Today I testified to the House Judiciary Committee on the Voting Section, Civil Rights Divison and more. My testimony is here. Getting ready for the hearing has resulted in slower blogging. Hopefully that changes soon. Some highlights:
*Tragically, the Civil Rights Division has also pursued abusive and meritless cases against Americans who are exercising free speech rights, as well as states enacting voter integrity measures – so meritless that courts have imposed cost sanctions against the Division. The Division has once again returned to the unsavory practice criticized by federal courts over the years by acting as advocates and partners of outside interest groups instead of behaving as a neutral and detached law enforcement agency.
* The Inspector General omitted entirely from the IG Report a second and far more serious instance of Mr. Perez’s inaccurate testimony – namely his false testimony under oath about an open and pervasive hostility toward race neutral enforcement of the law throughout the Civil Rights Division.
* AAG Perez has taken no steps, as far as I know, to terminate or otherwise discipline the wrongdoers described in the IG Report.
The Division is woefully lacking in enforcement of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is the broad prohibition on discrimination in elections, and frequently manifests as lawsuits against at-large electoral systems. While the prior administration vigorously enforced Section 2, enforcement under the current administration has been essentially dormant. . . . The enforcement record three years removed from Perez’s 2009 bravado at ACS paints a very embarrassing portrait of the Division’s voting rights enforcement record. In response to criticism for failing to enforce Section 2, last year the Division adopted a curious new public position – that it is conducting a “record number” of Section 2 investigations.
* Current Division Housing Section Chief Steven H. Rosenbaum directly supervised the conduct of the employee who committed the wrongdoing, and Rosenbaum is supervised by AAG Perez. Rosenbaum retained his position throughout this scandal. Even after this scandal was on the front page of the Washington Times, the Department saw fit to give Steven Rosenbaum one of the highest possible DOJ awards, the John Marshall Award in October 2012. . . . Steven Rosenbaum remains employed by the Division. His Senior Executive Service status permits him to be reassigned anywhere in the country to any federal agency. Such flexibility gives the administration the opportunity to distance attorneys from future decisions which may manifest his hostility toward enforcing civil rights laws in a race neutral fashion.
* Rather than confronting the racialist grievances of these political appointees and instructing them that it would be inappropriate, and potentially illegal, to target Coates for removal because of his willingness to protect Americans of all races from discrimination, the IG Report says Holder charged his subordinates to use their best judgment when it came to removing Coates. IG Report at 167-168. Instead of snuffing out the effort, the Attorney General gave it oxygen.