With help from Rishika Dugyala, Eleanor Mueller and Teresa Wiltz
A person holds up signs during a voting rights rally at Liberty Plaza near the Georgia State Capitol on June 8 in Atlanta. | Brynn Anderson/AP Photo
What up Recast family! The countdown clock to the Fourth of July holiday has officially started. The Senate is already off this week. The House has votes, including one on whether to move forward the Democratic-led investigation of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. More on that in a bit. For now, let’s jump in.
The litigation is filed. Now the waiting game begins.
The Department of Justice, as many predicted, is suing the state of Georgia over race-based issues stemming from the state’s new voting law enacted three months ago.
The lawsuit, filed on Friday, alleges Georgia lawmakers enacted the law knowing that it would have “the disproportionate effect … on Black voters’ ability to participate in the political process on an equal basis with white voters.”
In other words, DOJ officials say they have enough evidence to prove that when SB 202 was approved on a party-line vote and signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp in March, Republicans did so with the intent of making it more difficult for minorities to participate in the election process.
Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks at a news conference on June 25, announcing that the Department of Justice would be suing the state of Georgia over its new election laws. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Supporters of the law clapped back.
They accused the Biden administration of playing politics the same week Democrats failed to advance the massive For the People Act voting rights bill in the Senate.
For his part, Kemp accused Democrats of “weaponizing the Department of Justice” in their effort to enact an agenda “that undermines election integrity.”
The Republican governor made no mention of former President Donald Trump, who for months railed against state officials — including Kemp — for not overturning Georgia’s 2020 election results.
State officials conducted three recounts and audits affirming the results: Georgia flipped to the Democrats for the first time in a generation.
Kemp is now facing the threat of a primary challenge.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp speaks at a news conference about the state’s new Election Integrity Law on April 10 in Marietta, Georgia. | Megan Varner/Getty Images
The DOJ suit was filed on the eighth anniversary of the 2013 Supreme Court ruling Shelby County v. Holder, which effectively stripped the preclearance safeguards put in place by the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Those provisions empowered the DOJ or a federal judge to first review changes to voting procedures in states and jurisdictions with a history of discrimination — including Georgia.
Attorney General Merrick Garland referred to the part that was stripped away — Section 5 of the VRA — as “an invaluable tool” at the DOJ’s disposal.
While the DOJ’s actions are likely to galvanize voters and activists on both sides of the issue, the truth is it will take years before courts resolve the lawsuit.
And that means the 2022 elections in Georgia, which include both a Senate and a gubernatorial race, will likely proceed with Georgia’s voting law intact, according to a number of election watchers interviewed by The Recast. It might not be resolved in time for the 2024 presidential election, either.
A message from Intel:
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Regardless, the DOJ is flexing its muscles, signaling that, despite having fewer tools in its tool kit, it’ll still use the full weight of the federal government to battle Georgia over perceived violations to federal voting laws.
Meanwhile, other states with Republican-led legislatures are fast-tracking “voter integrity” overhauls. Florida passed new voter laws in April. And Texas is set to hold a special session next month to consider stricter voting laws.
We’ll be watching to see how the Georgia lawsuit — and other potential DOJ legislation — plays out. We’re betting that it’s just the beginning.
All the best
The Recast Team
Power dynamics are changing. With The Recast, you’ll get a twice-weekly breakdown of how race and identity are the DNA of American politics and policy. Stay tuned for fresh analysis, scoops and new voices.
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THE NUMBERS GAME
In a sneak peek of a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll due out Wednesday, respondents share their opinions of President Joe Biden’s handling of the voting rights issue.
Overall, there wasn’t much daylight between those who said they strongly approved of the president on the issue (26 percent) and those who strongly disapproved (30 percent).
However, when broken down by race, the disparities begin to broaden.
Black respondents led the way in giving the president’s high marks with 71 percent either strongly approving or somewhat approving Biden’s handling of voting rights issues. That’s followed by Latinos, who said they strongly or somewhat approve of his performance at 57 percent. White respondents were not as impressed though. Nearly half of this voting bloc — 46 percent — said they either somewhat or strongly disapproved of Biden’s handling of voting rights.
THE ROUNDTABLE
We wanted to dig a little deeper into the U.S. v. Georgia case and talk about the implications of the suit moving forward. Joining the discussion is Gilda Daniels, a law professor at the University of Baltimore. She previously served as deputy chief of the DOJ’s civil rights division, voting section, under both the Clinton and Bush administrations.
Also joining the chat is Pearl Dowe, a professor of African American Studies and political science at Emory University in Atlanta.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
THE RECAST: When the DOJ announced it was going to file a lawsuit against Georgia over its voting laws, did this come as a surprise to you?
DOWE: It was not a surprise. It is one of the last remaining tools that the Justice Department has following the Shelby case. And there are several other lawsuits against the state.
The Justice Department has used lawsuits in the past to address … voter discrimination issues around reapportionment and other concerns about the integrity of voting for years. And so this is not something that was unexpected.
DANIELS: The DOJ has not filed a lawsuit [on behalf of the voting rights section] certainly in the four years of the Trump administration.
So the fact that this is the first one in quite some time and it’s in Georgia was not surprising, particularly because of all the attention that has been given to the what I call the anti-voting rights laws that have been proposed and passed in places like Georgia and Florida.
THE RECAST: The DOJ’s lawsuit came three days after the Senate Republicans blocked the voting rights and ethics bill For the People Act from advancing. Is there concern that the legal action brought by the attorney general is going to be seen as political?
DANIELS: In a democracy where you are supposed to have free, fair and nondiscriminatory elections it is within the Department of Justice’s authority to bring lawsuits that would certainly create free and fair access to the right to vote. So I don’t think it’s political. It’s been politicized.
DOWE: It was quite natural that the Justice Department, seeing that the congressional arm of the law could not and has not been able to deal with voting rights effectively, took the next step to sue.
And so we see that the Justice Department is moving forward in its efforts where the congressional aspect of oversight has failed.
THE RECAST: The lawsuit is going after Georgia lawmakers over their intent to suppress Black and brown voters. How does the DOJ go about proving that element? Obviously, there’s nothing in the law that specifically says the state is trying to make sure minorities don’t cast ballots.
DANIELS: You can connect the dots.
Certainly the state of Georgia [has] increased tremendously with the Black population, [and with] Black and brown voter registration.
One of the things [the DOJ will] look at is the process that the state followed and demonstrating it was demonstrably different from the usual process in passing this kind of voter legislation.
THE RECAST: The expectation is it will be a while before the case makes its way through the courts. But the expectation is that the lawsuit will likely not have much impact on the immediate elections in Georgia next year. Is that how you see it?
DOWE: Maybe and maybe not.
What we also have to remember is that the state will be conscious of the fact that there is a pending lawsuit. So this can also have an impact on how the state functions.
For example, the most aggressive aspect of this law is the ability for the state to supersede the role of the secretary of state … replace persons on local election boards. We’re already seeing people being removed from local election boards. All this will be part of the evidence that the Justice Department will use. And so knowing there is a lawsuit can possibly impact how aggressive the state is in implementing those types of rules and that the law allows.
NIXING JOBLESS BENEFITS = DISPARITIES
As the nation inches towards economic recovery after more than a year of pandemic lockdowns, there’s yet another issue causing alarm because it — you guessed it — disproportionately impacts Black and brown Americans. POLITICO’s Eleanor Mueller sent this dispatch looking at the ways in which states nixing federal unemployment insurance may be widening the racial equity gap.
Of the 17.4 million workers who applied for and received unemployment benefits between January and May, a disproportionate 21.5 percent were Latino and 18.4 percent were Black, census data show.
To put that into perspective, those figures are higher than their respective shares of the overall workforce — roughly 18 percent of employees in 2020 were Latino while 12 percent were Black, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The differences are even more pronounced in states that either cut jobless aid or are considering it.
In Georgia, 61.4 percent of those who have received unemployment benefits between January and May are Black, according to Eleanor’s analysis of census data. In Texas, which on Saturday opted out of the benefits, 35.8 percent of the workforce is Latino.
People walk by a Help Wanted sign in the Queens borough of New York City on June 4. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images
“If you’re Black or brown, you’re going to lose, whether you’re working or not,” Andre Perry, an economist at the Brookings Institution, said. “This can have absolutely devastating effects.”
To end the benefits earlier than expected is “to pull the rug out from underneath families without addressing real structural problems in various sectors,” he added.
Some doubt the move will help employers hire workers. JPMorgan Chase released an analysis finding that “politics, rather than economics” spurred governors’ decisions. And economists, including the RAND Corporation’s Kathryn Edwards, say there is too little data to conclude anything concrete.
“There’s so much going on that I don’t understand the certainty with which people say we just need to kick people off unemployment,” she said.
ICYMI AT POLITICO
Retired RN Barbara Vicente administers a shot of the Pfizer vaccine to Bobbie Guillette, 68, from Austin, Texas, on June 22. | Nathan Papes/The Springfield News-Leader via AP
¿Dónde están? That’s the question the Biden administration is asking as it seeks to meet some Latino communities where they are to allay fears and overcome language barriers to administer vaccines. POLITICO’s Rachel Roubein and Dan Goldberg report troves of misinformation are complicating matters.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is mulling the possibility of using one of her eight picks to the committee that will probe the Jan. 6 insurrection to select a … REPUBLICAN? That’s the latest drama as the top Democrat released her framework for the committee, Nicholas Wu and Sarah Ferris of POLITICO’s Congress team report. More on the speculation of who tops that short list here.
A police brutality case gets kicked back down to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals after the Supreme Court sought clarification on a favorable ruling for the officers involved. The case stems from an incident in 2015 in which a St. Louis man was held face down by officers in a holding cell, reports POLITICO’s Josh Gerstein.
The GOP Steering Committee faced a stark choice on Monday: Showcase the party’s diversity by elevating a Republican of color to the powerful Financial Services Committee. Or elevate a Baby Boomer white guy who previously served on it. Spoiler: It didn’t go to Reps. Byron Donalds of Florida or Young Kim of California, reports POLITICO’s Zachary Warmbrodt.
RECAST RECOMMENDS
The WaPo’s Race in America live event series is one of our go-tos. This Thursday at 11 a.m. ET, actor and rapper Daveed Diggs will talk July 4, independence and how he addresses race and class in his work.
“There’s enough momentum going forward for women of color in country music that it can’t be stalled out. It’s too powerful.” Read this from Billboard about how young Black women are making country music their own.
A few years back, we, like a whole lot of folks in the Twitterverse, read with jaws dropped, A’Ziah-Monae King’s epic Twitter thread about her ill-fated road trip to Tampa. The Hooters waitress was recruited by a newfound friend to do a little stripping in the Sunshine State. All kinds of ridiculousness ensued. Now King’s tale is a movie, coming out this weekend. We’ll be watching …
A message from Intel:
At Intel, we accept our responsibility to use our technologies, size, and scale to address systemic and structural inequities. To us, racial equity and social equality is a legal and public policy matter because law and policies can drive real change. That is why Intel forged a five-year, $5 million social equity partnership with North Carolina Central University (NCCU) School of Law to create a Tech Law & Policy Center. Watch this video to learn more.
If you’re looking for a beach read, check out award-winning author Tahmima Anam’s “The Startup Wife,” a scathing — and hilarious — take on startup culture, marriage and workaholism. And if you’re looking for some inspiration, keep an eye out for “Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood,” a memoir by Danny Trejo, Hollywood’s favorite bad guy.
Tuesday vibes: We’re feeling “Boom Bang,” a Jamaican dancehall/Nigerian Afrobeats collab between Konshens and Davido.
Today, you get two TikToks because we just couldn’t pick.
This one hits close to home.
@simuliu
“Bro I gotta ask… how do I say your name right?”
♬ original sound – Simu Liu
And this one … we can’t stop watching. Or laughing.
@bekahvallejo
mama is fed up
♬ original sound – Rebekah Vallejo
