Trump nominee wanted voting law with 'ugly history' of barring Blacks from polls

A Donald Trump nominee for a lifetime federal judgeship to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern and Western Districts of Missouri has a history of promoting a policy designed to prevent Black people from voting, HuffPost revealed.

Attorney Josh Divine has served since 2023 as Missouri’s Solicitor General and Director of Special Litigation. "He previously clerked for conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and served as chief counsel to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO)," according to the report.

As a student at the University of Northern Colorado in 2010, Divine wrote an opinion piece arguing that citizens "should be required to take literacy tests in order to vote — despite such tests being outlawed by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 because they were routinely used to keep Black people from voting," the report said.

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“People who aren’t informed about issues or platforms — especially when it is so easy to become informed these days — have no business voting, which is why I propose state-administered literacy tests,” Divine wrote for the college's paper, The Mirror.

HuffPost reporter Jennifer Bendery wrote, "Literacy tests in elections have a long and ugly history in the U.S. They were used from the late 1800s to the mid-1960s to prevent voting by immigrants and lower-income people, who were considered not educated enough to vote. In particular, in the 1960s, Southern states forced Black residents to explain complicated constitutional provisions in order to vote.

The landmark Voting Rights Act ultimately banned literacy tests, along with poll taxes, and the result was a surge in registered Black voters."

Bendery added, "It’s not clear whether Divine, who is now in his mid-30s, still thinks it would be a good idea to let states bring back literacy tests as a requirement for voting."

The White House did not respond to request for comment, according to the article.

Read the HuffPost article here.