m***@use.net
2008-10-23 13:31:09 UTC
Justice Department Targets ACORN But Ignores GOP Voter Suppression
By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet. Posted October 23, 2008.
On the eve of the 2008 election, the Department leaks a FBI probe of
ACORN but remains silent on widespread voter intimidation tactics.
Partisan considerations still appear to be contributing to the
Department of Justice's actions when it comes to enforcing the
nation's voting rights laws.
With Election Day less than two weeks away, proponents of more tightly
regulating the voting process -- this time led by congressional
Republicans -- have gotten their desired response from the nation's
guardian of civil rights' laws: a FBI investigation into ACORN, the
low-income advocacy coalition that registered 1.3 million new voters
in 2008.
Last week, two FBI officials told reporters an ACORN investigation was
underway, violating Department rules for disclosing information on
cases that could impact an election. The Obama campaign's response was
to ask the Attorney General to include that leak in a special
prosecutors' investigation of the U.S. attorney firing scandal. No
response to that request has been forthcoming.
But more disturbing to civil rights attorneys is the Department's
silence on what voting rights lawyers say are myriad voter suppression
tactics by partisans in the campaign's final weeks. These efforts
include attempts by Republicans to disqualify legal voter
registrations, unlawfully purge voters, threaten individual voters
with polling place challenges, fabricate barriers to student voting
and abuse prosecutorial authority by investigating 2008's early
voters.
"Voter suppression is not new. But this year has brought heightened
efforts to disenfranchise and intimidate voters," said Wade Henderson,
executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, in a
Wednesday press conference. "We've seen legal challenges to
registered, valid voters in Ohio; Fear tactics threatening that
mortgage foreclosures or unpaid bills will thwart your right to vote
or may even result in arrest; and massive attempts to confuse voters
through robo-calls, official looking web sites and e-mails. These are
targeted and insidious attempts to suppress the vote, particularly in
communities of color."
The Justice Department did not respond to requests to comment.
What is most striking about the voting rights lawyers' criticism of
the Department is that the agency does not have to wait until Election
Day to act. Under Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act, the
Department can move to stop voter intimidation schemes without having
to prove the motive behind those actions. This section of the law does
not require the government show any intent by partisans to
discriminate, the lawyers say. Instead, if the result is intimidation
or suppression of minority voters, it can act.
"We really need the Justice Department to get out there and make a
pronouncement, publicly, that voter intimidation and voter suppression
will not be tolerated because it violates federal law," said Gerry
Hebert, executive director of the Campaign Legal Center and a former
Department Voting Section Chief. "We have asked the Attorney General
to do this and thus far there has been a deafening silence."
"I think the Department's response to these issues, at best, is tepid,
and at worst ignores what we think is a serious problem and their
responsibility to address it," Henderson said. "The Department of
Justice often argues that its jurisdiction is limited. But we think
the interpretation that they have given to their jurisdiction is
exceedingly narrow and it certainly ignores the larger responsibility
to use the bully pulpit of the Attorney General to make clear that the
Department will vigorously prosecute where possible, under federal
law, any attempt to suppress the right of duly registered American
citizens."
Henderson said he and other voting rights advocates recently met with
the Department's Civil Rights Division to discuss issues surrounding
voting rights enforcement in the 2008 election. He and others civil
rights attorneys said there are precedents for the Department to
discuss their enforcement priorities -- as opposed to citing specific
cases -- before an election.
"I spent 21 years in the Justice Department and there is precedent for
the Department to issue a public statement about how they are going to
interpret or enforce the law," Hebert said, giving the example of
statements made on the eve of congressional elections that preceded
federal redistricting.
Other election lawyers say the Department has "ramped down" from
enforcing voting rights cases since the U.S. attorney firing scandal
and Michael Mukasey became Attorney General. They did praise some
recent cases or settlements where the Department acted on the behalf
of voters, such as joining a suit in Georgia where local election
officials wanted Latinos to present proof of citizenship as part of
registering to vote -- which was not in their state's law, as well as
fostering a settlement in Prairie View, Texas, where local election
officials have repeatedly interfered attempts by university students
to vote.
However, some recent campaign tactics by Republican partisans clearly
have violated federal law and have drawn no Department response, the
civil rights lawyers say.
Most notable in this regard in an investigation launched by Joe
Deters, the county prosecutor in Hamilton County, Ohio, where
Cincinnati is located, of several hundred people who registered to
vote and then voted during a week-long window earlier this month. Even
though Deters, who is the southwest Ohio McCain campaign chairman,
this week handed the investigation to a "special prosecutor" after
protests, a letter sent by the civil rights groups to that lawman,
Michael O'Neill, compared Deters' investigation to intimidation by
Alabama sheriffs who violated the 1957 Civil Rights Act "when they
followed persons on their way home from a voter registration meeting
and arrested them for traffic violations."
"Moreover, we believe that an investigation of persons based on
nothing more than their exercise of their right to register and vote
would also violate their constitutional rights under the First and
Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution," the letter said,
after detailing how Deters' investigation violated the voter
intimidation sections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the
National Voter Registration Act of 1993.
The groups singing the letter, which urged O'Neill to "suspend any
investigation," include the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio,
ACLU Voting Rights Project, Demos, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights
Under Law, Project Vote and the Miami Valley Voter Protection
Coalition and numerous Ohio law school professors. Letters were also
sent to the Justice Department's Voting Section chief, and chief of
the Criminal Section of the Department's Civil Rights Division.
Steven Rosenfeld is a senior fellow at Alternet.org and author of
Count My Vote: A Citizen's Guide to Voting (AlterNet Books, 2008).
By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet. Posted October 23, 2008.
On the eve of the 2008 election, the Department leaks a FBI probe of
ACORN but remains silent on widespread voter intimidation tactics.
Partisan considerations still appear to be contributing to the
Department of Justice's actions when it comes to enforcing the
nation's voting rights laws.
With Election Day less than two weeks away, proponents of more tightly
regulating the voting process -- this time led by congressional
Republicans -- have gotten their desired response from the nation's
guardian of civil rights' laws: a FBI investigation into ACORN, the
low-income advocacy coalition that registered 1.3 million new voters
in 2008.
Last week, two FBI officials told reporters an ACORN investigation was
underway, violating Department rules for disclosing information on
cases that could impact an election. The Obama campaign's response was
to ask the Attorney General to include that leak in a special
prosecutors' investigation of the U.S. attorney firing scandal. No
response to that request has been forthcoming.
But more disturbing to civil rights attorneys is the Department's
silence on what voting rights lawyers say are myriad voter suppression
tactics by partisans in the campaign's final weeks. These efforts
include attempts by Republicans to disqualify legal voter
registrations, unlawfully purge voters, threaten individual voters
with polling place challenges, fabricate barriers to student voting
and abuse prosecutorial authority by investigating 2008's early
voters.
"Voter suppression is not new. But this year has brought heightened
efforts to disenfranchise and intimidate voters," said Wade Henderson,
executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, in a
Wednesday press conference. "We've seen legal challenges to
registered, valid voters in Ohio; Fear tactics threatening that
mortgage foreclosures or unpaid bills will thwart your right to vote
or may even result in arrest; and massive attempts to confuse voters
through robo-calls, official looking web sites and e-mails. These are
targeted and insidious attempts to suppress the vote, particularly in
communities of color."
The Justice Department did not respond to requests to comment.
What is most striking about the voting rights lawyers' criticism of
the Department is that the agency does not have to wait until Election
Day to act. Under Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act, the
Department can move to stop voter intimidation schemes without having
to prove the motive behind those actions. This section of the law does
not require the government show any intent by partisans to
discriminate, the lawyers say. Instead, if the result is intimidation
or suppression of minority voters, it can act.
"We really need the Justice Department to get out there and make a
pronouncement, publicly, that voter intimidation and voter suppression
will not be tolerated because it violates federal law," said Gerry
Hebert, executive director of the Campaign Legal Center and a former
Department Voting Section Chief. "We have asked the Attorney General
to do this and thus far there has been a deafening silence."
"I think the Department's response to these issues, at best, is tepid,
and at worst ignores what we think is a serious problem and their
responsibility to address it," Henderson said. "The Department of
Justice often argues that its jurisdiction is limited. But we think
the interpretation that they have given to their jurisdiction is
exceedingly narrow and it certainly ignores the larger responsibility
to use the bully pulpit of the Attorney General to make clear that the
Department will vigorously prosecute where possible, under federal
law, any attempt to suppress the right of duly registered American
citizens."
Henderson said he and other voting rights advocates recently met with
the Department's Civil Rights Division to discuss issues surrounding
voting rights enforcement in the 2008 election. He and others civil
rights attorneys said there are precedents for the Department to
discuss their enforcement priorities -- as opposed to citing specific
cases -- before an election.
"I spent 21 years in the Justice Department and there is precedent for
the Department to issue a public statement about how they are going to
interpret or enforce the law," Hebert said, giving the example of
statements made on the eve of congressional elections that preceded
federal redistricting.
Other election lawyers say the Department has "ramped down" from
enforcing voting rights cases since the U.S. attorney firing scandal
and Michael Mukasey became Attorney General. They did praise some
recent cases or settlements where the Department acted on the behalf
of voters, such as joining a suit in Georgia where local election
officials wanted Latinos to present proof of citizenship as part of
registering to vote -- which was not in their state's law, as well as
fostering a settlement in Prairie View, Texas, where local election
officials have repeatedly interfered attempts by university students
to vote.
However, some recent campaign tactics by Republican partisans clearly
have violated federal law and have drawn no Department response, the
civil rights lawyers say.
Most notable in this regard in an investigation launched by Joe
Deters, the county prosecutor in Hamilton County, Ohio, where
Cincinnati is located, of several hundred people who registered to
vote and then voted during a week-long window earlier this month. Even
though Deters, who is the southwest Ohio McCain campaign chairman,
this week handed the investigation to a "special prosecutor" after
protests, a letter sent by the civil rights groups to that lawman,
Michael O'Neill, compared Deters' investigation to intimidation by
Alabama sheriffs who violated the 1957 Civil Rights Act "when they
followed persons on their way home from a voter registration meeting
and arrested them for traffic violations."
"Moreover, we believe that an investigation of persons based on
nothing more than their exercise of their right to register and vote
would also violate their constitutional rights under the First and
Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution," the letter said,
after detailing how Deters' investigation violated the voter
intimidation sections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the
National Voter Registration Act of 1993.
The groups singing the letter, which urged O'Neill to "suspend any
investigation," include the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio,
ACLU Voting Rights Project, Demos, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights
Under Law, Project Vote and the Miami Valley Voter Protection
Coalition and numerous Ohio law school professors. Letters were also
sent to the Justice Department's Voting Section chief, and chief of
the Criminal Section of the Department's Civil Rights Division.
Steven Rosenfeld is a senior fellow at Alternet.org and author of
Count My Vote: A Citizen's Guide to Voting (AlterNet Books, 2008).