Trump's voter suppression commission gets hit with third major lawsuit in eight days

Alleging that the White House’s “voter fraud commission” was formed as a way to discriminate against voters of color and suppress participation, the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund, along with Ordinary People Society, filed a lawsuit Tuesday in federal court.

The suit argues that the so-called “Election Integrity Commission” is unconstitutional because it was created to discriminate against a group of voters, that Donald Trump does not have the power to create such a commission, “and that the commission’s overwhelmingly skewed composition and pre-determined findings violate the law governing federal advisory committees.”

The NAACP’s move comes one week after ACLU went to court to try to stop the besieged commission, and four days after Common Cause filed a lawsuit to protect voter privacy. There are now at least seven federal lawsuits pending,   according to one count.

Co-chaired by Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the commission is intended to investigate baseless allegations made by Trump that millions of fraudulent ballots were cast during last November’s election.

Two weeks ago, Kobach sparked a national controversy when he demanded that all 50 states hand over their voter rolls, including such personal information as Social Security numbers, party affiliation, addresses, birth dates, mothers’ maiden names, criminal backgrounds, and the military history of voters.

The move created a bipartisan backlash, as virtually every secretary of state refused to fully comply with Kobach’s unprecedented data request.

“My response to the Commission is, you’re not going to play politics with Louisiana’s voter data,” announced Louisiana’s Republican secretary of state, Tom Schedler.

The voters have also expressed their deep disdain for the commission, which recently requested public input and was met with an avalanche of condemnations. “You are bad for the USA,” wrote one commenter.

Meanwhile, there was more bad news for the commission on Tuesday. Ranking Democratic representatives from four different House committees — Elijah Cummings, John Conyers Jr., Bennie Thomspon, and Robert Brady — are demanding Kobach resign from the commission.

In a letter to Pence, the members wrote that Kobach has “repeatedly claimed, falsely, that widespread voter fraud exists and advertises his work on the Commission to promote his own campaign for governor of Kansas.”

Specifically, they allege Kobach appears to have violated the Hatch Act by using his commission role to solicit campaign contributions for his gubernatorial run.

The commission has yet to hold its first public meeting, and it is already beset by challenges and rebukes from all sides — which makes it a perfect encapsulation of this beleaguered administration.