Attorney Targeted For PROTECTING Native American Votes (LAT)

[kpete]

The state's Republican Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer wanted to use her office to crack down on Native American voting. But apparently Heffelfinger wouldn't play ball.

Remember the Rove/Gonzales motto: Just because there's a 15th Amendment doesn't mean we have to take it lying down.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/014388.php

Minnesota case fits pattern in U.S. attorneys flap
A prosecutor apparently targeted for firing had supported Native American voters' rights.
By Tom Hamburger, Times Staff Writer
May 31, 2007


- Probe of Justice Department hiring expands

Goodling said she had heard Heffelfinger criticized for "spending an excessive amount of time" on Native American issues.

Her comment caused bewilderment and anger among the former U.S. attorney's supporters in Minnesota. And Heffelfinger said it was "shameful" if the time he spent on the problems of Native Americans had landed him in trouble with his superiors in Washington.

But newly obtained documents and interviews with government officials suggest that what displeased some of his superiors and GOP politicians was narrower and more politically charged — his actions on Indian voting.

About three months after Heffelfinger's office raised the issue of tribal ID cards and nonreservation Indians in an October 2004 memo, his name appeared on a list of U.S. attorneys singled out for possible firing.

more at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-usatty31may31,0,321185.story?coll=la-home-center

[SavageDem]

1. As if the Native Americans didn't have enough to deal with already...

I live in Minnesota, and it was apparent before the 2004 elections that Mary Kiffmeyer (the former MN Secretary of State mentioned in the article) was doing what she could do discourage voter turn-out. Finding out that she and the Justice Dept were hand-in-hand in suppressing minority votes shouldn't be a surprise to me, but it makes my blood boil just the same. Everything you hear about Heffelfinger's service has been laudatory; he didn't let partisanship creep into his job.

I want my country back!