US Justice Dept. slashes minority voting rights enforcement; targets Massachusetts

Just a few weeks prior to November elections the Justice Department has officially targeted only one state for minority language oversight at multiple locations, although some 264 congressional districts in 36 states are subject to minority language provisions of the voting rights law.

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />Internal memoranda indicate six cities and towns in Massachusetts hat comprise five congressional districts have been chosen for monitoring by Justice lawyers and federal election observers. The languages involved are Spanish, Chinese and Vietnamese.

The drastic enforcement cutback under the Voting Rights Act of 1965 stands in stark contrast to a record set for mid-term elections in 2006. Then more than 800 federal observers and Justice lawyers were sent to monitor polling places in 69 jurisdictions in 22 states on election day, according to Justice Department figures.

As recently as May 15, a horde of observers and lawyers was sent to monitor municipal elections in Boston and in Philadelphia and Reading, Pa. The federal authority in Reading was about to expire after years of monitoring. A President Bush appointee, Federal District Judge Michael M. Baylson, had initially ordered Reading and Berks County to comply with the voting rights law back in 2003. "You've been looking over our shoulder for long enough," one county official told two election observers among the crowd who had taken over the Sheraton Reading Hotel.

Each year, the Justice Department has dispatched hundreds of federal observers from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), as well as departmental staff, to monitor elections across the country. During calendar year 2004, a record 1,463 federal observers and 533 Justice employees were sent to monitor 163 elections in 106 jurisdictions in 29 states. That compares to the 640 federal observers and 110 Justice workers deployed during the entire 2000 presidential calendar year.

That year, of course, was the year of the Florida "hanging chad" where a Supreme Court decision ultimately put George W. Bush in office as president. After that, the mid-term elections in 2002 drew strong criticism from voting rights advocates. For example, Bush administration's Justice Department, under Attorney General John Ashcroft, did not see fit to send federal observers to Florida to monitor the voting process, according to Lynn Landes, a voting rights advocate who has crusaded via TheLandesReport and EcoTalk.org. OPM indicated it had about 325 observers in nine other states for the 2002 elections.

Memoranda leaked by Justice Department dissidents continue to plague the Bush administration and demonstrate the apparent instability of the Civil Rights Division as the off-year national elections approach on November 6. Turns out the decimated professional staffs that try to keep elections clean under the law have all but surrendered to political appointees, according to internal communications made available to various reporters and members of Congress. In particular, extensive details of the interior blood-lettings have been reported at www.epluribusmedia.org/

Joseph D. Rich, who stepped down as head of the voting rights section after a 37-year career at Justice, told a Congressional committee in March that seven managers had been removed or marginalized for what he characterized as political reasons or perceived disloyalty. Others have told committee members that hiring of newer, younger lawyers at Justice appears to be politically motivated, sometimes with religious overtones. Rich now works for a voting-rights group, Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

Others who've left Justice back up the Rich allegations. Rigel C. Oliveri, a law professor at the University of Missouri who worked in the civil rights division during the Clinton and early Bush years, told The New York Times earlier this year that it became increasingly frustrating to bring what she said were worthy civil rights cases, because the political appointees would not act on them. “It was like a black hole,” she said.

It's not unusual for a foundering ship of state to spring leaks, but this time it borders on the incredulous, according to some OPM employees. After the tumultuous uproar of praise and thanks when President Bush signed the renewal the voting rights empowerment in July 2006, despite objections from 80 Republican house members to bilingual ballots, the run-up to this off year has found the Justice Department in apparent disarray after the resignation of Attorney General Roberto Gonzales. With Gonzales no longer at the helm, there appears to be scant leadership at the Justice Department, since Paul J. McNulty, the deputy attorney general, also resigned earlier this year. Meanwhile, more than seven high-ranking Justice Department officials are confirmed to have resigned during this year.

In addition to monitoring language voting in Massachusetts, traditionally a Democrat stronghold (in 2004 Bush lost by 726,753 votes), Justice has also asked OPM to send observers to Mississippi and possibly Georgia to monitor race relations. It was two Georgia representatives, Rep. Charles Whitlow Norwood Jr. (R-Ga.) and Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), who led the short-lived, 80-member Republican insurrection that delayed renewal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. They opposed multilingual ballots. Apparently, Justice does not plan on monitoring bilingual balloting in Georgia. If it did, Susan Fuller, Southern Coordinator for OPM, a veteran of Civil Rights actions dating from 1965, who headquarters in Atlanta, would most likely oversee the monitoring.

Changing leadership at Justice has been echoed at OPM. The new program manager is Chris Hammond who took over for the retiring veteran Nelldean Monroe last January. Hammond's federal career includes the departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security. He joined OPM in 2004.

Normally, OPM sends multi-language observers to places Justice feels need oversight for various legal reasons. The observers help Justice lawyers compile reports that may wind up in court as evidence when faults are discovered. But Justice has a record of redirecting observers at the last minute. A case cited: one large contingent of observers originally headed for San Diego wound up in Ventura, CA, in a last minute switch about a year ago. That means the current destination for observers could change at the last minute, too.

In mid-September, Justice released an updated list of legal actions in which it was involved. Six were racial discrimination actions and 11 covered minority language problems, ranging from Walnut, CA, to Osceola County, FL.

The election schedule next year, on Tuesday November 4, 2008, will choose a president and vice-president, plus one third of the Senate and the entire House of Representatives. In addition, some states will elect their governors and other statewide officers. Most political analysts agree that language minority votes will be an important factor. And critics of the Bush administration agree that Justice should forcefully monitor as many elections as feasible.

By comparison, this November's elections are "small potatoes" ― three governors and countless local elections that should require monitoring, given the history of Civil Rights abuses. The Justice Department claims to have filed more cases to protect the rights of voters under the minority language provisions of the voting rights act in the past five years than in the previous 26-year history of that law. In turn, the American Civil Liberties Union reports it has filed 293 ACLU cases brought in 31 states to protect the rights to vote.

On September 17, President Bush named Peter D. Keisler the Acting Attorney General. Keisler will hold that position until the Senate confirms the president's nominee for Attorney General, Michael B. Mukasey, a retired federal judge. Keisler was sworn in as the Civil Division's Assistant Attorney General on July 1, 2003. Prior to that, he served as Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General and Acting Associate Attorney General. He joined Justice on June 24, 2002. Mukasey promised Senators at a confirmation hearing October 17 that he would block political meddling at the Justice Department.

Court records show that Judge Baylson cited Alexis de Tocqueville, the a French political thinker and historian, in his 2003 court order to Reading and Berks County, PA:

"There is no more invariable rule in the history of society: the further electoral rights are extended, the greater is the need of extending them; for after each concession the strength of the democracy increases, and its demand increase with its strength."

Voting rights advocates fear the apparent political motivation at Justice may be taking a direction opposite of that indicated by the high-minded Tocqueville pronouncement. Massachusetts is but one state. The law covers all states.

To file complaints about discriminatory voting practices, including acts of harassment or intimidation, voters may call the Voting Section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division at 1-800-253-3931. For the ACLU, go to http://www.aclu.org/votingrights/

Poster Credit: Chaffey College© Poster