We noticed.
Via The Hill:
Conservatives hoping to celebrate the departure of Attorney General Eric Holder might be in for a long wait.
The attorney general’s position has looked perilous at various points during his tenure. But these days, he seems resurgent, pushing states to strike down voting restrictions on ex-felons and fighting hard to restore some of the key powers of the Voting Rights Act.
It has been an uphill climb. In 2012, Holder became the first attorney general to be held in contempt by the House of Representatives while, the year before, he had to retreat from his earlier insistence that suspects in the September 11, 2001 attacks should be tried in criminal court in New York.
Critics of Holder were buoyed by a report in the current edition of The New Yorker that suggested Holder was planning to step down this year.
But Justice has pushed back against that characterization, arguing that, when the interview was conducted late last year, Holder was simply saying he had a lot more work to do, not setting a date for his departure.
“The most the attorney general has said is that he still has a lot he wants to accomplish on issues like criminal justice reform, voting rights and LGBT equality. He did not speak about his plans any further than that,” said Justice spokesman Brian Fallon.
Holder’s most high-profile project at the moment is comprised of two separate cases that he is taking against the states of Texas and North Carolina.
In these instances, the Justice Department is arguing that laws pertaining to voter ID and early voting have the effect of disadvantaging minority voters and should be struck down. Most observers see the battle as part of a larger war that pits Holder against a Supreme Court decision last year that gutted the Voting Rights Act.
Also last week, Holder urged states to reinstate the rights of felons to vote in a speech at Georgetown University. The attorney general has no power to change those laws but he was emphatic in his argument.