September 26, 2007 10:27 AM
Posted By News Questions
& comments 2
Lithwick on Spakovsky's Nomination to the FEC
In a recent Slate article published yesterday, Dahlia Lithwick argues that the Senate Rules Committee should not approve Hans A. von Spakovsky to a full term on the Federal Elections Commission. Why?
Von Spakovsky was one of the people who helped melt down and then reshape the Justice Department into an instrument aimed at diminishing voter participation for partisan ends. . . . [E]ven a brief poke at his résumé shows a man who has dedicated his professional career to a single objective: turning a partisan myth about voters who cast multiple ballots under fake names . . . into a national snipe hunt for vote fraud.
The hearing is today.
Dahlia Lithwick's editorial is so factually inaccurate in its attacks on Hans Von Spakovsky that it is a disgrace.
She obviously knows nothing about the structure, text, or history of the Voting Rights Act.
She says that Von Spakovsky should be rejected because he opposed a Georgia voter ID law that was declared "unconstitutional," when it was in fact ultimately upheld as perfectly constitutional by Judge Harold Murphy, the Jimmy Carter appointee who initially temporarily enjoined it.
She attacks Von Spakovsky for not blocking the Texas redistricting plan, claiming the courts later disagreed with him. They didn't!
Von Spakovsky didn't say the Texas plan was a good thing. He just said it didn't violate the particular law he was enforcing, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.
The courts later upheld almost all of the Texas plan, except for a small portion, that was held to violate an entirely different statutory provision, Section 2 of the VRA, which has different standards than Section 5, and which Von Spakovsky lacked the authority to invoke to block preclearance (it's Section 5, Section 2, that applies to preclearance).
(The only issue before him involved Section 5, not Section 2, which had a much broader dilutive effects test for minority voting rights).
When Von Spakovsky's view of the Voting Rights Act diverged from the activist career DOJ staff, the courts tended to agree with Spakovsky's interpretation of the law, not the career Department of Justice employees.
The fact that Department of Justice "Career" attorneys have so often been at odds with subsequent court rulings is the real story here, not Von Spakovsky. They seem to have their own ideological axe to grind.
If the only ammunition against Von Spakovsky is Dahlia Lithwick's shabby editorial, then he should be promptly confirmed.
Mr. Bader, you can defend van Spakovsky's interpretation of the Voting Rights Act all you want, but that's not the most powerful "ammunition" against his nomination. The main reason he cannot and should not be confirmed is due to his leading role in the GOP's fraudulent and corrupt "vote fraud" initiative. With the Supreme Court ready to give a big thumbs up to voter I.D. laws, the Republican attempt to disenfranchise the poor and elderly in 2008 proceeds apace. His testimony at the confirmation hearings earlier this year was a disgrace, punctuated by the typical after-the-fact CYA letter attempting to "clarify" his earlier B.S. statements to the full committee. It's time for this crap to end and van Spakovsky's nomination is as a good place to start as any.
Dahlia Lithwick's editorial is so factually inaccurate in its attacks on Hans Von Spakovsky that it is a disgrace.
She obviously knows nothing about the structure, text, or history of the Voting Rights Act.
She says that Von Spakovsky should be rejected because he opposed a Georgia voter ID law that was declared "unconstitutional," when it was in fact ultimately upheld as perfectly constitutional by Judge Harold Murphy, the Jimmy Carter appointee who initially temporarily enjoined it.
She attacks Von Spakovsky for not blocking the Texas redistricting plan, claiming the courts later disagreed with him. They didn't!
Von Spakovsky didn't say the Texas plan was a good thing. He just said it didn't violate the particular law he was enforcing, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.
The courts later upheld almost all of the Texas plan, except for a small portion, that was held to violate an entirely different statutory provision, Section 2 of the VRA, which has different standards than Section 5, and which Von Spakovsky lacked the authority to invoke to block preclearance (it's Section 5, Section 2, that applies to preclearance).
(The only issue before him involved Section 5, not Section 2, which had a much broader dilutive effects test for minority voting rights).
When Von Spakovsky's view of the Voting Rights Act diverged from the activist career DOJ staff, the courts tended to agree with Spakovsky's interpretation of the law, not the career Department of Justice employees.
The fact that Department of Justice "Career" attorneys have so often been at odds with subsequent court rulings is the real story here, not Von Spakovsky. They seem to have their own ideological axe to grind.
If the only ammunition against Von Spakovsky is Dahlia Lithwick's shabby editorial, then he should be promptly confirmed.