Just Fess Up

More tip-toeing around sources on A1 in Criticism of Voting Law Was Overruled by Dan Eggen:

A team of Justice Department lawyers and analysts who reviewed a Georgia voter-identification law recommended rejecting it because it was likely to discriminate against black voters, but they were overruled the next day by higher-ranking officials at Justice, according to department documents.

The Justice Department has characterized the "pre-clearance" of the controversial Georgia voter-identification program as a joint decision by career and political appointees in the Civil Rights Division. Republican proponents in Georgia have cited federal approval of the program as evidence that it would not discriminate against African Americans and other minorities.

But an Aug. 25 staff memo obtained by The Washington Post recommended blocking the program because Georgia failed to show that the measure would not dilute the votes of minority residents, as required under the Voting Rights Act.

The memo, endorsed by four of the team's five members, also said the state had provided flawed and incomplete data. The team found significant evidence that the plan would be "retrogressive," meaning that it would reduce blacks' access to the polls....

An Aug 25 staff memo obtained--from whom? Spell it out, multilayered fact-checking reporter: From a department official who opposes the voter ID program and the decision by his bosses to support it. We can evaluate the merits of that decision on our own, so why the delicacy about the leaker's motives? After, all, as the Post policy on sources states:

Obviously, it is important to share with readers any direct interest our sources may have in the story we are writing. When sources have axes to grind, we should let our readers know what their interest is.

And there is a larger axe being grinded than this one policy. As Eggen writes:

The Justice Department's decision to approve the Georgia measure was the latest in a series of disputes within the Civil Rights Division, which lost nearly 20 percent of its lawyers in 2005 and has assigned dozens of those who remain to handle immigration cases instead of civil rights litigation

This is a reference to Sunday's Civil Rights Focus Shift Riles Staff At Justice, also by Eggen:

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, which has enforced the nation's anti-discrimination laws for nearly half a century, is in the midst of an upheaval that has driven away dozens of veteran lawyers and has damaged morale for many of those who remain, according to former and current career employees.

Nearly 20 percent of the division's lawyers left in fiscal 2005, in part because of a buyout program that some lawyers believe was aimed at pushing out those who did not share the administration's conservative views on civil rights laws. Longtime litigators complain that political appointees have cut them out of hiring and major policy decisions, including approvals of controversial GOP redistricting plans in Mississippi and Texas.

At the same time, prosecutions for the kinds of racial and gender discrimination crimes traditionally handled by the division have declined 40 percent over the past five years, according to department statistics. Dozens of lawyers find themselves handling appeals of deportation orders and other immigration matters instead of civil rights cases.

This is bad? The kind of attorneys who are leaving are entitled to think so, but the gist of  that story also supported the idea that more work on illegal immigration and less on race and gender discrimination is automatically a backward lurch for American society. That depends entirely on the kinds of cases being tried. Maybe massive illegal immigration is a bigger problem than it used to be.

Or to put it another way: Bush won the last election.

Update: I meant to point out that the Post published the memo online, which can be read in all its pdf glory via links next to the story.

Something else though--note the subhed:

Justice Dept. Backed Georgia Measure Despite Fears of Discrimination

Could we at least have a pretense of objectivity? That could have just as easily read

Career Attorneys Opposed Measure Despite Fears of Voter Fraud

Comments

[Crazy Politico]

Hey, I'm going to do a trackback on this from my site's article on the Georgia voting law.

We don't necessarily see eye to eye on the issue of Georgia, but I believe we do on voters needing ID.

[Christopher Fotos]

Thanks for the head's up. In a quick scan of the proposal, I found something I'd be concerned about--something about non-driver's license ID being obtinable in a limited number of counties. That's a fair equal access question.

But, obviously, I'm amused by the subtext that more attention on illegal immigration and less on gender and race discrimination is automatically a setback for humanity. It depends on cases.