Complaints abound over enforcement of voter registration law(Hans von Spakovsky)

[maddezmom]

Source: McClatchy

WASHINGTON - Representatives of three liberal-leaning groups came to the Justice Department in 2004, armed with evidence that hundreds of public-assistance agencies had illegally failed to offer voter registration to their mostly poor and minority clients.

Congress passed the National Voter Registration Act, which imposed the requirement, in 1993. But after these agencies registered 2.6 million people to vote in 1995-1996, the total registered plunged to about 1 million in 2003-2004.

Michael Slater, the Oregon-based deputy director of the national registration group Project Vote, said officials of the Justice Department's civil rights division showed little interest in enforcing that part of the law.

Officials for the three groups, as well as former lawyers in the division, cite the inaction by the Justice Department as further evidence that politics drove the Bush administration's operation of the nation's chief law enforcement agency.

The Bush Justice Department, they said, has largely ignored the voter registration sections of the law while aggressively using a narrower provision to sue or threaten to sue states that have failed to purge the names of allegedly ineligible people from voter rolls.





Read more: http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/usattorneys/17333144.htm

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Briefing on President Bush's Nomination of Hans Von Spakovsky to the Federal Election Commission and His Ties to Voter Suppression at the
DOJ
To: POLITICAL EDITORS


Contact: Jonathan Rosen, [phone], for Brennan Center for Justice


WASHINGTON, June 6 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following advisory was issued today by the Brennan Center for Justice and the Lawyers Committee:


What: By now it seems clear that at least three of the nine U.S. Attorneys pushed out by the Bush administration -- David Iglesias in New Mexico,
John McKay in Washington, Thomas Heffelfinger in Minnesota -- lost their jobs in part because they refused to prosecute voter fraud where it did
not exist. Mounting evidence reveals a much broader strategy on the part of the Administration to use federal agencies charged with protecting v
oting rights to promote voter suppression and influence election rules so as to gain partisan advantage in battleground states.


On Thursday lawyers from the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law will join former career
professionals in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division to discuss the impact of this strategy on legitimate voters, especially low- income and
minority citizens as well as students and seniors.


The briefing comes six days before the Senate Rules & Administration Committee holds a confirmation hearing for one of the architects of the
Administration's voter suppression program, Hans von Spakovsky, for a seat on the Federal Election Commission.

more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20070606/pl_usnw/briefing_on_president_bush_s_nomination_of_hans_von_spakovsky_to_the_federal_election_commission_and_his_ties_to_voter_suppress

[maddezmom]

1. more:

U. S. ATTORNEYS
Efforts to stop `voter fraud' may have curbed legitimate voting
By Greg Gordon
McClatchy Newspapers
PDF | Emails DeGregorio & von Spakovsky

WASHINGTON - During four years as a Justice Department civil rights lawyer, Hans von Spakovsky went so far in a crusade against voter fraud as to warn of its dangers under a pseudonym in a law journal article.


Writing as "Publius," von Spakovsky contended that every voter should be required to produce a photo-identification card and that there was "no evidence" that such restrictions burden minority voters disproportionately.


Now, amid a scandal over politicization of the Justice Department, Congress is beginning to examine allegations that von Spakovsky was a key player in a Republican campaign to hang onto power in Washington by suppressing the votes of minority voters.


"Mr. von Spakovsky was central to the administration's pursuit of strategies that had the effect of suppressing the minority vote," charged Joseph Rich, a former Justice Department voting rights chief who worked under him.

more:http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/nation/17256012.htm?source=rss&channel=krwashington_nation

[salin]

2. so he won't (I hope) get affirmed by the Senate - but

regardless of his in appropriate actions to disenfranchise US citizens *who paid his salary* ... he will certainly be rewarded with some cushy, highpaying GOP lawfirm.

I am glad to see McClatchy writing about this story.

[maddezmom]

4. that's kind of how I feel

let him get a cushy job, just don't make me pay the salary. This guy is EVIL :puke:

[annabanana]

3. "little interest in enforcing that part of the law"

Maybe it's covered by one of those "signing statements".