Judicial Watch Senior Attorney Robert Popper to Testify to House on Election Integrity and Reform

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that Senior Attorney Robert Popper will provide testimony Friday, July 16, before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties during a hearing titled “The Implications of Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee and Potential Legislative Responses.”

Date: Friday, July 16, 2021

Time: 1:00 p.m. ET

Location: Via Zoom

To watch live online, click here: https://judiciary.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=4632

The purpose of the hearing is to focus on the implications of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Mark Brnovich, Attorney General of Arizona, et al. v. Democratic National Committee, et al. (Nos. 19-1257 & 1258) and to consider whether a congressional response is called for along the lines proposed in H.R. 4.

In Brnovich, the court considered two Arizona election policies, one outlawing ballot harvesting and the other banning out-of-precinct voting. The court ruled that neither of these election policies violated the Voting Rights Act nor had a racially discriminatory purpose. Judicial Watch joined with Allied Educational Foundation (AEF) to file an amici curia (friends of the court) brief in this case, arguing that the parties challenging Arizona’s clean election laws “utterly failed” to show that the challenged voting procedure caused minorities to have less opportunity to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice. The court agreed.

Reacting to the court’s ruling in Brnovich, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton called the court’s decision “a home run for cleaner elections, reaffirming that states may take action to prevent election fraud without waiting for it to occur within their own borders. This new decision rightly rejects the race baiting of the leftist partisans who pretend that neutral provisions to combat voter fraud (such as voter ID and bans on ballot harvesting) are presumptively racist. The decision also destroys the foundation of the Biden administration’s recent attack on Georgia’s election reform laws.”

For more than 25 years, Judicial Watch has been known for its aggressive, leading edge use of public records laws and lawsuits, as well as taxpayer, civil rights and whistleblower protection litigation to fight government corruption. Judicial Watch is a national leader in voting integrity and voting rights. As part of this effort, Judicial Watch assembled a team of highly experienced voting rights attorneys who have fought gerrymandering in Maryland, stopped discriminatory elections in Hawaii, and cleaned up voter rolls in California, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, among other achievements.

Robert Popper is a senior attorney for Judicial Watch and director of its voting integrity efforts. Prior to joining Judicial Watch, Popper worked for eight years, five as deputy chief of the Voting Section, in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, in which capacity he garnered numerous professional awards. Before that, Popper worked as a private attorney in New York City for 17 years, where his practice extended to a wide range of legal matters, including voting rights.

In his testimony Friday, Popper will tell the Subcommittee:

One hears—and large news outlets dutifully report—that there is a “tsunami” of legislation “restricting the right to vote,” that states reforming their mail-in voting laws as COVID retreats are engaged in “voter suppression,” and even that these actions represent “the new Jim Crow.”  These claims are preposterous.  At best, they reveal a startling historical ignorance.  The grandfather laws, absurd literacy tests, poll taxes, intimidation and terroristic violence of the Jim Crow era have nothing whatever to do with, say, Ohio’s restriction of early voting from 35 to 29 days, or with limiting same-day registration.  Nor do they have anything to do with regulating absentee ballots, out-of-precinct voting, or voter ID requirements, all reasonable electoral integrity measures approved by the Carter-Baker Commission.

At worst, these statements reveal a startling cynicism, driven by a desire to inflame passions—and to raise funds.  Those who talk this way are being irresponsible.

Popper’s full prepared statement is available at the Judicial Watch website:

https://www.judicialwatch.org/documents/popper-vra-house-testimony-july-2021/

Recently, Judicial Watch Senior Attorney T. Russell Nobile testified on the same topic before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution in a hearing titled “Restoring the Voting Rights Act after Brnovich and Shelby County.” His remarks are available at the Judicial Watch website: https://www.judicialwatch.org/documents/nobile-july-2021-vra-senate-testimony/

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