How The GOP Rolled Back Federal Voting Rights Enforcement

[struggle4progress]

The Bush Administration's strategy on voting rights was to reverse the civil rights movement's gains

By Andrew Gumbel
The Nation
Posted October 3, 2008

In 2002 conservative political journalist John Miller wrote an extraordinary call to arms in which he declared open season on the civil rights division of the Justice Department. This was the division that, for close to fifty years, had been dedicated to erasing the legacy of Jim Crow and protecting the rights of minority voters.

"There may be no part of the federal government where liberalism is more deeply entrenched," he fulminated in the National Review. Then he sketched out how conservatives could reclaim it for themselves. His jeremiad was headlined Fort Liberalism: Can Justice's Civil Rights Division Be Bushified?

Six years on, we know the answer painfully well. What makes Miller's piece so extraordinary is that nearly every one of his proposals was implemented. "Republicans should work to gain more control over the civil rights division and its renegade lawyers," he wrote. Check. "The administration should permanently replace those it believes it can't trust," including senior career section chiefs. Check. "Republican political appointees should seize control of the hiring process." Again, check ...

http://www.alternet.org/democracy/101537/the_bush_league:_how_the_gop_rolled_back_federal_voting_rights_enforcement/