During a small Mississippi church's drive-in midweek service during Holy Week, police officers issued $500 citations to all the worshippers for violating the mayor's COVID-19 order.  The worshippers were ticketed despite sitting in their socially distanced cars with their windows up when other people were allowed to pick up food from a drive-in restaurant with their windows down and despite the fact that the Mississippi governor's executive order regarding COVID-19 had specifically allowed religious services that followed social distancing guidelines.  

The church sued and requested a temporary restraining order for violating its rights under the Free Exercise, Free Speech, and Right to Assemble Clauses of the First Amendment, the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Mississippi Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the relevant Mississippi executive orders.  Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a Statement of Interest in the case.

RNLA Board of Governors member and former FEC Chairman Matthew Petersen and RNLA member and former EAC Chairwoman Gineen Bresso, both currently attorneys with Holtzman Vogel Josefiak Torchinsky PLLC, wrote in The Hill about how Democrats in Washington are trying to use the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to federalize election administration and overwrite many state laws, systems, and rules before the election this fall.  They describe how important our decentralized election system is:

RNLA Co-Chair Harmeet Dhillon's non-profit organization, Center for American Liberty, is threatening to sue two California counties for banning all out-of-home participation in religious services as part of their overreaching orders during the COVID-19 pandemic.  If the counties do not rescind their orders or provide accommodation for religious liberty by this evening, in the midst of important Jewish and Christian religious holidays, the Center for American Liberty will seek an injunction:

Senator Tom Cotton was the first to recognize the coming COVID-19 pandemic.  As John McCormack wrote in National Review in an article entitled "The Senator Who Saw the Coronavirus Coming":

Tom Cotton was both the first and the loudest voice in Congress to sound the alarm about the looming pandemic.

While others slept, Tom Cotton was warning anyone who would listen that the coronavirus was coming for America.

On January 22, one day before the Chinese government began a quarantine of Wuhan to contain the spread of the virus, the Arkansas senator sent a letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar encouraging the Trump administration to consider banning travel between China and the United States and warning that the Communist regime could be covering up how dangerous the disease really was. That same day, he amplified his warnings on Twitter and in an appearance on the radio program of Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade. . . .

“Two things struck me about China’s response,” he says. “First their deceit and their dishonesty going back to early December. And second, the extreme draconian measures they had taken. By the third week of January, they had more than 75 million people on lockdown. They were confined to their homes and apartments, otherwise they were arrested. In some cases, the front doors of those buildings were welded shut. All schools had shut down. Hong Kong had banned flights from the mainland. [These are] the kind of extreme, draconian measures that you would only take in a position of power in China if you were greatly worried about the spread of this virus.”

It is not an optimal situation but let’s be real, context and the rule of law matter. Honest liberals and even Joe Biden give qualified agreement for holding the Wisconsin elections today.  Yet this is a bit extreme but typical of the reaction on the left.  

There are many problems with the left's reaction. First, keep in mind what Democrat Presidential frontrunner Joe Biden stated:

“There’s a lot of things that can be done; that’s for the Wisconsin courts and folks to decide,” former Vice President Joe Biden said last Thursday in a virtual press briefing, in which he insisted that in-person and mail-in voting could both be done safely—even though he considers the possibility of a national convention in the state to be a potential risk to public health.

While election officials need to make sure that no voters are disenfranchised during the COVID-19 crisis, they also need to make sure that the integrity of the election is still protected.  The expected and understandable increase in mail voting will present unique challenges, as mail voting is uniquely susceptible to disenfranchising voters through fraud and mistake.  After describing some specific examples of fraud through ballot harvesting, former RNLA Ed Meese Award Winner Hans von Spakovsky and Christian Adams wrote today:

RNLA Co-Chair Harmeet Dhillon wrote today in The Daily Caller about how the response to the coronavirus, especially in states like California in full lockdown, threatens civil liberties:

Thanks to the leadership of Senators Mitch McConnell. Richard Shelby and Roy Blunt and the constant vigilance of House Administration Committee Ranking Member Rodney Davis, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats were unsuccessful in their efforts to hijack the COVID-19 relief bill for the legislative priorities on matters such as elections.  But the left is not done and will undoubtedly keep fighting for their own election desires over the needs of the American people.   

Two conservative leaders are hitting back hard against the Democrats' unprecedented and fortunately ultimately unsuccessful federal power grab in the recent CARES Act.  Christian Adams and Hans von Spakovsky wrote:

We always knew that liberals considered federalizing control over elections to be an important priority. We just never dreamed it was more important than fighting the coronavirus pandemic or preserving American jobs. . . .

The deadlock and delay of economic relief for all Americans and emergency supplies for our nurses and doctors was in large part over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's desire to mandate how elections are run.  Pelosi wanted to force all states to have 15 days of early voting, same-day registration, unlimited ballot harvesting, and universal vote by mail.  Fortunately federalism prevailed.  As Senator Mike Lee stated:

I agree with @RepThomasMassie. Regardless of what one might think about voting by mail, Congress has no authority to enact a universal vote-by-mail mandate. https://t.co/HToC9kU7z6

— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) March 25, 2020

Shame on you, Speaker Pelosi.  At a time when Americans were coming together, she blew up the bipartisan coronavirus relief package for her legislative desires. 

Senate spends all weekend negotiating a bipartisan deal. Agreement reached. Pelosi flies in from California, whips out her unrelated “wishlist,” and says no. Senate Democrats then vote against proceeding on a bill they negotiated.

Jaw dropping.

— Ben Williamson (@_WilliamsonBen) March 22, 2020