Is the DOJ Conducting Latino Outreach on Behalf of the GOP?

By Steven Rosenfeld
AlterNet
Monday 22 October 2007

Civil rights attorneys say the DOJ has turned away from suing on behalf of minority voters that tend to support Democrats.

Earlier this month, the Department of Justice's top official overseeing voting rights, John Tanner, made some insensitive comments about elderly and minority voters at a Latino forum in Los Angeles, raising eyebrows in the voting rights community and prompting Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama to call for his ouster on Friday.

But the greater outrage, according to civil rights lawyers across the country, is how the Department's Voting Section has turned away from defending minorities that are seen as supporting Democrats - African Americans and Native Americans - while instead focusing on another minority that is seen as a Republican swing vote - Latinos.

"It may be cynical, but it may also be true," said Julie Fernandez, senior policy analyst and special counsel for the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, "that the enforcement for Latinos has been more vigorous because they see it as more in their political interest - their partisan interest."

Next week, the House Judiciary Committee will hold an oversight hearing on the Voting Section, whose duty is to implement the nation's voting rights laws. While the firing of several federal prosecutors who did not pursue partisan voter fraud cases has garnered national headlines, the Voting Section's enforcement record has had far less scrutiny. More on the story.