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Justice Official Accused of Blocking Suits Into Alleged Violations
By Greg Gordon
McClatchy Newspapers
Tuesday 19 June 2007
Washington - A former Justice Department political appointee blocked
career lawyers from filing at least three lawsuits charging local and
county governments with violating the voting rights of African-Americans
and other minorities, seven former senior department employees charged
Monday.
Hans von Spakovsky also derailed at least two investigations into
possible voter discrimination, the former employees of the Voting Rights
Section said in interviews and in a letter to the Senate Rules and
Administration Committee. They urged the panel to reject von Spakovsky's
nomination to the Federal Election Commission.
White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore said that von Spakovsky wouldn't
comment on the latest criticism. She said he's "preparing a
point-by-point rebuttal that will address these issues" and "looks
forward to working with members of the Senate during the confirmation
process."
Von Spakovsky blocked a major suit against a St. Louis suburb and two
other suits against rural governments in South Carolina and Georgia and
halted at least two investigations of election laws that appeared to
suppress minority voting, one of them in Wyoming, said Joseph Rich, the
former voting rights section chief.
The former employees' letter also challenged von Spakovsky's candor
during his confirmation hearing before a Senate committee last week,
when he portrayed himself as a middle manager in the Civil Rights
Division who didn't make policy or personnel decisions. Von Spakovsky,
who's served as a presidential recess appointee to the FEC since early
2006 and is seeking a full six-year term, also played down his role in
several controversial decisions.
In the letter to California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the
panel's chairwoman, the former employees said that von Spakovsky acted
as the "de facto voting section chief" from early 2003 until late
2005,
spending virtually all of his time on voting matters and promoting
"partisan political interests."
"We have never seen a political appointee exercise this level of control
over the day-to-day operations of the voting section," they said.
It was the second letter in the last eight days in which former
employees of the Voting Rights Section, including Rich and former deputy
chief Robert Kengle, urged the Senate panel to reject the nomination.
Feinstein told von Spakovsky during the hearing that the criticism from
former department officials would make it difficult for him to win
confirmation.
Monday's letter included the first allegations that von Spakovsky
torpedoed suits and investigations over alleged state, county or local
laws that diminish the voting strength of African-Americans, Native
Americans or other minorities or prevent them from voting altogether.
Von Spakovsky, the letter said, stripped the voting rights section chief
of his authority to open investigations of discrimination without his
superiors' approval.
The letter also challenged von Spakovsky's testimony about a letter that
the department sent to Arizona Secretary of State Janice Brewer in April
2005. Contrary to his testimony, the former employees alleged, von
Spakovsky didn't seek input from career staff members before he notified
Brewer that provisional ballots didn't need to be offered to voters who
failed to present identification - a reversal of the department's
previous interpretation of a 2002 federal election reform law.
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Sheldon Bradshaw signed the letter on
his last day in that job. Nearly six months later, the department
retracted that legal opinion.
Neil Bradley, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union's
Voting Rights Project, said the ACLU pursued two cases. It sued Fremont
County, Wyo., on behalf of Native Americans in 2005, leading to a court
settlement, and filed a similar suit against Lexington County, S.C.,
which is awaiting a court ruling.
Meanwhile, Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Sheldon
Whitehouse of Rhode Island asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to
order a Justice Department investigation into allegations that a former
White House aide and others attempted to suppress minority votes in the
2004 presidential election.
The allegations revolve around whether Tim Griffin, a former aide to
White House political strategist Karl Rove, engaged in "vote caging"
-
in which a political campaign sends mail marked "do not forward" to
a
targeted group of eligible voters. Letters that bounce back are then
used to challenge those voters' legitimacy, limiting them to provisional
ballots that may not be counted.
Griffin, who last year was named the interim U.S. attorney for Arkansas
but left the post last week, has denied involvement in caging. In their
letter, Kennedy and Whitehouse cited testimony in which Monica Goodling,
a former counsel to Gonzales, said she'd discussed concerns about
Griffin's involvement in caging with Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty.
A Justice Department spokesman declined comment on the letter, which was
copied to Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine and to
Marshall Jarrett, the director of the department's Office of
Professional Responsibility, who jointly are looking into allegations of
political partisanship in the agency.
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