Chris Van Hollen: “President Trump nominated Stephen Vaden to be General Counsel for the Department of Agriculture. In that role, Mr. Vaden…”

“President Trump nominated Stephen Vaden to be General Counsel for the Department of Agriculture. In that role, Mr. Vaden will oversee all of the legal services for all operations and programs of the Department and 250 attorneys nationwide. Most of Mr. Vaden's experience is not in agriculture or natural resources issues. Much of his work at the law firm Jones Day focused on election law, and during the 2016 election cycle, he coauthored amicus briefs in States where State legislatures had enacted discriminatory voting laws designed to suppress minority votes following the Supreme Court ruling in Shelby County v. Holder which gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965. State legislatures in North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia took full advantage of the Shelby County ruling that removed previous preclearance requirements. In North Carolina, the legislature passed a law changing various State voting procedures. The legislature utilized racial data on voting practices in drafting the law, and where they saw voting practices that were predominately utilized by African American voters, they changed those voting practices. Mr. Vaden was one of three attorneys who submitted an amicus brief in support of the State of North Carolina, for Senators Tillis, Graham, Cruz, Lee, and the Judicial Education Project.…”