Dakota Beacon

American political corruption remains unfettered -- almost. However, occasionally a fresh breeze disturbs the protracted stench. The source of that fresh breeze comes from the watchdog Judicial Watch (JW), a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation promoting transparency, accountability, and integrity in government, politics, and the law. JW’s efforts and successes give hope to the weary.

JW practices what it preaches: “Because no one is above the law.” Accordingly, it uses freedom of information (FOIA) laws and other tools to investigate and uncover wrongdoing by government officials. They also litigate to hold accountable politicians and public officials who engage in corruption.

JW’s litigation and civil discovery provides a basis for civil authorities to criminally prosecute corrupt officials. They also seek to ensure high standards within the judiciary by monitoring the judicial process endeavoring to hold judges accountable.

Additionally, JW offers training and legal services to other conservative groups on how to effectively use FOIA and other open records laws to achieve accountability and openness in government.

That said, JW serves as a national leader in voting integrity and voting rights. As part of its work, JW assembled a team of highly experienced voting rights attorneys. Robert Popper, a JW senior attorney, leads its election law program. He previously served in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, where he managed voting rights investigations, litigations, consent decrees, and settlements in dozens of states. Among its other achievements JW stopped discriminatory elections in Hawaii and cleaned up voter rolls in California, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. Here are some specific victories won by JW.

March 30, 2023: JW announced that Colorado’s secretary of state agreed to settle a lawsuit alleging that Colorado failed to remove ineligible voters from its rolls. As part of its settlement Colorado will report to JW on its yearly progress in cleaning up its rolls for the next six years. Since JW filed its lawsuit, Colorado voter roll removals increased by 78%, from 172,379 to 306,303.

February 23, 2023: Los Angeles County confirmed removal of 1,207,613 ineligible voters from its rolls since last year under the terms of a settlement agreement in a federal lawsuit that JW filed in 2017.

January 12, 2023: JW settled a federal election integrity lawsuit against New York City after the city removed 441,083 ineligible names from the voter rolls and promised to take reasonable steps going forward to clean its voter registration lists.

Kentucky also removed hundreds of thousands of old registrations after it entered into a consent decree to end another JW lawsuit.

In May 2022, JW sued Illinois on behalf of Congressman Mike Bost and two other registered Illinois voters to stop state election officials from extending Election Day for 14 days beyond the date established by federal law.

In March 2022, a Maryland court ruled in favor of JW’s challenge to the Democrat state legislature’s “extreme” congressional gerrymander.

In February 2022, JW settled a voter roll clean-up lawsuit against North Carolina and two of its counties after North Carolina removed over 430,000 inactive registrations from its voter rolls.

These are some of JW’s voter roll victories and should promote integrity in the 2024 elections.

Beyond safeguarding honest elections, JW has been involved in other wins making headlines.

-- “MARCH 23, 2023 Judicial Watch: Records Show Air Force Academy Focus on Anti-American Critical Race Theory Training of Cadets – Academy Head Ties Cadets to Racism and Social Injustice”

-- “MARCH 15, 2023 Judicial Watch Sues Federal Trade Commission for Information on Controversial Targeting of Twitter Owner Elon Musk”

-- “MARCH 14, 2023 Biden’s Migrant Catch-and-Release Policy Unlawful, Trump-Appointed Judge Rules”

-- “MARCH 10, 2023 Judicial Watch: Federal Appeals Court Hears Challenge To FBI’s Withholding of Communications with Banks Regarding January 6 Disturbance”

-- “MARCH 08, 2023 Judicial Watch Victory: Federal Court Allows Lawsuit to Go Forward over Magistrate’s Firing for Comments on Released Rapist’s Murder of His Victim”

-- “FEBRUARY 24, 2023 Judicial Watch Sues DHS for Records on Election Censorship”

-- “JANUARY 31, 2023 Judicial Watch Continues to Push in Court for Testimony on Secret University of Delaware Deal with Joe Biden to Hide Senate Records”

And the list goes on …

For all their good work, a Tip ‘o the Hat to Judicial Watch!

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).