what constituted criminal behavior. My, how things have changed. Today, there are perhaps 4,500 federal offenses and more than 300,000 relevant regulations…

Left-wing magazine Mother Jones made news this week with a report based on a secret recording of a Feb. 2 meeting of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell with campaign strategists.  Federal and state law prohibits publication of information acquired through secret recording, but a 2001 Supreme Court ruling gives publishers like Mother Jones a get-out-of-jail-free…

Gov. Bob McDonnell and others propose automatically restoring all civil rights — including the right to vote — to nonviolent felons just as soon as they have completed their sentences and paid all outstanding fines and restitution. Advocates of this idea insist it’s a simple matter of compassion and justice. But automatic restoration is not in the best interests of…

The proposal to automatically restore felons' right to vote as soon as they have completed their sentences is shortsighted and bad public policy. When presented as a measure of compassion and justice, it is also hypocritical, as automatic restoration is not in the best interests of felons or the general public. Under Florida's current system, nonviolent offenders face a…

The Supreme Court should strike down Section 5, which was a temporary, emergency provision that was only supposed to last five years. The terrible conditions that justified Section 5 in 1965 do not exist today. The right to vote of black Americans is not at stake. The heart of the Voting Rights Act is Section 2, which outlaws racial discrimination in voting. Section 2 is…

Representative John Lewis certainly deserves the nation’s thanks for the fight he led during the civil-rights movement. But his latest commentary in the Washington Post, about the Shelby County case and the Voting Rights Act, shows that he is living in the past. The South has changed since he marched from Selma to Montgomery nearly 50 years ago. Even the article’s…

Two documents filed Friday by federal prosecutors in Washington paint a sad picture of an erstwhile political power couple. Prosecutors filed what is called an “Information,” which lays out the government’s case against Sandra Jackson and former congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. Normally, federal prosecutors go to a grand jury and obtain an indictment against defendants. The…

On Friday morning, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously struck down President Obama’s alleged “recess” appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The appointments were made over a year ago, so the ruling invalidates a number of actions taken by the NLRB since then. The five-member NLRB cannot act on issues before it absent a…

Eliana Johnson noted yesterday on the Corner that a lawyer in the Voting Section of the Department of Justice, Dan Freeman, proudly announced on his Facebook page that he “started the crowd booing when Paul Ryan came out” at the inauguration. As I pointed out in my series of articles on hires at the Justice Department in 2011, co-authored with Christian Adams, Freeman is…

So some think that the government can resolve the debt-limit debate just by minting a $1 trillion platinum coin and depositing it with the Fed? Who are they trying to kid? The proposal revolves around the age-old practice of "seigniorage," which is the difference between the value of the metal in a coin and its face value. Each quarter in your pocket contains about five…

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, R, won a significant victory against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Jan. 3. A federal district court in Virginia ruled in favor of the state in a dispute over stormwater runoff in the case Virginia Deptartment of Transportation v. EPA. As Cuccinelli said, the "EPA was literally treating water itself -- the very…

Back in the 1960s, there was real discrimination in American colleges. At places like the University of Mississippi, students were threatened, assaulted, and arrested for demanding equal rights. The U.S. Justice Department (with just a handful of lawyers) fought hard, serious battles to stop these civil rights abuses. Today, with a staff of 800 and a 2012 appropriation…

The Professional Review Board of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) has reportedly recommended firing four managers — William Newell, Mark Chait, William McMahon, and George Gillett — and disciplining two lower-level employees — David Voth and Hope MacAllister — for their roles in Operation Fast and Furious. The panel’s recommendations will now…