The behavior at today’s Civil Rights Commission meeting was surprising to say the least.  It was precisely the sort of thing people across the country have grown weary of in Washington.   Commissioner Michael Yaki doesn’t understand enough about the options available in the Noxubee submission to speak authoritatively about the issue.  The plain fact is that the Department could have objected to the Ike Brown submission as discriminating against the rights of the white minority in Noxubee County under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.  I predicted they would not do so when I testified, and I was proved right.  Mr. Yaki trumpeted an eventual civil court filing seeking to extend a remedy in the civil case against Ike Brown.  This is very different than an objection under Section 5 and provided absolutely no relief to the discriminated against white minority.  I have written extensively about how this court filing is a cop-out to equal enforcement of Section 5 at Pajamas Media. 

The Department will spend a great deal of time and effort to extend a remedy that has nothing to do whatsoever with the Section 5 submission.  They are separate matters.  Worse, the Department may likely lose the motion given they have produced little or no evidence in support of the motion.  But the motion serves a short term political purpose.  Protecting the voters in Noxubee could have been accomplished with the cost of an objection letter under Section 5 and a postage stamp.  The truth is that that didn’t happen because the Department of Justice does not believe Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act should be used to protect a white minority.  I could be proved wrong if the Department were to produce the analysis they did under Section 5 for this submission to determine whether or not the change was retrogressive in intent or effect.  In fact, the Department has never once rebutted my specific allegation that they do not believe Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act should be used to protect a white minority.  A reporter will not get a straight or truthful answer from them on that issue.

The Voting Section didn’t even contact any of the victims of the previous discrimination which is a routine part of a Section 5 analysis.  As a Civil Rights Commissioner, Mr. Yaki should be concerned about equal enforcement of Section 5.  Obviously his concerns lie elsewhere.