A little more than a month after his inauguration, President Biden issued an executive order ostensibly promoting equal access to voting. The document requires federal agencies to partner with local and state authorities to expand voter registration – especially to “voters of color [who] have faced discriminatory policies and other obstacles that disproportionately affect their communities.” Immediately, the loyal opposition – in this case, Republicans – sensed a progressive bent to Executive Order 14019, charging that it is not only partisan but illegal as well.
On June 13, the US Committee on House Administration issued 15 subpoenas to Biden administration Cabinet officials requesting all their internal agency documents related to the EO. This is the latest in a series of moves to repeal the order.
An Executive Order With Democratic Roots
Many conservatives believe this executive order’s foundation originated in a memo from the left-leaning think tank Dēmos. Their plan – which is strikingly similar to the actual EO – estimates that utilizing federal agency resources could yield as many as 3.5 million voters added to the rolls. The Dēmos framework has been removed from its website but still exists on an archival site.
The Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) has been all over this controversial plan by the Biden administration to enlist federal agencies and third-party groups to mobilize historically Democratic demographic blocs to vote. Liberty Nation News spoke to FGA’s Senior Director of Federal Affairs, Stewart Whitson, about their objections to the EO: “President Biden has basically transformed the entire federal executive branch into his political campaign to try to keep himself in office, so it’s a huge problem, and we’ve been investigating it for a couple of years now.”
Unsurprisingly, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests have primarily gone unanswered, ratcheting up the suspicion that this voter mobilization effort is nothing more than a smokescreen forcing Biden administration agencies to engage in partisan politics. The FGA’s chief concern about this unconventional order centers around “approved third-party agencies” selected to help the feds get out the vote. During his interview with LN News, Whitson likened this controversy to the Zuckerbucks scandal on steroids:
“If you go back in time to 2020, everyone could see the Zuckerberg scandal on its face looked problematic, but it wasn’t until after the election that FGA and many others did in-depth research and looked precisely where the money went. We could show with factual evidence that the [Zuckerberg] money disproportionately favored left-leaning jurisdictions. So, Zuckerbucks funnels $400 million, but this game involves literally unlimited funding resources and reach of the federal government, not just its agencies in DC, but also its satellite offices in every state across the country. There are thousands of them, so you can see the risk because this is basically Zuckerbucks on steroids. So that’s the problem on its surface.”
FGA’s suspicions were confirmed when one of their FOIA requests yielded an email listing of potential third-party advocates: “These include representatives from progressive groups such as the ACLU, the George Soros-affiliated Open Society Policy Center, and the Southern Poverty Law Center; labor unions including the AFL-CIO and AFSCME; and a coterie of identity-focused organizations such as the Arab American Association, Black Voters Matter, and UnidosUS,” according to Real Clear Investigations.
Most legal actions swirling around this executive order have not advanced, save FGA’s, which are still active in Florida. Perhaps that’s why the Committee on House Administration issued those 15 subpoenas this week. The clock is ticking, with only five months left before the election, and it’s entirely possible that much of the damage has already been done. Still, FGA’s Stew Whitson is hopeful:
Congress needs to make sure that any federal executive branch employees who violate the Hatch Act or use their office or federal resources to engage in partisan election activity will be held accountable. Letting them know that will help slow this effort down, and at the end of the day, all we want is that whoever the American people choose is who should be president. It shouldn’t be political appointees running federal executive branch offices who tip the scales of the election. It should be something that’s decided by the American voter.
Cabinet members have until June 26 to respond to the House committee’s subpoenas.
