Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird meddles with voting process in other states

A new lawsuit challenges an initiative to increase voter registrations

Aug 21, 2024

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, in New York, at the trial of Donald Trump in May. (Screen grab of video from CNN, shared by Dave Busiek)

We all know that Republicans have made it harder to vote in Iowa.

They cut the number of days when people could cast absentee ballots. Then, after the 2020 election, they cut them again. They reduced the time when ballots could be accepted at election offices. And they made it harder to return them. They also cut back on in-person polling hours.

Now, Attorney General Brenna Bird has taken it a step further: She’s attempting to interfere with the voting process in other states.

Bird joined eight other Republican state attorneys general last week, filing a lawsuit against the Biden administration for an initiative directing federal agencies to assist voter registration efforts where possible. A number of states have signed agreements to work with the federal government to register voters.

The three-year-old initiative has been challenged in court by other Republicans, but those efforts have not been successful.

Still, they keep trying.

Bird and company are claiming the administration is going beyond its legal authority and undercutting state sovereignty by promoting voter registration.

There’s no real evidence to support the Republican argument.

The directive—Executive Order 14019—clearly contemplates the role of each of the states in registering voters, and it instructs federal departments to look for ways to make it easier for people to participate in the electoral process, including cooperating with states when asked.

An example: Allow people to register to vote when they visit a federal office in their state.

The Biden order instructs agencies to carry out this directive “as appropriate and consistent with applicable law.”

Election experts have made clear this order doesn’t intrude upon states’ rights.

“It is merely an order authorizing federal agencies to cooperate with the states to provide voter registration opportunities to all citizens through those agencies,” David J. Becker told PolitiFact. Becker was a senior trial attorney in the voting section of the Justice Department during the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Here’s an example: In section 3, the president tells agencies to seek ways to assist “applicants in completing voter registration and vote-by-mail ballot application forms in a manner consistent with all relevant State laws…” (Italics are mine.)

Going back to the Bush administration, the Veterans Health Administration has been offering voting assistance to people at some of their facilities, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. What’s wrong with the Department of Agriculture, or any other department, trying to help, too? After all, the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 says it is the “duty” of federal, state and local governments to promote voting. (The Brennan Center says there are a number of laws and regulations that ensure such efforts are non-partisan.)

I suspect Republicans object because they’re worried voter registration efforts might hurt Donald Trump’s chances in swing states, such as Michigan and Pennsylvania.

In Michigan, the Small Business Administration and the Michigan Department of State signed an agreement in March to “promote civic engagement and voter registration” there. Last year, the state also said that, in cooperation with the federal Department of Veterans Affairs, three VA locations would become voter registration sites.

The state of Pennsylvania signed a similar agreement with the VA in 2022.

But it’s not just presidential swing states where this initiative is at work. The VA and the state of Kentucky also forged such an agreement in 2022.

“Up until now, Kentuckians could register to vote at drivers licensing facilities and public assistance agencies, but not Veterans Affairs facilities,” Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams said at the time. “I am proud we are making it easier for veterans to participate in the democracy they put their lives on the line to protect.”

This all seems reasonable to me. And helping veterans register to vote is the least we can do.

Still, Bird and company are complaining. They raise fears about the involvement of third-party groups. This echoes Republicans’ claims that Mark Zuckerberg and his wife helped Democrats during the 2020 election by donating $350 million to a non-profit group that awarded election administration grants to local governments dealing with logistical challenges during the pandemic.

A unanimous finding by the Federal Election Commission found no wrongdoing in what Zuckerberg did. And it is instructive to remember that when a rightwing group challenged Zuckerman-funded efforts in Iowa, they only targeted two left-leaning areas, Scott and Black Hawk counties. They ignored the dozens of other Iowa counties that received grants, including all the Republican areas.

A federal judge dismissed the complaint.

In their lawsuit, Bird and the other eight Republicans say they all are “avid supporters of voting rights and voter registration efforts.”

Their actions belie their words.

We’ve already seen what Bird will do to help Donald Trump.

In May, she tried to undermine New York’s legal system by working with other Republicans to help Trump’s efforts to escape accountability for the 34 felonies he committed.

Now, she is trying to undercut cooperative efforts between other states and the federal government to enhance voter participation.

This may be a good way to get a promotion in MAGA-world, but it is not consistent with Iowa’s best traditions.

Along the Mississippi

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