The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports:
Joe Biden is officially tapping a leading voting rights lawyer for a role on a federal appellate court.
Biden is nominating Myrna Pérez, the director of the voting rights and elections program at the Brennan Center for Justice, to serve on the US Court of Appeals for the 2nd circuit, the appellate courts that oversees New York, Connecticut, and Vermont.
If confirmed, Pérez would be the only Latina jurist serving on the 2nd circuit, the White House noted in a press release earlier today.
Here’s one of her recent tweets.
Myrna Pérez
(@myrna_perez_)So the Texas legislature doesn’t pass the anti-voter legislation, and now Tx Governor Greg Abbott wants to defund the Tx legislature. Texans deserve a better political process than this. https://t.co/pVrBY6yAHZ
Pérez is widely respected among voting rights attorneys, and has been involved in some of the most high profile voting cases in recent years, including the fight over Texas’ voter ID law and restoring voting rights to people with felony convictions in Florida.
She has led efforts to push back on overly-aggressive efforts to remove people from the voter rolls, a process often called voter purging, and has been outspoken about the damage of the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision striking down a critical provision of the Voting Rights Act.
Pérez was among five people the White House nominated for judgeships today. Hers is the latest of a number of voting rights experts Biden has put in key roles across government.
Vanita Gupta and Kristen Clarke, two longtime civil rights attorneys, are currently serving in top roles at the Justice Department. Justin Levitt, a well-respected scholar, was hired as a senior White House adviser to work on voting rights issues.
More may be coming: Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has also recommended Dale Ho, the ACLU’s top voting rights lawyer, for a position on the federal bench.
“With voter suppression laws on the rise, we need strong voting rights and civil rights champions on the federal bench who are committed to equal justice under law. Myrna Pérez is an exceptionally qualified attorney and has an unassailable record when it comes to protecting the fundamental right to vote,” Damon Hewitt, the president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
Read more on the issues involved in “the fight to vote” in the US in our special section.
