WaPo Editorial: Repair Job at Justice

[Heidi]

Repair Job at Justice
The delicate job of restoring credibility to the department's Civil Rights Division

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

NO PART OF the Justice Department was more harmed by partisan politics during the Bush administration than the Civil Rights Division. Political litmus tests were inappropriately and illegally applied in hiring career and nonpolitical posts. ("Libs" and "pinkos" need not apply.) Department leaders de-emphasized and at times discouraged litigation in areas that had been central to the division's mission, including voting rights, housing and employment discrimination. They often shunned cases against police departments and other institutions engaged in a "pattern or practice" of discrimination. Morale plummeted, leading to a mass exodus that sapped the division of skilled lawyers and institutional memory.

The New York Times reports that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. intends to refocus the division on core functions and hopes to hire more than 50 additional lawyers.

Significant advances have been achieved in protecting the voting rights of minorities and in combating discrimination in all facets of American life. But Mr. Holder is right to try to restore the vitality and integrity of the beleaguered division. Without the force and presence of the government, many of these advances could be imperiled.

Read more

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[Skittles]

2. +1

[elleng]

3. Thats a bit of an overstatement, imo.

'NO PART OF the Justice Department was more harmed by partisan politics during the Bush administration than the Civil Rights Division.'

[starroute]

4. It's the other face of the US Attorney firings

Many of the US Attorneys who were fired had been pressured to look into phony "voter fraud" allegations and had either not done so or had reported there was nothing to them.

At the same time, the Civil Rights Division was refusing to take on real cases of voter disenfranchisement.

Two side of the same coin. Two aspects of the politicization of the Bush Justice Department.

[MountainLaurel]

5. Add on top of that

The fact that one of the Bushistas first acts was to fire all the Environmental Division attorneys and replace them with corporate shills who the month before had been defending the corporations being prosecuted (and who then closed out much of the existing litigation on the basis of lack of just cause).