DOJ doubling lawyers to ensure "voting rights"

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The Justice Department is mounting an aggressive effort to challenge restrictive state voting laws on civil rights grounds and to marshal resources across the government to ensure voters – especially minorities – are not disenfranchised, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Friday.

"There are many things that are open to debate in America, but the right of all eligible citizens to vote is not one of them," Garland said in remarks at the department's Great Hall, a venue choice that underscored the gravity of Garland's message.

The attorney general said that within 30 days, DOJ would double the number of lawyers assigned to protect voting rights. Further, he said, Justice will "vigorously use existing laws, including the Voting Rights Act, the Motor Voter Act, the Help America Vote Act and more, to aggressively protect the right to vote."

The moves are a clear message to Congress and to the 14 states that have already moved to make it harder for people to vote: The Biden administration isn't waiting around for Congress to act before taking unilateral action.

That theme may be played out in other arenas, such as the creation of a comprehensive infrastructure plan, if Congress cannot come to terms. Biden's proposed massive infrastructure bill has failed to get enough support in the Senate to survive a filibuster. Biden says he is hopeful for a bipartisan compromise, but the White House has noted that the program could be passed with Democratic support only, as part of a budget reconciliation bill that cannot be filibustered.

Voting rights is viewed as especially critical by Democrats, since decennial redistricting and a slew of restrictive voting laws threaten to put Democrats in the minority in 2022 and beyond.

Biden has also presented the issue as a broader question of the survival of democracy itself in America, particularly in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, a widespread disinformation campaign and "audits" of 2020 elections already deemed legitimate by state elections officials and state and federal courts.

More recently, Georgia Republicans, stunned by Biden's win there in the 2020 election and the victories of two Democratic senators who gave their party the effective majority in the Senate, passed voting rules that have been attacked as a way to discourage voting in Black and low-income areas. For example, the law makes it illegal to hand out food and bottled water to people waiting in long lines to vote.

Garland noted the intimidation and death threats made against both high-level state elections officials and volunteer poll workers and said the Department of Justice and the FBI would investigate and prosecute perpetrators.

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