Quote:
Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
I'll edit this in an hour and delete your response- you go back and edit- and deal with this- a 60 page memo that includes no arguments for one side. I remember when I was a quasi-judicial officer of the United States Dept. of Commerce- anyway when i would get a 2 page brief saying I was wrong I was a lot more nervous than when I got a 20 page brief. 60 pages? ain't no way there's not 2 sides to that story- and there isn't a contrary argument? I think you all should be attacking the Bush admin for the incompetant memo drafting.
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Good news/bad news, Hank.
Looks like the Bush Administration is
reversing a decades-long practice of permitting staff recommendations on Voting Rights Act cases.
- The Justice Department has barred staff attorneys from offering recommendations in major Voting Rights Act cases, marking a significant change in the procedures meant to insulate such decisions from politics, congressional aides and current and former employees familiar with the issue said.
Disclosure of the change comes amid growing public criticism of Justice Department decisions to approve Republican-engineered plans in Texas and Georgia that were found to hurt minority voters by career staff attorneys who analyzed the plans. Political appointees overruled staff findings in both cases.
The policy was implemented in the Georgia case, said a Justice employee who, like others interviewed, spoke on condition of anonymity because of fears of retaliation. A staff memo urged rejecting the state's plan to require photo identification at the polls because it would harm black voters.
But under the new policy, the recommendation was stripped out of that document and was not forwarded to higher officials in the Civil Rights Division, several sources familiar with the incident said.
The policy helps explain why the Justice Department has portrayed an Aug. 25 staff memo obtained by The Washington Post as an "early draft," even though it was dated one day before the department gave "preclearance," or approval, to the Georgia plan. The state's plan has since been halted on constitutional grounds by a federal judge who likened it to a Jim Crow-era poll tax.
...
For decades, staff attorneys have made recommendations in Section 5 cases that have carried great weight within the department and that have been passed along to senior officials who make a final determination, former and current employees say.
Upside -- no more unpleasant public squabbling over pesky redistricting! Downside -- clear liberal staff attorney incompetence remains, hidden.
