This week Congress held hearings on the controversial decision by the Obama Administration to drop charges against Black Panther members for voter intimidation in Philadelphia in 2008. I have previously criticized the decision since I fail to see how these pictures did not show intimidation and the Obama Administration has created a dangerous precedent (if not an invitation) for other groups to engage in the same practices at polling places. In the hearing, Christopher Coates, former voting chief for the department’s Civil Rights Division, called the decision a “travesty of justice” and deepened the controversy over the policies and practices in that division.
Coates testimony has long been resisted by the Administration, particularly after former Justice official J. Christian Adams came out in July with a stinging rebuke of the decision. Adams claimed that the Administration showed open hostility to cases where victims were white and defendants were black.
Coates seemed to back up such claims and said that the Obama Administration abandoned a “race-neutral” approach to enforcing the Voting Rights Act.
What was strange in this case is that the Justice Department had already secured a default victory but suddenly moved to dismiss the charges. In return, the Black Panthers reportedly agreed to not carry “weapon[s]” near a polling place until 2012 – a rather bizarre agreement.
I am a bit surprised by the relatively little media coverage given the testimony. One can disagree with the testimony, but it clearly raises substantial concerns and policy questions. This is clearly not a huge case and I would not think that it would normally generate a major sanction. Indeed, it was overblown when it occurred by conservative sites. Nevertheless, it was worthy of prosecution and the dismissal of the action magnified the controversy over the future standard for intimidation cases.
My concern remains the standard created for future cases. I would think that the decision would embolden other groups from skinheads to extreme religious groups in “policing” polling places. I can understand if this was viewed as simply a minor case, but it would seem to have warranted some formal sanction, even a small one.
In the very least, the Administration needs to give a more substantial account of the decision to drop the case. With Coates’ testimony, this controversy will only grow — particularly with the possible Republican takeover of the House.
Source: LA Times
Jonathan Turley
I have to agree with Elaine and others here that this Black Panter Party nonsense is just one more Fox News spin to try to embarass and defeat the Obama Administration. Why doesn’t the story ever go into the total lapse of DOJ and Civil Rights Commission work on the successful attempts in Florida and other states to disenfranchise Minority voters in 2000?
Elaine,
I don’t mind if the Pastors go into partisan politics from the pulpit, but if they do, they should immediately lose their tax free status!
AY,
I remember the controversy over the Diebold voting machines.
Published on Thursday, August 28, 2003 by the Cleveland Plain Dealer
Voting Machine Controversy
by Julie Carr Smyth
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0828-08.htm
Excerpt:
COLUMBUS – The head of a company vying to sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.”
The Aug. 14 letter from Walden O’Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc. – who has become active in the re-election effort of President Bush – prompted Democrats this week to question the propriety of allowing O’Dell’s company to calculate votes in the 2004 presidential election.
O’Dell attended a strategy pow-wow with wealthy Bush benefactors – known as Rangers and Pioneers – at the president’s Crawford, Texas, ranch earlier this month. The next week, he penned invitations to a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser to benefit the Ohio Republican Party’s federal campaign fund – partially benefiting Bush – at his mansion in the Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington.
The letter went out the day before Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, also a Republican, was set to qualify Diebold as one of three firms eligible to sell upgraded electronic voting machines to Ohio counties in time for the 2004 election.
Off Topic:
From ABC News
‘Pulpit Freedom Sunday’ to Defy IRS
Pastors Across the U.S. Say They Will Defy Law and Talk Politics
By KEVIN DOLAK
Sept. 25, 2010
http://abcnews.go.com/US/definat-pastors-irs/story?id=11726610
Excerpt:
Nearly 100 pastors across the country planned to take part in Pulpit Freedom Sunday, an in-your-face challenge on Sunday to what the government says can and cannot be said in church.
The pastors, along with the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based nonprofit Alliance Defense Fund, are reacting to a law stating that churches are not allowed to support politicians from the pulpit, according to the ADF.
The growing trend is a challenge to the IRS from the churches, and may jeopardize their all-important tax-exempt status. But some pastors and church leaders said they are willing to defy the law to defending their right to freedom of speech.
Federal tax law, established in 1954, prohibits churches and tax exempt entities from endorsing or opposing political candidates.
Pulpit Freedom Sunday is an initiative organized by the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian nonprofit organization, which according to its website seeks to “defend the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.”
“We believe that a pastor has a right to speak whatever he believes without fearing the government will somehow censor what he says or threaten to take away his tax exemption,” ADF spokesman Erik Stanley said.
He said the group believes that the 1954 amendment, sponsored by then Sen. Lyndon Johnson, D-Texas, is a violation of the Constitution. According to the ADF, the government’s monitoring of the content of pastors’ and churches’ speech is a violation of the Free Speech Clause.
The IRS will be keeping an eye on the planned activities.
“We are aware of recent press reports, and will monitor the situation and take action as appropriate,” IRS spokesman Robert Marvin said.
In 2008, 33 pastors took part in the first Pulpit Freedom Sunday, when they defiantly spoke of politics to their congregation.
According to Stanley, even though all the pastors involved recorded their sermons and sent them to the IRS, only one church was investigated by the IRS, and the audit was dropped after several months.
This year the numbers have tripled and the participating pastors again will be videotaping their sermons and sending them directly to the IRS.
“The whole goal is to foster a lawsuit where we could challenge the constitionality of the law,” Stanley said. “We believe if a federal judge looked at the constitutionality of what the IRS has done, it wouldn’t take long for the judge to strike it down as unconstitutional.
AY and Elaine,
I swear we are from the same family and probably separated as toddlers … Rod Serling is a particular hero of mine “The Twilight Zone” was my #1 preference back in the day.
Voter fraud in Ohio along the Johnson lines? Good god, yes … and along every other line one can imagine. It is suspected that both parties spent as much time cheating as they did campaigning. They don’t call us a swingin’ state for nothin’.
Quite frankly, I could easily go along with culheath’s suggestion … for me this is another blooper in the same frame with Shirley Sherrod … election cycle ramping
No Elaine M., if you will search the State of Ohio…..there are still missing ballot boxes from areas that had higher voter turn out and tended towards Democrats…..That was the last state with the some of the large amount of electorates that put Bush/Cheney over the edge….google it…
So he was appointed by Default and Pulled a Johnson…..Google up Archie Parr the Duke of Duvall County….it was some what akin to whats going on in NO right now…..
However, I do recall that Chicago had the most voters with the same basic address but with different plot numbers……
Two Guys?
I could take you to some spots that you would wish you had an armored vehicle to ride in.
Ay,
“Was Bush ever elected?”
Yes…in 2004.
Unsubstantiated allegations against DOJ don’t stand up to facts.
… the Obama DOJ obtained judgment against one defendant in the New Black Panthers case and requested additional judgment against black leaders in Mississippi who were found to have discriminated against white voters.
The injunction doesn’t sound like an “agreement”. The term “deadly weapon” does not appear in the injunction, the term “weapon” does appear.
In answer to you question to the first part I was in denial the entire term until I could not deny the truth anymore…..then Rod Serling says it best:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gjup0ST2GOM&fs=1&hl=en_US]
Elaine M.,
Was Bush ever elected?
AY,
Are you talking about the TV show–or your own personal “Twilight Zone?”
😉
Elaine M.,
The Twilight Zone was a pretty good show….but there were some episodes I do not remember….
AY,
What years? The Bush years?
Elaine,
I suppose I am still in denial…about those years….
From TPMMuckraker
Bush-Era Voting Section Chief: DOJ Biased Against White People
Ryan J. Reilly | September 24, 2010
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/09/bush-era_voting_section_chief_doj_biased_against_whites.php
Excerpt:
Coates was put in place back in 2008 during the Bush administration under Attorney General Michael Mukasey. He replaced the former chief, John Tanner, who resigned after making controversial comments that voter ID laws primarily affected white people because the elderly often don’t have identification and that “minorities don’t become elderly the way white people do: They die first.”
Coates apparently underwent an ideological conversion after an African-American woman was chosen over him as a deputy section chief in July of 2000, according to an article in American Prospect, and became an ally of Bradley Schlozman, who was found to have politicized the division.
The Black Panther hearing has brought out former DOJ official Hans von Spakovsky as well as J. Christian Adams, lawyer who worked on the case and later resigned over the way it was handled.
This is the most coverage the Civil Rights Commission has gotten in a long time, there’s a variety of reporters in the audience as well both television cameras C-SPAN is streaming it live. That’s what Republican Commissioner Abigail Thernstrom, who has dissented from her conservative colleagues on the matter, said the majority of the commission was going for all along.
“This doesn’t have to do with the Black Panthers; this has to do with their fantasies about how they could use this issue to topple the [Obama] administration,” Thernstrom said in an interview with Politico.
Who was intimidated?
After the 2003 mayoral election in Philly?
What about the Minute Man with the gun at the Hispanic polling place?
This reeks of usual non story that whips up the GOP/Fox news viewers base.
I read/heard opposing opinions on this matter earlier. I found it hard to know who was getting the story right. Here’s an article I found this morning.
From National Review Online
The New Black Panther Case:
A Conservative Dissent
Never mind this one-off stunt by fringe radicals; the DOJ is engaged in much more important voting-rights mischief.
By Abigail Thernstrom
JULY 6, 2010 4:00 A.M.
(Note: I believe Thernstrom is vice chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.)
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/243408/new-black-panther-case-br-conservative-dissent-abigail-thernstrom
Excerpt:
Forget about the New Black Panther Party case; it is very small potatoes. Perhaps the Panthers should have been prosecuted under section 11 (b) of the Voting Rights Act for their actions of November 2008, but the legal standards that must be met to prove voter intimidation — the charge — are very high.
In the 45 years since the act was passed, there have been a total of three successful prosecutions. The incident involved only two Panthers at a single majority-black precinct in Philadelphia. So far — after months of hearings, testimony and investigation — no one has produced actual evidence that any voters were too scared to cast their ballots. Too much overheated rhetoric filled with insinuations and unsubstantiated charges has been devoted to this case.
A number of conservatives have charged that the Philadelphia Black Panther decision demonstrates that attorneys in the Civil Rights Division have racial double standards. How many attorneys in what positions? A pervasive culture that affected the handling of this case? No direct quotations or other evidence substantiate the charge.
Thomas Perez, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, makes a perfectly plausible argument: Different lawyers read this barely litigated statutory provision differently. It happens all the time, especially when administrations change in the middle of litigation. Democrats and Republicans seldom agree on how best to enforce civil-rights statutes; this is not the first instance of a war between Left and Right within the Civil Rights Division.
The two Panthers have been described as “armed” — which suggests guns. One of them was carrying a billy club, and it is alleged that his repeated slapping of the club against his palm constituted brandishing it in a menacing way. They have also been described as wearing “jackboots,” but the boots were no different from a pair my husband owns.
A disaffected former Justice Department attorney has written: “We had indications that polling-place thugs were deployed elsewhere.” “Indications”? Again, evidence has yet to be offered.
Get a grip, folks. The New Black Panther Party is a lunatic fringe group that is clearly into racial theater of minor importance. It may dream of a large-scale effort to suppress voting — like the Socialist Workers Party dreams of a national campaign to demonstrate its position as the vanguard of the proletariat. But the Panthers have not realized their dream even on a small scale. This case is a one-off.
There are plenty of grounds on which to sharply criticize the attorney general — his handling of terrorism questions, just for starters — but this particular overblown attack threatens to undermine the credibility of his conservative critics. Those who are concerned about Justice Department enforcement of the Voting Rights Act should turn their attention to quite another matter, where the attorney general has been up to much more important mischief: his interpretation of the act’s core provisions.
The department has just proposed new guidelines intended to assist the “covered” jurisdictions in their efforts to comply with the demands of section 5, which forces “covered” states to obtain federal approval (“preclearance”) for all proposed changes in voting procedure. All southern states are “covered”; so are Texas, Arizona, Alaska, and numerous scattered counties in New York, California, and elsewhere. Redrawn districting maps are changes that must be precleared.
“I have previously criticized the decision since I fail to see how these pictures did not show intimidation….”
You know, with all due respect, intimidation must be in the eye of the beholder, because my impression when I, a liberal white guy, first saw the portrayal of the situation, my impression was that the BP guys were there to prevent possible intimidation of black voters – just saying.
Well at least we know the DADT policy is in force at polling places as well…But then again…if you are gonna rig elections might as well be more clandestine as in Kentucky…fix the vote…to go your candidates way….