Changes in the Civil Rights Division

Just three days after our series Bush League Justice exposed the dismal record of this Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, in particular the voting rights section, now we learn that the head of that division, John Tanner, is "resigning" effective immediately. For weeks, civil rights advocates had been calling for his ouster. We're glad to see that somebody is finally listening, but this is just the first step.

As we discussed, from 2001 to 2006, not one voting discrimination case was brought on behalf of African-American voters. New hires to the division were evaluated on their loyalty to far-right conservative principles and encouraged to fight cases of religious, rather than racial, discrimination. Tanner and his team twisted the voting section's goals by focusing on alleged voter fraud cases that target minorities rather than protecting them. He even once made the absurd comment that a Georgia law, pushed forward by Republicans, which required voters to have photo IDs would affect whites more because "minorities don't become elderly the way white people do: They die first."

Tanner is now celebrating his accomplishments in an e-mail to his staff. We are not going to allow this effort to distort his record to go unchallenged as they send him to another, far less high-profile Justice Department job. There were also questions swirling about Tanner's travel on the taxpayer dime. So why is he landing another job in the department?

On Monday we will extend our Bush League Justice series to address a number of important issues relating to Tanner and the department. We want to ensure that the new attorney general selects a replacement ready to fight for the very people that the voting section, and the Civil Rights Division in general, was designed to protect. This is an opportunity for Attorney General Michael Mukasey to demonstrate that he is serious about civil rights and prepared to start eliminating the stink of partisanship that has permeated this once-apolitical department.

As we completed our Bush League Justice series this week, we promised that we would be watching. We are, and we will, and so Bush League Justice is back on Monday. See you then.

This post first appeared on Dan Abrams' blog on MSNBC.com.

Comments

[Chocolate2008]

I am so thankful to you Dan.

I always watch your program and have been for a while now. But I was particularly interested in this segment because I am African American.

I had no expectations of the Bush Administration in the area of Civil Rights for obvious reasons , but I was totally unaware of what was going on in the Civil Rights Devision and to what degree.

I learned quite a bit from your Bush League Justice series and I look forward to what you will be covering in the future. Again, thank you so much for shedding the light on this.

[amberglow]

You should be thanking the Boston Globe who exposed all this in 05 and 06--only to ignored by everyone. Now it's too late.

One thing that's not too late for you to make a difference about is the massive and illegal spying on all of us -- and stopping amnesty for all the phone companies that broke the laws and continue to do so.
Read the big NYTimes story today or Glenn Greenwald-- http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/12/16/telecoms/index.html

Or will you wait til it's already too late for that too?

[cinemaven]

I hope this series gets rerun as often as "to catch a predator" does. It's much more worthwhile.

[kroses98]

Good job, Dan. Please do much more of this kind of thing, and much less of the grisley murder material that's fit for only the dumber FOX type of audience. We are a highley inteligent and sophisticated audience which watches Keith. We will stay with you ONLY if you speak to our intelligence!

Now, why did MSNBC.com completely destroy its website and why can't I get through to any of you by e-mail anymore? Since I don't have Microsoft, I cannot use your site. This rules out a large segment of your audience which uses i-Mac. You don't want to do that, do you?

[enoughalready]

Maybe Dan can get the point across to the rest of the media that our government has been hijacked by Bush and Company. It's time journalists got off their lazy back sides and actually reported what is happening in our nations capital. We need the Woodward and Bernstein attitudes of digging to get the story. Keith Olbermann and now Dan seem to be the only newsmen willing to take on the story of how our country has been attacked by the Bush/Cheney neocons.

Keep it up Dan!

[AMolinaro]

One unqualified ideologue hack down, a few thousand more to go. Bush has politicized every single arm of the executive beyond any degree sane people would have thought possible. As far as your hopes Mukasey will turn things around, you're far more optimistic than I. The man who won't say "torture is wrong" shouldn't be expected to go on the more precarious (from a GOP perspective anyway) limb of "minorities deserve protection­s."

But I hope I'm wrong and you're right.

[Danny]

Well done, Mr. Abrams. I was watching your show. I say, keep it up! We need many more such exposures, and such resignations, or indictments, or impeachments, or imprisonments or ...

[liveandlearn]

never underestimate the republican dirty tricks department. it has been alive and well since the 1972 election.

[Newfycrat]

I watched your series and while I liked it, I couldn't believe how rushed it was, especially the first one.
I expected a feature like this would have gotten up to a half hour of your time, or even 20 minutes. You made it seem like the first one didn't even cover everything you wanted to cover. I have no idea why you didn't turn it into two segments that day.

[James]

Dan, I took a dim view of your new show at first but to my pleasant surprise you have proved me absolutely wrong! Your Bush League Justice series was really excellent, and I thank you for putting it together. I look forward to more like that.

[oldpotsmuggler]

Another good soldier for the BUSHCO cause came, did a heckuva job, and gets bumped upstairs as a reward. This cycle has been repeated so many times during this administration that you can be sure the next generation coming up in fundamentalist religious universities are salivating over the prospect of hooking up with the next chosen so that they can get their own piece of this action socked away. According to the schedule I believe to exist these folks will make their next push for the Whitehouse starting with the 2016 election. They might have been content to let things settle down for only 4 years after GWB but he has so trashed things that it is going to take longer than the normal cycle for enough voters to forget just how atrocious, top to bottom, this administration has been. I mean, things have been done so badly (from the point of view of the country and the planet, not from the BUSHCO point of view) that even big business has now swung its main river of camapign contributions over to the Democratic Party.

I never thought that I would see a Republican President so all around awful that even the big money people understand that they have to allow the country a chance to heal.