Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is an advocate of allowing felons to vote. “Advocate” is a loaded word when referring to a judge, and with good reason. Judges are not supposed to allow their personal preferences influence their interpretation of the law and the facts at issue in a given case. But their really is no other way to describe Sotomayor’s dissenting opinion in Hayden v. Pataki, a case brought by inmates in New York State under the federal Voting Rights Act.

The inmates were suing the State of New York for the right to vote, alleging New York’s prohibition of felon voting was discriminatory based on race and ethnicity. Sotomayor sided with the inmates in a four-paragraph long opinion, holding that the Voting Rights Act prohibited states from disenfranchising felons because the majority are black, Hispanic, and other minorities.

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Yesterday, the Washington Times wrote about Departmnet of Justice dropping charges against Black Panthers and Democratic operatives for voter intimidation. Michelle Malkin tracked down the complaint filed by Bartle Bull. Bull — and Malkin flagged — that one of the Black Panthers told him “you are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker”.

Well, it turns out that there is video of it:

H/T Election Journal.

In my weekly column for the American Issues Project today, I take a look at Congress’ failure to address the ongoing problems encountered by our servicemen and -women as they attempt to exercise their right to vote. in every election, a disturbing percentage of our men and women in active duty have their votes go uncounted through no fault of their own. And Congress - which is eager to address complaints of disenfranchisement by liberal groups - ignores their concerns. Simple and straightforward legislation has been introduced by Senator John Cornyn and Congressman Kevin McCarthy to fix the problem, but so far Congress has shown little interest.

If you’re interested in this issue, go read the column. And contact your Member of Congress, and ask him or her to sign on to the Military Voting Protection Act.

In response to my first post, there were too many issues raised to deal with all of them, but several merit a response.

First, and most importantly – the phrase “let’s do something” raised in one comment is precisely the disease that too often engulfs Congress and the rest of Washington. It is almost never necessary to “do something.” It is almost always VERY BAD to “do something.” The Banks are failing – “do something.” The economy is in trouble – “do something.” A museum is needed for Woodstock – “do something!!!!!” The idea that we cannot survive without Congress “doing something” is the biggest problem we face today…

With respect to this issue – DC representation – it’s hard to believe that with terrorists running amok (many more soon thanks to Democrat control), an economy in bad shape, a completely broken immigration system, and a looming Social Security and Medicare crisis, that the DC representation issue is the most pressing matter… particularly considering it is not exactly a new issue!

Speaking of… and to my second point, the “taxation without representation” line is tired and overused in this context. Besides the obvious point that only a small portion of the residents even pay taxes in the first place, consider that this issue is not new and was addressed by Chief Justice John Marshall in an 1820 opinion:

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