U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder (Photo: Flickr/ryanjreilly)

During a speech given in Texas last night, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder criticized legal challenges launched by states — including Florida — against the section of the Voting Rights Act that requires approval of election laws in certain areas. Holder also affirmed the need for vigilance against laws aimed at rolling back voting rights.

According to a draft of his speech released to the press, Holder also said that he was taking a “thorough” look into Florida’s controversial new elections law.

“We’re also examining a number of changes that Florida has made to its electoral process,” he said, “including changes to the procedures governing third-party voter registration organizations, as well as changes to early voting procedures, including the number of days in the early voting period.”

“Although I cannot go into detail about the ongoing review of these and other state-law changes,” he continued, “I can assure you that it will be thorough — and fair. We will examine the facts, and we will apply the law. If a state passes a new voting law and meets its burden of showing that the law is not discriminatory, we will follow the law and approve the change. And where a state can’t meet this burden, we will object as part of our obligation under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.”

Florida has not been the only state facing scrutiny from the federal government. Holder also mentioned interest in other states such as Texas and South Carolina. Both states were among several that enacted new photo ID requirements to vote.

Holder said during his speech (according to the prepared remarks):

Despite this history, and despite our nation’s long tradition of extending voting rights – to non-property owners and women, to people of color and Native Americans, and to younger Americans – today, a growing number of our fellow citizens are worried about the same disparities, divisions, and problems that – nearly five decades ago – LBJ devoted his Presidency to addressing. In my travels across this country, I’ve heard a consistent drumbeat of concern from many Americans, who – often for the first time in their lives – now have reason to believe that we are failing to live up to one of our nation’s most noble, and essential, ideals.

As Congressman John Lewis described it, in a speech on the House floor this summer, the voting rights that he worked throughout his life – and nearly gave his life – to ensure are, “under attack… [by] a deliberate and systematic attempt to prevent millions of elderly voters, young voters, students, [and] minority and low-income voters from exercising their constitutional right to engage in the democratic process.” Not only was he referring to the all-too-common deceptive practices we’ve been fighting for years. He was echoing more recent concerns about some of the state-level voting law changes we’ve seen this legislative season.

Since January, more than a dozen states have advanced new voting measures. Some of these new laws are currently under review by the Justice Department, based on our obligations under the Voting Rights Act.

Holder also spoke about recent challenges to the Voting Rights Act, specifically the section of the law that requires federal “preclearance” of election laws in certain areas. In October, Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning launched a legal complaint against that requirement.

In his filing, Browing argued that federal preclearance requirements for state election laws are “unconstitutional” and that “subjecting Florida counties and other jurisdictions covered exclusively under the language minority provisions of the [Voting Rights Act] to pre-clearance is not a rational, congruent, or proportional means of enforcing the Fourteenth and/or Fifteenth Amendments and violates the Tenth Amendment and Article IV of the U.S. Constitution.”

Last night, Holder said:

Despite the long history of support for Section 5, this keystone of our voting rights laws is now being challenged five years after its reauthorization as unconstitutional in no fewer than five lawsuits. Each of these lawsuits claims that we’ve attained a new era of electoral equality, that America in 2011 has moved beyond the challenges of 1965, and that Section 5 is no longer necessary.

I wish this were the case. The reality is that – in jurisdictions across the country – both overt and subtle forms of discrimination remain all too common. And we don’t have to look far to see recent proof.

Holder described recent problems with Texas and Louisiana’s redistricting efforts, which he said “failed to show the absence of discrimination.” Holder said, “To those who argue that Section 5 is no longer necessary — these and other examples are proof that we still need this critical tool to combat discrimination and safeguard the right to vote.”

The attorney general also announced that the issue of protecting voting rights in the country was a moral imperative that required public support.

“As concerns about the protection of this right and the integrity of our election systems become an increasingly prominent part of our national dialogue, we must consider some important questions,” he said. “It is time to ask: What kind of nation — and what kind of people — do we want to be? Are we willing to allow this era — our era — to be remembered as the age when our nation’s proud tradition of expanding the franchise ended? Are we willing to allow this time — our time — to be recorded in history as the age when the long-held belief that, in this country, every citizen has the chance — and the right — to help shape their government, became a relic of our past, instead of a guidepost for our future?”

Holder said new legislation that was formerly introduced in the Senate by then-Sen. Barack Obama, would be reintroduced by Sens. Charles Schumer and Ben Cardin. The law “would establish tough criminal penalties for those who engage in fraudulent voting practices — and would help to ensure that citizens have complete and accurate information about where and when to vote,” he said.

“Despite so many decades of struggle, sacrifice, and achievement — we must remain ever vigilant in safeguarding our most basic and important right,” he concluded. “Too many recent actions have the potential to reverse the progress that defines us — and has made this nation exceptional, as well as an example for all the world. We must be true to the arc of America’s history, which compels us to be more inclusive with regard to the franchise. And we must never forget the purpose that — more than two centuries ago — inspired our nation’s founding, and now must guide us forward.”

“Lawmakers today stood on the right side of history,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese in a prepared statement emailed to reporters as soon as the bill cleared the 216-vote threshold necessary for passage. “This is a historic step to strengthen our armed forces and to restore honor and integrity to those who serve our country so selflessly.”

The move followed impassioned speeches in favor of repeal by Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), John Lewis (D-Ga.) and Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), all of whom argued that repeal was a crucial moral test for America.

This means that both the House and Senate now have a defense authorization bill that repeals “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” The House may vote on the bill as early as tonight.

Update, 11:10 p.m.: A statement from President Obama:

I have long advocated that we repeal ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’, and I am pleased that both the House of Representatives and the Senate Armed Services Committee took important bipartisan steps toward repeal tonight. Key to successful repeal will be the ongoing Defense Department review, and as such I am grateful that the amendments offered by Representative Patrick Murphy and Senators Joseph Lieberman and Carl Levin that passed today will ensure that the Department of Defense can complete that comprehensive review that will allow our military and their families the opportunity to inform and shape the implementation process. Our military is made up of the best and bravest men and women in our nation, and my greatest honor is leading them as Commander-in-Chief. This legislation will help make our Armed Forces even stronger and more inclusive by allowing gay and lesbian soldiers to serve honestly and with integrity.

It’s time for the allegedly pristine character of Rep. John Lewis to put up or shut up. Therefore, I am offering $10,000 of my own money to provide hard evidence that the N- word was hurled at him not 15 times, as his colleague reported, but just once. Surely one of those two cameras wielded by members of his entourage will prove his point.

And surely if those cameras did not capture such abhorrence, then someone from the mainstream media — those who printed and broadcast his assertions without any reasonable questioning or investigation — must themselves surely have it on camera. Of course we already know they don’t. If they did, you’d have seen it by now.

THOUSANDS OF TIMES.

Rep. Lewis, if you can’t do that, I’ll give him a backup plan: a lie detector test. If you provide verifiable video evidence showing that a single racist epithet was hurled as you walked among the tea partiers, or you pass a simple lie detector test, I will provide a $10K check to the United Negro College Fund.

Thanks to the cell phone videos of the event, I think “the myth of the March 20 slurs” will become an accepted fact inside the Tea Parties.

1) Faced with criticisms over their “deem and pass” strategy, House leaders dropped it. The deeming plan would have allowed the Democrats to pass the health care reconciliation bill — which tweaks the Senate-passed reform proposal — and “deem” the Senate bill passed without an actual vote on it. The new plan is to vote separately on both bills. Obama would then sign the Senate version, after which the Senate would take up the reconciliation bill.

2) The Rules Committee finalized the guidelines that will govern today’s events, setting formal debate time at two hours (split between the parties), and allowing the Democrats to postpone the vote if they fail to rally enough support to pass the bill.

3) Some Tea Partiers reportedly showed their racist stripes yesterday, allegedly showering several black lawmakers — including the civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) — with racial slurs as they walked from their offices to the Capitol. And the office of Rep. Emanuel Cleaver said that a protester spat on the Missouri Democrat, issuing this statement:

This afternoon, the Congressman was walking into the Capitol to vote, when one protester spat on him. The Congressman would like to thank the US Capitol Police officer who quickly escorted the other Members and him into the Capitol, and defused the tense situation with professionalism and care. After all the Members were safe, a full report was taken and the matter was handled by the US Capitol Police. The man who spat on the Congressman was arrested, but the Congressman has chosen not to press charges. He has left the matter with the Capitol Police.

Tea Party leaders are condemning the episode today, but it still hurts the image of a movement already seen to be dominated by bitter-class whites.

Meanwhile, those anti-abortion Democrats who continue to insist that the Senate reform bill would open doors to federal funding for abortions have been negotiating with the White House over whether the administration will issue an executive order reiterating the federal ban on abortion subsidies. Their beef is this: While the Senate bill bans federal subsidies of abortion services (requiring women to write a separate check for abortion coverage to ensure the funds are segregated), the anti-abortion folks want to ban subsidies for any plans that include abortion as part of their coverage package. The reason? They want those plans either to go out of business or to drop abortion coverage altogether.

[I]t was his voice crying out, speaking out, organizing teach-ins against the war in Vietnam that had a major impact on mobilizing people all across America in the work to end our involvement in South East Asia. The death of Howard Zinn is a tremendous loss to a generation of young people who came to know him and love him as a teacher, but also as a friend.

Zinn, 87, died Wednesday of a heart attack.

Five House Democrats were arrested Monday during a protest at the Sudanese embassy in Washington. The lawmakers — Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Donna Edwards (D-Md.), Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) and John Lewis (D-Ga.) — were demonstrating against the recent expulsion of 16 aid groups from the war-torn Darfur region, when they crossed a police line and were arrested. The Hill has a bit more:

The Secret Service had established a perimeter around the embassy. The lawmakers and protest organizers deliberately crossed the line and refused three warnings to leave, a spokesman for Edwards said. [...]

Dan Weber, the Edwards spokesman, said the lawmakers are in the process of posting bail and should be out of jail this afternoon. They had hired defense attorney Laura Rhodes in advance of their arrests.

At a House panel hearing today, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who heads the Ways & Means Oversight Subcommittee, revealed the results of the panel’s investigation into the top recipients of federal help under the Wall Street bailout.

The results: 13 of the top 23 recipient companies owe back-taxes totaling more than $220 million. Two of the companies owe more than $100 million each. “How can this be?” Lewis asks in a statement. “If we looked at all 470 recipients, how much would they owe?”

Testifying before the panel was the bailout’s chief overseer, Neil Barofsky, who told lawmakers that the companies, as a condition of receiving TARP funds, must affirm that their tax payments are current, according to the release.

Lewis was quick to point out that federal law prevents the panel from revealing which companies are delinquent. He also made it clear that the Treasury Department, though asked to testify before the panel, declined its invitation.

And here we thought only the Bush administration did that.

Team McCain tells us that their path to 270 runs through Pennsylvania, rated by Real Clear Politics as “Solid” blue, with an 11.7-point average polling advantage for Sen. Obama. The smartest Democrat we know e-mails: “I get the appeal of trying to win one state (Pa.) rather than having to run the table on a lot of little ones (Nevada, Colorado, Iowa …), but this is the equivalent of Kerry deciding it would be easier to just stage a comeback in Texas.”

In a conference call with reporters yesterday, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis predicted a McCain sweep of the current toss-up states that went for President George W. Bush in 2004, including: Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada. However, RealClearPolitics reports Obama is leading in major polls in each of those states except Indiana.

CNN’s John King reported late yesterday that one McCain campaign official had written off Colorado and New Mexico — a combined 14 electoral votes that would hand Sen. Barack Obama the victory.

To counter the loss of those states, if the reports are accurate, the McCain campaign will seek to flip Pennsylvania’s 21 electoral votes to the red column. The electoral handicappers over at FiveThirtyEight.com give McCain a two-percent chance of winning The Keystone State — which is slightly better than Obama’s prospects for winning McCain’s home state of Arizona.

Politico’s Jonathan Martin lays out the inside baseball of what McCain needs to do to have a shot at winning Pennsylvania:

If McCain can drive margins in western and central Pennsylvania, like Hillary did in the primary, win the northeast part of the state, hold down losses in the Philly suburbs and, with the help of ethnic white wards, hold down margins in the city of Philly, he could be competitive.

To do that, McCain appears to be banking on the appeal of his “Joe the Plumber” line of attack with blue-collar workers and latent anti-communism by repeatedly raising the specter of socialism in Obama’s “spread the wealth” tax policies. McCain has three campaign stops scheduled today in the state to push his message.

However, with two weeks left until the election, the McCain campaign has one potentially powerful ace left up its sleeve. CNN reports the campaign is walking back McCain’s pledge not to use Obama’s controversial former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, as a campaign issue, in light of comments by Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) likening the McCain campaign’s rhetoric to that of the late segregationist Gov. George Wallace.

From CNN:

“Look, John McCain has told us a long time ago before this campaign ever got started, back in May, I think, that from his perspective, he was not going to have his campaign actively involved in using Jeremiah Wright as a wedge in this campaign,” Davis told conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt.

“Now since then, I must say, when Congressman Lewis calls John McCain and Sarah Palin and his entire group of supporters, 50 million people strong around this country, that we’re all racists and we should be compared to George Wallace and the kind of horrible segregation and evil and horrible politics that was played at that time, you know, that you’ve got to rethink all these things,” he added. “And so I think we’re in the process of looking at how we’re going to close this campaign. We’ve got 19 days, and we’re taking serious all these issues.”

McCain and the Republican National Committee reportedly still had $124 million on hand at the beginning of October. A last-minute swing-state advertising blitz, as Republican pundits are urging, tying Obama to Wright’s most inflammatory comments in moderate regions could do substantial damage to Obama — though McCain could receive significant blowback for breaking a vow not to play the Wright card.

But with McCain’s presidential ambitions hanging in the balance, it’s probably wise not to rule out anything.