Injustice just was discounted by Amazon because it popped into the Top 100 books for sale about government.  The only thing better than Injustice as a stocking stuffer is Injustice as a stocking stuffer which Santa got at a discount.

According to sources who describe ever decreasing morale inside the DOJ Voting Section, this year the Voting Section gave not a single performance award to any DOJ Voting Section lawyer.  

Only some support staff received awards, including one particular person who was highlighted in my book Injustice for refusing to work on voting cases when the victims were white.  As one person familiar with this award told me, “you should collect a commission from this person because the person never received a performance award in decades at DOJ until you called out the behavior in your book.”   

Performance awards are actually useful ways to encourage those who work hard inside DOJ, and find and bring cases.  They can range from $1,000 to sometimes $3,500.  Of course since the DOJ Voting Section has all but shut down litigation in a number of statutory areas, as I also describe in my book, perhaps there wasn’t much to reward this year.  Nevertheless, the base instincts of some managers to use positions to punish rather than reward seems to have won out over the policies of previous years, across all administrations, and that is to reward hard work.  And this wasn’t a question of funds.  Other attorneys in other DOJ components received performance awards.  Expect it to be like this for the next few years, with morale lower than anything experienced during the Bush administration, with platitudes and half-truths for public consumption, and some managers more comfortable with vinegar and bitterness, than with honey.

 USA today reports on the same story covered weeks ago everywhere else.

Texas Republicans, locked in a struggle with massive national implications, are fighting hard to preserve a redistricting map that favors the party and are looking to the U.S. Supreme Court for help.

The full story can be found here.

An opinion piece by George Rodriguez @ the link.

In the latest example of a civil rights tantrum, Latino groups and other minority groups in Texas have won redrawing the congressional districts.

The state’s population growth added four new congressional seats. Since most of the growth was due to Hispanics, liberals feel that at least three of the new districts should go to Hispanics, as if it were a quota system.

The challenge seems to be more about segregating Latinos for political purposes than about representation.

The Democratic Party is beneficiary of the challenge by Hispanic groups who claim to be non-partisan. This is a continuation of playing race-based politics by liberals.

Several questions need to be asked such as when Latinos and other minorities will be integrated into the political process if the liberals continue to segregate them.

and:

Statistics show that Hispanics have been elected in great numbers across the state at all levels, from both parties, so do we still need this law?

Is the law’s goal is “to hasten the waning of racism in American politics,” or “to entrench racial differences,” said Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.

The denials can be found here.  The truth is that they have delayed.  With the latest coming out of the Fast and Furious scandal (DOJ withdraws inaccurate letter to Congress) no one believes anything the Department of Justice says anymore.  

At different stages of the Texas litigation, the three judge panel has negatively commented and alluded that Texas utilized the statutory and primary method of preclearance in the Voting Rights Act – judicial preclearance – as a way to delay disposition of the issues. 

Based on those comments, it also appears the panel improperly considered the fact that Texas chose the judicial route of preclearance as a reason not to provide any deference to the duly enacted legislative plan.  Texas quickly picked up on the negative attitude coming from two of the three judges on the panel who had hoped they could hide their activist line-drawing behind some Section 5 administrative finding by DOJ.  The panel has not wanted to make detailed findings to serve as the basis for the interim lines as that would certainly draw the scrutiny of the Supreme Court.

In its reply brief, Paul Clement points out that if their legislative plan is provided no deference, than the intrusion on state sovereignty worked by Section 5 is remarkable indeed.

the reply brief continues:  If the consequence of delayed judicial preclearance is that the jurisdiction seeking preclearance is treated no differently from a recalcitrant jurisdiction – and, in turn, its duty enacted map is given no deference – then opponents of a legislative plan would have to be angels not to intervene and then delay the section 5 proceeding.  Indeed, the incentive for delay combined with a greater respect given to jurisdictions that seek administrative preclearance would all but eliminate the statutory option of judicial preclearance as a practical matter.

The Supreme Court has a perfect chance to quickly knock that improper bias down by smacking the three judge panel for its impertinent comments and lack of deference. If you act like a 9th Circuit panel, you be will treated like one.

or the heat in the kitchen.

Colorado’s lightning-rod elections chief, Scott Gessler, smiles when asked if he’s surprised how often he ruffles feathers. The Republican secretary of state doesn’t seem to mind the question.

In office less than a year, Gessler has become a political villain for Colorado’s left, and a folk hero for the right. He’s raised eyebrows — even in the halls of Congress — for his efforts to root out voter fraud and to rewrite what he considers confusing campaign finance guidelines.

The full story at the link.  

Here.  

Back:  Martinez Fischer said the pre-clearance process would have been quicker if Abbott, a Republican, had chosen to have pre-clearance considered by the Department of Justice instead of letting a District of Columbia federal court decide.

The Justice Department said in a filing last month that “the State itself has caused the delay in the pre-clearance process.” The department noted that Texas waited until the end of the legislative session to pass the state House and Senate plans and didn’t pass a congressional map until a special session in June.

and forth:  But Lauren Bean, a spokeswoman for Abbott, said the attorney general knows from the redistricting litigation that the Justice Department would have objected to the redistricting maps enacted by the Texas Legislature, and in hindsight, bypassing review by the Justice Department proved to be a time-saver. Abbott’s chosen path was best, Bean said, because the state would have had to file a lawsuit after the department took its time to deny pre-clearance.

I will be a speaker at the Virginia Republican Party Advance held at the Homestead in Hot Springs, Virginia on Saturday December 3.  My presentation is in the Stratford Room and begins at 9:45 a.m.  I will have books to sign after the speech.  In addition to talking about what’s in the book Injustice, I will be addressing the 2012 elections, why Virginia is the only place with any significant bailout activity and the personalities involved, and the DOJ’s voting agenda heading into 2012.