Kobach: A Victory for Public Information

On Tuesday, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida denied temporary restraining orders (TROs) sought by the ACLU, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and others.

The plaintiffs were attempting to prevent the Presidential Commission on Election Integrity, of which I am Vice-Chair, from having its first meeting on Wednesday in Washington, D.C.

Fortunately, the federal judges rejected the TRO requests. In a well-reasoned, 24-page opinion, the District of Columbia federal judge explained why the plaintiffs’ claims that the meeting would violate federal law were unlikely to prevail.

On Wednesday, the Commission met and launched its fact-finding mission. President Trump himself addressed the Commission members, highlighting the importance of the Commission’s work.

The Commission is a bipartisan body dedicated to collecting factual information and providing advice to the president about the integrity of the voting process and reporting that information to the American people. But the ACLU and the Lawyers’ Committee don’t want that information-gathering to begin. They, along with groups like Common Cause and the NAACP, have filed a total of seven lawsuits to thwart the Commission’s work.

The ACLU and allied groups on the Left have long used the tactic of litigation to achieve policies that they could not accomplish through the legislative process.

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