Election Reform & Related News, Friday 4/27/07

[rumpel]

In light of the mushrooming scandal surrounding the US Department of Justice, I sympathize with the career employees of the DOJ. Those that left over the past 6 years, silently, without much fanfare must have done so with a heavy heart.

The majority of people, who enter a career of law enforcement must be doing so believing to be able to uphold the laws of the country, bring justice without fear or favor. At this point, people working at the DOJ, I can only envision, must be doing so with very mixed feelings, carrying out their day to day duties.

Today I would like to post a collection of articles from over the years regarding the changes inflicted onto the top law enforcement arm of this country since 2000, albeit as this is the ER forum I want to focus on the Civil Rights Division.

rumpel's head cold today is taking over much of the cognitive functions - let's see how far I get with this...

John Ashcroft's First Six Months at the Justice Department: The Right Wing Dream Team Takes Over

Department of Justice Action and Inaction
While the Attorney General's crucial role in the process of judicial selection provides the greatest opportunity to undermine constitutional rights and liberties in the long run, he can also do significant damage through his decisions about how to interpret the law and the Constitution, about his choice of priorities for federal law enforcement, and by the arguments he chooses to make or not make on behalf of the Justice Department in federal court. Although the Ashcroft team at the Justice Department is just getting started, it has already begun seriously troubling initiatives in a number of areas.

snip

Civil Rights

Voting Rights Enforcement

Widespread concern over voting irregularities across the nation following last year's election recounts in Florida prompted Ashcroft to add more additional attorneys in the voting rights section of the civil rights division. Ashcroft also announced he would create a new voting rights initiative to include a new senior counsel position within the department's civil rights division.

But Justice Department attorneys have not become involved in any of the lawsuits alleging voter disfranchisement in Florida or elsewhere other than to review changes to Florida's law as they are required to do. They have instead focused primarily on investigating charges made by Republicans of voter fraud in St. Louis, where Ashcroft sent in monitors to oversee a special election in March. In June, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights released its report on irregularities in the Florida vote and recommended that the Justice Department investigate possible violations of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and requested a meeting with the Attorney General. To date, that meeting hasn't occurred, though a Justice Department spokesperson has said the Department is investigating 12 claims of voting irregularities in Florida.

The Department's lack of intervention in voting rights cases has been contrasted by several observers with its decision to intervene in one of the first suits in the country brought under the recently passed Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) of 2000. The RLUIPA case is of keen interest to Religious Right groups, which were Ashcroft's most vehement supporters.

source: People For The American Way (could not find the date)
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=1336


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[rumpel]

1. Fraud in New Mexico, Published: December 3, 2004

Smart Money

"I began to uncover evidence that Interior was putting the interests of private energy companies ahead of the interests of individual Indian beneficiaries... could cost the very companies with which senior Interior officials maintain close ties millions of dollars."

Alan Balaran, the special master overseeing the Cobell v. Norton lawsuit


snip

Soon after learning of Balaran's investigation into the dealings of energy companies on Indian land, lawyers with the Department of Justice's civil division filed a motion to disqualify him. (The DOJ declined to comment as to whether there was a connection between the special master's report and its motion to have him removed.)

Balaran resigned a day before the district court of appeals was scheduled to hear the government's case against him. His presence had become a distraction to resolving the case, he said in his April 5, 2004, resignation letter filed with the court, since the government seemed determined to remove him at all costs. (Interior spokesman Dubray, in a recent interview with SmartMoney.com, falsely asserted that a federal court of appeals had removed Balaran as special master. When challenged, Dubray acknowledged that the court of appeals in fact had yet to decide the motion. Since then, the motion — in which the government was trying to have the special master removed from a position he'd already vacated in order to discredit his reports — has been dropped.)

In his resignation letter, Balaran said his discovery that the government was covering up activities by energy companies was the true reason the administration wanted him removed.

http://www.smartmoney.com/onthestreet/index.cfm?story=20041203&pgnum=2

[rumpel]

2. Staff Opinions Banned In Voting Rights Cases, December 10, 2005

Criticism of Justice Dept.'s Rights Division Grows

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer

The Justice Department has barred staff attorneys from offering recommendations in major Voting Rights Act cases, marking a significant change in the procedures meant to insulate such decisions from politics, congressional aides and current and former employees familiar with the issue said.

Disclosure of the change comes amid growing public criticism of Justice Department decisions to approve Republican-engineered plans in Texas and Georgia that were found to hurt minority voters by career staff attorneys who analyzed the plans. Political appointees overruled staff findings in both cases.

The policy was implemented in the Georgia case, said a Justice employee who, like others interviewed, spoke on condition of anonymity because of fears of retaliation. A staff memo urged rejecting the state's plan to require photo identification at the polls because it would harm black voters.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/09/AR2005120901894.html

[rumpel]

3. Justice Staff Saw Texas Districting As Illegal, December 2, 2005

Justice Staff Saw Texas Districting As Illegal
Voting Rights Finding On Map Pushed by DeLay Was Overruled

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer

Justice Department lawyers concluded that the landmark Texas congressional redistricting plan spearheaded by Rep. Tom DeLay (R) violated the Voting Rights Act, according to a previously undisclosed memo obtained by The Washington Post. But senior officials overruled them and approved the plan.

The memo, unanimously endorsed by six lawyers and two analysts in the department's voting section, said the redistricting plan illegally diluted black and Hispanic voting power in two congressional districts. It also said the plan eliminated several other districts in which minorities had a substantial, though not necessarily decisive, influence in elections.

"The State of Texas has not met its burden in showing that the proposed congressional redistricting plan does not have a discriminatory effect," the memo concluded.

The memo also found that Republican lawmakers and state officials who helped craft the proposal were aware it posed a high risk of being ruled discriminatory compared with other options.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/01/AR2005120101927.html

[rumpel]

4. Gonzales Defends Approval of Texas Redistricting by Justice, December 3, 2005

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales yesterday defended the Justice Department's 2003 decision to overrule a staff recommendation and approve a congressional redistricting map for Texas, arguing that subsequent court rulings and election results show that the plan did not harm minority voters.

A December 2003 internal memo shows that eight members of the Justice Department's voting section unanimously concluded that the Texas plan would violate the Voting Rights Act by diluting the electoral power of blacks and Hispanics. Political appointees in the department disagreed and allowed the plan to go forward.

"The fact that there may be disagreement within the ranks does not necessarily make it a wrong decision," Gonzales said at a briefing with reporters in Washington.

Gonzales disputed allegations from Democratic lawmakers and lawyers that the Texas case provides additional evidence that the department's work has been politicized during the Bush administration.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/02/AR2005120201802.html

[rumpel]

5. Civil Rights Focus Shift Roils Staff At Justice, November 13, 2005

Veterans Exit Division as Traditional Cases Decline

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, which has enforced the nation's anti-discrimination laws for nearly half a century, is in the midst of an upheaval that has driven away dozens of veteran lawyers and has damaged morale for many of those who remain, according to former and current career employees.

Nearly 20 percent of the division's lawyers left in fiscal 2005, in part because of a buyout program that some lawyers believe was aimed at pushing out those who did not share the administration's conservative views on civil rights laws. Longtime litigators complain that political appointees have cut them out of hiring and major policy decisions, including approvals of controversial GOP redistricting plans in Mississippi and Texas.

At the same time, prosecutions for the kinds of racial and gender discrimination crimes traditionally handled by the division have declined 40 percent over the past five years, according to department statistics. Dozens of lawyers find themselves handling appeals of deportation orders and other immigration matters instead of civil rights cases.

The division has also come under criticism from the courts and some Democratsfor its decision in August to approve a Georgia program requiring voters to present government-issued identification cards at the polls. The program was halted by an appellate court panel and a district court judge, who likened it to a poll tax from the Jim Crow era.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/12/AR2005111201200.html

[rumpel]

6. Criticism of Voting Law Was Overruled, November 17, 2005

Justice Dept. Backed Georgia Measure Despite Fears of Discrimination

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer

A team of Justice Department lawyers and analysts who reviewed a Georgia voter-identification law recommended rejecting it because it was likely to discriminate against black voters, but they were overruled the next day by higher-ranking officials at Justice, according to department documents.

The Justice Department has characterized the "pre-clearance" of the controversial Georgia voter-identification program as a joint decision by career and political appointees in the Civil Rights Division. Republican proponents in Georgia have cited federal approval of the program as evidence that it would not discriminate against African Americans and other minorities.

But an Aug. 25 staff memo obtained by The Washington Post recommended blocking the program because Georgia failed to show that the measure would not dilute the votes of minority residents, as required under the Voting Rights Act.

The memo, endorsed by four of the team's five members, also said the state had provided flawed and incomplete data. The team found significant evidence that the plan would be "retrogressive," meaning that it would reduce blacks' access to the polls.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/16/AR2005111602504.html

[rumpel]

7. Career Lawyers Leaving Justice Department, October 6, 2005

NPR

by Ari Shapiro

Tension has been growing between career lawyers and political appointees in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, according to some longtime career attorneys who have recently left the division. Now the Senate Judiciary Committee is holding confirmation hearings for a new leader of the politically sensitive group.

Some career professionals who have left the Civil Rights Division say they left because they were shut out of the decision making process in a way that did not occur under previous administrations.

A spokesman for Justice says that there is no split between political appointees and career lawyers. He points to the division's recent accomplishments in disability rights and human trafficking prosecutions as proof of it's effectiveness.

Civil Rights Division Letters

Critics say these two letters are evidence of the division's changing culture. A Justice spokesman says there is no fundamental difference between the two.

* Vista, Calif., Letter (2003)(Requires Adobe Acrobat)
* Franklin, Ohio, Letter (2005)(Requires Adobe Acrobat)

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4946744

[rumpel]

8. An Uncivil Division, October 2005

Legal Affairs

Political appointees to the Justice Department's civil rights division are driving career lawyers to retirement—then skipping the retirement parties.

By William R. Yeomans

"MAY IT PLEASE THE COURT, MY NAME IS WILLIAM YEOMANS, and I represent the United States." With those words, I began my first presentation in court for the civil rights division of the United States Department of Justice some 23 years ago. In the years that followed, as a career attorney at Justice, I used that opening on many occasions and always with pride, as did my career colleagues.

We shared in a tradition of public service that included attorneys who had successfully prosecuted Deputy Sheriff Cecil Ray Price and others for conspiring to kill Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Cheney in Mississippi, but failed to persuade a jury there to convict Ray Killen (a failure recently corrected); risked life and limb and suffered untold insults to bring desegregation to schools across the South and to metropolitan areas of the North; and prosecuted racists who burned crosses, churches, and homes. This tradition of public service and its attorneys brought to justice hundreds of abusive police officers, including those who beat Rodney King; challenged egregious conditions of confinement in prisons and psychiatric hospitals; and helped win passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act enforcing it in ways that made the daily activities of life easier for millions of people. As a trial lawyer and a manager, I was humbled every day to be a part of this tradition.

During the change from the Clinton to Bush administrations, however, the tradition began to be undermined. Political appointees who arrived in the division lacked experience in enforcement of the nation's civil rights laws or in managing a large organization, yet they were convinced that the career attorneys greeting them could not be trusted. As a result, the political leadership embarked on a very different path from the one marked by past Republican and Democratic administrations.

http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/September-October-2005/argument_yeomans_sepoct05.msp

[rumpel]

9. Poll Position, September 20, 2004

The New Yorker

Is the Justice Department poised to stop voter fraud-or to keep voters from voting?
by Jeffrey Toobin

On March 7, 1965, John Lewis, the twenty-five-year-old chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, led about six hundred marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, in Selma, Alabama. When they reached the crest of the bridge, the protesters were set upon by helmeted Alabama state troopers and local sheriff’s posses, who were swinging clubs and firing tear gas. One of the first troopers on the bridge slammed his nightstick into the left side of Lewis’s head, fracturing his skull. “I remember how strangely calm I felt as I thought, ‘This is it,’ ” Lewis wrote years later in his autobiography. “ ‘People are going to die here. I’m going to die here.’ ” As it turned out, more than fifty marchers were treated for injuries, but no one died.

The attack on the unarmed protesters shocked the country, and President Johnson used the events of what became known as Bloody Sunday to advance an essential part of his civil-rights program. On March 15th, Johnson addressed a Joint Session of Congress to demand that legislators pass, at long last, the Voting Rights Act. Adopting the great anthem of the civil-rights movement, the President concluded his speech with the words “… and we shall overcome.” Five months later, on August 6th, Johnson signed the bill into law, and invited Lewis to the Oval Office to celebrate the occasion. Toward the end of their meeting, as Lewis recalled, Johnson told him, “Now, John, you’ve got to go back and get all those folks registered. You’ve got to go back and get those boys by the balls. Just like a bull gets on top of a cow. You’ve got to get ’em by the balls and you’ve got to squeeze, squeeze ’em till they hurt.”

Thirty-seven years later, in 2002, Lewis was called on by a federal court to answer a charge that he had violated the Voting Rights Act by discriminating against African-Americans. Lewis was an eight-term member of Congress by then, and a pillar of the Georgia Democratic Party. In the nearly four decades since the act’s passage, it had revolutionized the franchise in the South. The literacy tests that were still in effect throughout the region were immediately suspended. Federal registrars replaced local officials who refused to register blacks. And the Attorney General was authorized to eliminate poll taxes wherever they remained. Amended and expanded in 1970, 1975, and 1982, the act also prohibited the kind of racial gerrymandering that allowed white state legislators to draw district lines that prevented African-Americans from winning elective office. It was this provision which Lewis was charged with violating.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/09/20/040920fa_fact

[Stevepol]

10. Good stuff Rumpel, but where's the Rec's folks??

Oops. Just noticed that you've just started posting. All is well after all in the ERD Forum. Won't be long before we're on the Greatest!

[rumpel]

12. thanks

I will check back in later...

:)

[FogerRox]

13. REC #4, one more send this to the greatest page DO IT....

[rumpel]

11. 2005 Hearing -Reauthorization DOJ Civil Rights Division

REAUTHORIZATION OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION OF THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION

OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MARCH 10, 2005

Serial No. 109–45

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary


MARCH 10, 2005

OPENING STATEMENT
The Honorable Steve Chabot, a Representative in Congress from the State of Ohio, and Chairman, Subcommittee on the Constitution

The Honorable Robert C. Scott, a Representative in Congress from the State of Virginia, and Member, Subcommittee on the Constitution

The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, and Member, Subcommittee on the Constitution

WITNESSES

Mr. R. Alexander Acosta, Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice
Oral Testimony
Prepared Statement

APPENDIX

Material Submitted for the Hearing Record

Congressional Black Caucus Agenda for the 109th Congress, submitted by the Honorable Melvin Watt, a Representative in Congress from the State of North Carolina, and Member, Subcommittee on the Constitution

Letter from Members of the Committee on the Judiciary, dated June 23, 2004, to the Honorable John Ashcroft, Attorney General of the United States, U.S. Department of Justice, and response, dated August 13, 2004

Response to post-hearing questions from R. Alexander Acosta, Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice

REAUTHORIZATION OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION OF THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

THURSDAY, MARCH 10, 2005

House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on the Constitution,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Steve Chabot (Chair of the Subcommittee) presiding.

Mr. CHABOT. The Committee will come to order.

......... snip

Mr. CONYERS. First of all, we join in welcoming our new leader in the voter rights area, civil rights area. There are a lot of things we've got to talk about and the Committee hearing only opens the door. Ohio is one of them. But also the guideline process utilized in section 5 in Georgia v. Ashcroft, the whole question of the lack of activity around employment issues in your shop.

We've been concerned about, but particularly in the civil rights community, about the flagrant disregard for civil rights enforcement evidenced by the Employment Section of the Civil Rights Division and its apparent hostility to disparate impact cases.

And so I'm looking forward to this beginning discussion with us. I know you've got your staff here, and I think we're going to be able to make some headway in some areas that I think have been sorely ignored in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to bring this opening remark.

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you very much.

......... snip

Mr. ACOSTA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, Members of the Subcommittee, it's a pleasure to appear before you once again to represent President Bush, Attorney General Gonzales, and the men and women of the Civil Rights Division.

I have been on the job somewhat over a year now and I'm still honored and I'm humbled by the trust that the President and the Attorneys General whom I have served have placed in me by allowing me to serve in this position.

I am pleased to report that 2004 was an outstanding year for the Division. During 2004, we achieved record levels of enforcement across the board. My written statement details that work. I would like to summarize it and ask that my statement be placed in the record.

Mr. CHABOT. Without objection.

....... snip

from Mr. R. Alexander Acosta Opening Statement:

PROTECTING VOTING RIGHTS

Of particular importance during 2004 was the Division's responsibility to enforce certain federal voting rights statutes. Let me be absolutely clear: no civil right is more important to President Bush, to Attorney General Gonzales, or to me, than the full and fair enjoyment of the right to vote. The ballot is the essential building block of our democracy, and it must be protected.

It merits noting at the outset that ours is a Federal system of Government. Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution provides that ''he Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.'' However, recognizing the national importance of such elections, it continues, ''but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations. . . .'' Thus, except for where Congress has expressly decided otherwise, primary responsibility for the method and manner of elections, and for defining and protecting the elective franchise lies with the several states.

........ snip

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to begin by acknowledging that we have a number of members of the FBI here for this hearing, some of them formerly assigned to Detroit and some on the Committee, even, and we welcome them to this hearing.

Now, as Assistant Attorney General, you have, to me, one of the most important tasks of helping civil rights become the finished business of America, because it's still the unfinished business of America. You have a huge burden. I think most of us on this Committee are here to help you. I've been with this since the Voting Rights act of 1965 under—when Manny Seller was the Chairman a number of years back.

Now, your presentation here is seriously different from the warnings that I have been presented by my staff about problems that we're having, and this is understandable. You didn't come here to confess.
This isn't a confessional. I mean, you've got to put on the best presentation for your Division that you can, and I don't blame you for that. But there are lots of problems, because you were telling me the most this and the more cases and more of everything. It would lead a lot of people to say, well, we're in pretty good shape.

So I see a couple of challenges here. One, that we have an Assistant Attorney General that is willing to confront the issues, and I commend you for that, but there are a lot of things that 5 minutes won't even begin to clear up. So I wanted to, as I mentioned to you before we started, we've got to set up some kind of channel of meeting, Mr. Chairman, because these issues are way too complex to take in 5-minute bites during this hearing.

But I also would like to ask if you would be willing to meet with the leaders of the major civil rights organizations in America who, in one sense, have the same responsibility that you do, and I don't know—and I'm not presuming that you have met or not met before, but it seems to me that that would be a hugely important signal and an opportunity for us to vet through some of these problems and I'd like to throw that out for your reaction.

(emphasis mine
followed by questions from Feeney, out of all people....)

http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/judiciary/hju99784.000/hju99784_0.HTM

[Kurovski]

14. Kick to the top.

Thank you, kind rumpel.

[rumpel]

16. Thank you

for your daily support, Kurovski

[rumpel]

15. Political Appointees No Longer to Pick Justice Interns

hehe adding one more pre-midnite

thanks to maddezmom

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2826427

[Erika]

17. K & R n/t

[DeSwiss]

18. KnR!!!