All Judiciary Committee Democrats yesterday voted against an amendment offered by Senator Cruz to substitute language of the First Amendment itself for a proposed Constitutional amendment that actually would gut the First Amendment.

The debate over whether to repeal part of the First Amendment continues as supporters mischaracterize the proposed Political Equality Amendment. Senator Ted Cruz wrote an op-ed responding to Irvine School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky’s claim that Cruz and Senate Republicans are overstating the consequences of the proposal.

The Board of Governors of the Republican National Lawyers Association is pleased to announce the selection of E. Mark Braden as the 2014 Republican Lawyer of the Year. This award recognizes lawyers for outstanding professional accomplishments and years of dedicated service to the Republican Party and its ideals.

Last Saturday the New York Times ran their latest bias hit piece in favor of vote fraud focusing on voter ID requirements for students in North Carolina.  While it would be easy to go through the story step by step and point out the facts it gets wrong or ignores (like how the Justice Department lost the most similar lawsuit against neighboring South Carolina), let’s instead focus on one aspect of student voting. 

More than 140 people are alleged to have listed their current address as a mail center in the basement of a Minneapolis commercial property while registering to vote. The attorney for Phyllis Kahn, Democrat candidate for Minnesota State House, is calling for an investigation after discovering that there might be a coordinated effort to register voters using the 419 Cedar Avenue address in Minneapolis. Kahn’s Attorney Brian Rice says, "I think there is a coordinated effort to use this address to bring voters into the DFL (Democratic-Farmer-Labor) primary election on August 12, that's what I think is going on. It's wrong, it violates Minnesota Law, it's a crime."

President Obama recently nominated Georgetown Law Professor Pamela Harris to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. As her nomination awaits confirmation from Congress, her previous public statements are under scrutiny.

Events in Washington have a way of colliding unexpectedly, laying bare the vapid emptiness of stock political rhetoric. Recent Congressional hearings demonstrate this axiom.   

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell:

Today’s Supreme Court decision makes clear that the Obama administration cannot trample on the religious freedoms that Americans hold dear. ObamaCare is the single worst piece of legislation to pass in the last 50 years, and I was glad to see the Supreme Court agree that this particular ObamaCare mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).

The latest survey shows that 308,000 voters are double-registered in Virginia and another state. As discussed in a previous post, 44,000 of those are registered in both Virginia and Maryland.

The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing yesterday regarding S.1945, a bill that would amend the Voting Rights Act in the wake of last year’s Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder. In that case, the Court held Section Five of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional, a section that subjected many Southern states to prescreening by the Justice Department on legislation relevant to voting rights.