Eric Holder to Constitution: whatever – WashPost: "Justice Department lawyers concluded in an unpublished opinion earlier this year that the historic D.C. voting rights bill pending in Congress is unconstitutional, according to sources briefed on the issue. But Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who supports the measure, ordered up a second opinion from other lawyers in his department and determined that the legislation would pass muster."

According to a Justice Department spokesman, Holder sought the opinion of legal scholars who argued the D.C. vote is constitutional. I'd really like to know the names of these "scholars" who magically conjured a new meaning of "state" from the explicitly-worded U.S. Constitution. I doubt even one Supreme Court Justice could pretzel-logic this one.

Extra – From the Corner:

The conclusion that the new OLC - led by deputies (including very liberal legal academics) selected and appointed by the Obama administration - reached is not merely the same conclusion that OLC reached under the Bush administration two years ago. It’s been - or, rather, had been, until Holder’s override - the Department of Justice’s consistent position dating back at least as far as Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in 1963 or so.

So much for legal precedent.