House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties Holds Oversight Hearing on Voter Suppression

Today, Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D- Michigan) held a hearing to address the U.S. Department of Justice’s poor enforcement record in combating voter suppression. Present on behalf of the Department was Deputy Assistant Attorney General Asheesh Agarwal, Civil Rights Division.

Throughout the entire hearing there was a sense of hostility between Deputy Agarwal and the members of the committee. This could be largely attributed to the fact that Deputy Agarwal refused to answer questions in a straightforward manner. The vast majority of his responses were that he was unable to answer the question at the time, and he would need to speak with the Department before he could give an answer. The Committee did begin to lose their patience with Deputy Agarwal, as evidenced by the questioning of Representatives Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and Keith Ellison (D-MN).

The main issue of contention for the Committee was that the Department continues to pursue voter fraud cases while entirely disregarding “flagrant examples” of voter suppression. In addition to this, Representative Ellison centered on the Department’s decision to support the controversial Indiana photo identification law requiring all voters to present said identification in order to vote. The committee was largely concerned with the fact that this law is problematic because it will disenfranchise minorities, the elderly, and the disabled. In addition to this, Representative Wasserman Schultz demanded that Deputy Agarwal report to the Committee in two weeks regarding letters that the Department sent to 10 states to pressure them to purge their voter rolls before the 2008 election, “which could adversely affect many voters.”