The day after Karl Rove testified before lawyers for the House Judiciary committee about his role in the United States partisan Attorney firings, and three months after Tennessee Attorney General Bob Cooper said that politically motivated firings could be found unconstitutional, comes the news that several more lawsuits have been filed by Tennessee county election administrators who say they were fired from their jobs purely for partisan reasons.
The federal lawsuits, according to attorney Gary Blackburn, are based on the 1st & 14th amendments of the U.S. Constitution, and Article 1 Section 4, of the Tennessee State Constitution, which states that “no political or religious test, other than an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and of this State, shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under this State.”
Named defendants are Republican Party appointees to the county election commissions in Cannon, DeKalb, Henry, Loudon, Putnam, Rhea, Rutherford, and Weakley counties.
Click to download the full complaint and the press release [pdf].
The planning of election processes and the administration of elections should not be partisan yet as soon as Tennessee Republicans win control of the General Assembly they attempt to do way more than what the law allows.
By law, the party which controls the General Assembly can install a majority to the state and county election commissions. Republicans quickly moved to do just that and it is lawfully within their right to do so.
But, apparently, they’ve moved just as quickly to violate the law by firing county employees in non-policy-making positions for partisan reason.
And it would be bad enough if this attempt to circumvent the law was simple blatant patronage, but it’s so much more than that. It’s part of a “it’s-not-the-votin’-that’s-democracy-it’s-the-countin’” full court press on free and fair elections in Tennessee that includes:
1) An attempt to delay implementation of the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act (Paper Ballot Bill)
2) An attempt to require proof of citizenship to register to vote, a well-worn voter suppression tactic.
3) An attempt to require picture IDs to vote, another well-worn voter suppression tactic.
4) Forcing through legislation using some pretty suspect horse-trading which added two new Republican members to the State Election Commission thereby giving the GOP a majority two years earlier than they would have had otherwise.
5) Violating the state’s Sunshine Laws by banning the press from a county election commission meetings.
6) An attempt to intimidate an election integrity activist with a suspicious visit from the TBI.
Stay tuned for caging, voter-roll purging, election day voter challenges, the demonization of voter registration drives,voter intimidation, and other known voter-suppression tactics coming to a county election precinct near you!
[...] Liberadio: The planning of election processes and the administration of elections should not be partisan yet as soon as Tennessee Republicans win control of the General Assembly they attempt to do way more than what the law allows. [...]
Can you name a single Election Administrator that was appointed under the current law that was a Republican? Will you have the same opinion if the Democrats take back over and hire replacements. The fact is the law was changed from the Party of the Governor to the party in control of the legislature when Winfield Dunn (R) was Governor. He was the first modern Republican Governor and the Democrats never thought that the GOP would take control of the legislature. History does not lie.
Wayne, the law providing the party in power the right to appoint a majority of election commissioners is not being contested or fought by Democrats, much less those named as plaintiffs in this case. As Mary said, Republicans are in their right to have a 3-2 majority on county election commissions. That’s what the law allows the party in power.
What the federal lawsuit is about are the actions of eight newly appointed county election chairs who set United States Constitution aside for their own partisan agenda when they hired and fired election administrators, a non-policy making position, based on partisan affiliation. That is illegal.
This federal lawsuit is also about holding public servants accountable to the law and the people of Tennessee. That doesn’t have to be a partisan affair, but Republicans appear to have done that by acting against the laws of this great state and the United States Constitution.
What about those administrator’s who were hired based mostly on the fact they were democrats? If you get your job by politics don’t complain if you lose it for the same reason. If this was the other way around would you be complaining? Of course not. What about people a new Republican or Democrat Governor brings in based on politics? Don’t misunderstand, I’m not saying that they shouldn’t.I’m saying these people would not have been hired if they were Republicans. The Democrat controlled Election Commissions injected politics into this long ago. When they take over again they can and should be able to do the same thing. I have seen little evidence in crooked elections in most TN counties under Democrats and don’t expect any under Republicans.
You ask about “those administrator’s who were hired based mostly on the fact they were democrats,” can you also name any that fit that description? This federal lawsuit provides you a good list of examples of those hired and fired based on the fact that they were democrats. Mary even provided you a nice link.
While these a certainly disturbing developments, I think it is important for progressives to remember that we lost the last two elections fair and square. I hope the Dems are focusing more on winning than not losing to dirty tricks. Remember, if we don’t have a legitimate vote majority, their tricks don’t really matter.
Is it OK to hire someone in this position because of political affiliation? If so then why is it not OK to hire a replacement using the same? rbt makes a great point. This is nothing a good old fashioned fair election to fix this. Was it a dirty trick when the standard was changed in the 70’s when a Republican was elected Governor? You can’t have it both ways.
Just an FYI, Cannon County’s administrator who was fired is/was a Republican.
They also replaced other loyal, died in the wool Republicans with other Republicans, made everyone upset both Republicans and Dems. What’s interesting is the controversy about the new Administrator’s place of residence. The guy supposedly came in and changed his place of residence to vote in Cannon County and doesn’t live according to the citizens, although he and his wife say they do. Here’s a link to the story when it happened: http://cannonwire.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=68&twindow=&mad=&sdetail=1703&wpage=1&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restatus=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=&pform=&sc=2720&hn=cannonwire&he=.com
There’s also a letter from the editor and a response from the administrator’s wife on there now.
I still have not read an answer to my question. If you get your job because of politics, should you be upset if you lose it for the same reason?
To Wayne: The 30+ county election administrators who lost their jobs to Republican “true believers” were, for the most part, seasoned veterans with 10+ years of experience who administered elections fairly and did good work to protect our democracy. It is expected that many more of those experienced administrators will also be filing suit. The Attorney General has already ruled that their firings were unconstitutional, so hopefully this aspect of the highjacked-Republican strategy to render our elections even easier to steal than they have been in the past will be one of the first to be overturned. Unfortunately, there are many more anti-American strategies that these “Republicans” (who would be unrecognizable to Howard Baker and Winfield Dunn) are trying to pull that demand our attention also.
As for rbt, exactly which red rock have you been living under for the past decade to say that Democrats lost the 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections “fair and square”? Get a clue, little guy, s’il vous plait. Here’s a few films that might help you out of your red tidal fog:
UNCOUNTED: The New Math of American Elections
Hacking Democracy
Stealing America: Vote by Vote
Eternal Vigilance
The Right to Count
Murder, Spies and Voting Lies
The modern election integrity movement didn’t start because we progressives (and Greens and Libertarians and Constitutionalists and Democrats and honorable Republicans and tons of Independents) had nothing better to do with our time. It started because, as Tom Paine said, “The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery. For slavery consists in being subject to the will of another. And he that has not a vote (or doesn’t have his vote counted as it was cast) in the election of representatives is in this case.”
Ole Tom “Common Sense” Paine also said “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance” and “It is the duty of every patriot to protect his country from its government”. Particularly when that government is hell-bent to subvert and silence the consent of the governed, as the cancerous growth that is rapidly consuming our once-proud and moderate Tennessee Republican Party is attempting to do.
Time for some radical surgery … or another Battle of Athens.