Attorney General Plans Reshaping of Civil Rights Division

[steven johnson]

Source: NY Times

September 01, 2009
WASHINGTON - Seven months after taking office, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is reshaping the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division by pushing it back into some of the most important areas of American political life, including voting rights, housing, employment, bank lending practices and redistricting after the 2010 census.
As part of this shift, the Obama administration is planning a major revival of high-impact civil rights enforcement against policies, in areas ranging from housing to hiring, where statistics show that minorities fare disproportionately poorly. President George W. Bush's appointees had discouraged such tactics, preferring to focus on individual cases in which there is evidence of intentional discrimination.
To bolster a unit that has been battered by heavy turnover and a scandal over politically tinged hiring under the Bush administration, the Obama White House has also proposed a hiring spree that would swell the ranks of several hundred civil rights lawyers with more than 50 additional lawyers, a significant increase for a relatively small but powerful division of the government.
The division is "getting back to doing what it has traditionally done," Mr. Holder said in an interview. "But it's really only a start. I think the wounds that were inflicted on this division were deep, and it will take some time for them to fully heal."


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/us/politics/01rights.html

---

Bush's supervisor of the Justice Department's civil rights division Bradley Schlozman said, "My tentative plans are to gerrymander all of those crazy libs right out of the section," he said in an e-mail in 2003. "I too get to work with mold spores, but here in Civil Rights, we call them Voting Section attorneys."

He then hired 63 of 65 lawyers with Republican or conservative credentials.

It appears the primary concern of the Bush Administration, as in 2000, was Republican voting rights.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jan/14/nation/na-justice14

Under the Bush administration, however, all that changed. Over the last six years, this Justice Department has ignored the advice of its staff and skewed aspects of law enforcement in ways that clearly were intended to influence the outcome of elections.
It has notably shirked its legal responsibility to protect voting rights. From 2001 to 2006, no voting discrimination cases were brought on behalf of African American or Native American voters. U.S. attorneys were told instead to give priority to voter fraud cases, which, when coupled with the strong support for voter ID laws, indicated an intent to depress voter turnout in minority and poor communities.
At least two of the recently fired U.S. attorneys, John McKay in Seattle and David C. Iglesias in New Mexico, were targeted largely because they refused to prosecute voting fraud cases that implicated Democrats or voters likely to vote for Democrats.


Bush's long history of tilting Justice

[Hekate]

1. Kick and 5th Rec

:kick: for my president

[DCKit]

2. Where's the part where they fire all the otherwise unemployable hacks who got in under BushCo*? n/t

[barbtries]

7. my thought exactly

they're gonna really have to clean house.

[winyanstaz]

3. Well now, this is good news...at least it is a good start :)

[dotymed]

5. I HATE IT, BUT I AM SO SKEPTICAL ABOUT CLAIMS FROM ALL POLITICIANS

I'll believe it when I see it. Here in Indiana, our Gov. (ha,
Bush's ex- economic adviser)Mitch Daniels. is trying to do
away with our township trustees. I am a disabled person who
used to pay a 35% tax rate. If it were not for my trustee I
would have been homeless and dead from a lack of medication
already. Governor Mitch Daniels, his first act as Governor was
to force all state employees to quit the Union. He has
"leased" our toll roads for 75 year contracts, even
though he is in office for four year terms. He was
re-elected(?) last year. Amazingly, I can not find even one
Republican who supports him. If he eliminates the trustees, he
will have access to their "comm budgets" which
amounts to millions and are budgets to protect their
constituents against fire loss (on farms mainly,by buying used
fire trucks and leasing fire protection from local depts.) and
the trustee building repair funds.. He is said to aspire to
become the republican Presidential candidate in 2012. He is a
typical Bush henchman, beady eyes and all. 

[BumRushDaShow]

4. K&R

So much to do....

:kick:

[happygoluckytoyou]

6. back to DOING THEIR JOBS .... gotta love OBAMA ! ! ! and i know that pisses off the Right

[tekisui]

8. knr!~

[Toasterlad]

9. Attorney General Plans Reshaping of Civil Rights Division - Except for Gays

They can eat shit and die.

[L. Coyote]

10. Meanwhile, the Bush Junta still roams the streets, free of facing Justice.

Are there no consequences for being a criminal if you are also a Republican?

The should be some consequences for being a Republican :rofl:

[2Design]

11. well here is something good obama is doing n/t

[jonestonesusa]

12. Holder has been willing to take the heat for investigating the CIA,

with major criticism coming from CIA Director Panetta and lots of conservative quarters. We at DU need to give him credit for that stand and this one, which is a long time in coming after three decades of Clarence Thomas-styled stacking the deck against civil rights enforcement, interrupted only by the Clinton administration.

Why not give credit where credit is due, fellow progressives?

[Triana]

13. YES! This has needed being done for SO many years! n/t

[SpartanDem]

14. K&R

[No Elephants]

15. Great. Just remember, though, that civil rights is about ALL Americans,

gay and hetero; female and male; challenged and able; all races, all ethnicities and all religions, including no religion.

[Cherchez la Femme]

17. Who would take a wager on that, though?

[jonestonesusa]

19. Sure - is there a reason why that should be pointed out with emphasis?

There's a subtle and not-so-subtle backlash in this country against the particular enforcement of civil rights law as it pertains to African American disenfranchisement, and that seems implicit in your post, that in your view some kind of sectarian understanding of civil rights needs to be debunked.

Basically, I agree fully that civil rights, properly understood, includes all citizens; Malcolm X and many others preferred the term "human rights" to "civil rights," which has a historically-situated relationship to U.S. black/white relations. But it's also true that African Americans, due to those same historically-specific patterns of discrimination, still do not receive equal protection under the law, and there's nothing wrong with calling specific attention to the need for vigilance against anti-black discrimination in voting rights, housing assistance, support for farmers, or other relevant areas. We need to agree on that too to establish a progressive agenda that goes beyond politically correct talk.

[Cherchez la Femme]

22. Not debunked

but a reminder for inclusion.

Which appears necessary, even as evidenced in your own post, as you contend
" "civil rights," which has a historically-situated relationship to U.S. black/white relations"
and not a peep regarding equal rights for women,
who, BTW, make up at least 50% of every race and creed.

And who received suffrage over 50 years after African-Americans were enfranchised.

Funny how we aren't even considered secondary... we're completely overlooked or outright forgotten.

[jonestonesusa]

28. How many demographic groups must I include in a brief reference to civil rights?

And why do you persist in holding that the term "black/white relations" excludes women? It doesn't.

There have of course been civil rights struggles involving a number of demographic groups in this country. OTOH, it's a linguistic commonplace to use the word "civil rights" with reference to African American legal struggles for equality, as in "civil rights movement." Maybe it's bigotry that that practice persists. It's your call.

While I choose not to rank oppressions in terms of historical importance or order, for the record the disenfranchisement of African American voters continued past the 1920s and the women's suffrage amendment. But you know that, and still prefer linguistic snark even when talking to people who share the same goals.

By the way, you didn't mention men in your statement. How sexist!
:sarcasm:

[Cherchez la Femme]

29. How about more than one single group?

Not all, even "et. al." would cover it nicely.

As for mentioning men, in general, as a disenfranchised, struggling for equality group of people

--you've got to be kidding me. :eyes:

[Kweli4Real]

25. I didn't know which post to link to, but ...

The above is the sickness of the progressive movement ... every positive move is met with "Yeah? But what about me?" The justice department cannot enforce any laws that are not on the books; but it can and should enforce those already written.

[progressoid]

16. Pop pop pop pop pop

Freepers heads are 'sploding! :)

[XXXMADAM]

18. Sex Worker Rights Are Human Rights

[MasonJar]

20. Good! Now how about firing all of Bush attorneys general, investigating

the investigation and conviction of Governor Siegelman and appointing a Special Prosecutor to investigate war crimes and the illegal war that killed over one million people in an innocent country. I am all for civil rights, but I am very suspicious of an administration run by a black man who has a black man as Attorney General who chooses this issue as its prima facia issue when torture and misuse of the legal system in general should take precedence. In fact if he rid the government/country of the Bushista legal appointees, including those in the actual DOJ, Holder would go a long way toward correcting the civil rights situation anyway. I am not anti this move just disgusted lack of attention to the other significant issues.

[Canuckistanian]

21. Considering that the Civil Rights Division all but disappeared under Bush

This is great news.

K&R

[Usrename]

23. Will people in FL be allowed to have their vote counted now?

:bounce:

[Fire1]

24. BRAVO!!! Mr. President n/t

[steven johnson]

26. I'm really sick of the GOP sanctimony

[Kweli4Real]

27. This is precious news to my ears ... Let me relate a story ...

I have worked in the Civil Rights field for over 15 years. Every year I traveled to Washington, DC as a Trainer for the EEOC and/or HUD.

During a trip about 6 years ago, I was in a bar on Connecticut Ave., not one of the normal political wonk/government bureaucrat watering holes. Well, I was sitting down the bar from two guys who appeared to be law school buddies. From the conversation, I gathered that they were about two years out. I really wasn't trying to listen, but they were drunk and talking real loudly.

The first guy was lamenting that although he was working for a "big boy" firm just off K street, he was tasked with doing "grunt and fetch" work, he wasn't litigating, he wasn't meeting with or recruiting clients; rather, was spending 10-12 hours a day proof reading contracts. He was talking about how bored he was, even though he was making 6-figures. The other guy was on his third job in the two years. Apparently, he left each of his jobs because his bosses were all idiots and didn't appreciate his talent. But all was good because he had just had a second meeting with an under-secretary at DOJ ... to quote him, "Dude ... remember Becky? Well, her dad hooked me up with a guy at Justice. All I had to do is give the guy Becky's dad's card and not step on my d!ck and I'm in ... even if it is just the Civil Rights Division. Imagine me, of all people, working in civil rights."

I about lost it. So I shot my tequila and said to the woman sitting next to me , "Well, I certainly feel comforted knowing that the Bush administration is hiring such dedicated and committed warriors to defend my rights."

The school boys both got that "Whatttt????" look on their face not able to understand why someone might take offense to their casual attitude regarding civil rights.