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Melendez: "[F]ar too much of our time has been consumed on this seemingly unnecessary investigation." During an April 23 commission hearing, commissioner Arlan Melendez said that "far too much of our time has been consumed on this seemingly unnecessary investigation" and that "no citizen has even alleged that he or she was intimidated from voting at the Fairmount Avenue Polling Station in 2008." Melendez also said:
This absence of voter intimidation was clear to the Justice Department last spring, which is why they took the course of action that they did.
This absence of voter intimidation was clear to the members of this Commission as well, or at least it should've been. Our investigation has been going on now for the better part of a year. We have wasted a good deal of our staff's time, and the taxpayers' money.
In addition to that, we have also consumed a considerable amount of the Justice Department's resources, forcing them to devote attention to a case that they had long ago concluded was meritless.
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Thernstrom: Inquiry has not "served the interests of the Commission as being a bipartisan watchdog." Abigail Thernstrom, a Republican who serves as co-chairwoman of the Civil Rights Commission and is an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote a July 6 National Review Online blog post criticizing the "overheated rhetoric filled with insinuations and unsubstantiated charges" surrounding the case. Thernstrom wrote, "Forget about the New Black Panther Party case; it is very small potatoes." During an April 23 hearing, Thernstrom also said, "I do not think that this inquiry has served the interests of the Commission as being a bipartisan watchdog for important civil rights violations, and I do not believe it has served well the party to which I belong."
Do you think that if this had been two white men in hoods standing with baseball bats in front of a southern polling place that Holder would be being asked this question right now?
Do you think the two white dudes would be walking the streets free?
Not today but in the 50s and 60s, probably yes. Many laws have been passed since then to get the rights for blacks that weren't there back then.
I keep wondering why nobody has said anything about my posted link from The Blaze. I really think I know why but here it is again in case someone here missed it.
In contrast, the New Black Panther Party (NBPP) incident — involving two black racists who showed up at a polling place in a largely black precinct in Philadelphia — has become the focus of a conservative media firestorm, driven in part by accusations of voter intimidation of the kind that were once ubiquitous in the Jim Crow South. DOJ’s decision to drop the case may have been wrong, I went on to say in my earlier piece. But so far we have only very weak evidence on the matter. There is certainly no direct or hard evidence of either an effective voter-suppression effort or Justice Department indifference to such cases. This was an isolated incident in 2008 that, while involving reprehensible behavior, does not deserve the level of attention it has received when there are much more important questions involving voting-rights enforcement on which to focus. I did not write to defend the Panthers or DOJ, but rather to plead for some perspective on the matter.
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As the Commission’s work on the matter proceeded, my doubts only grew. I concluded that the claim that the Panthers “were caught on video engaging in voter suppression” is simply wrong. The only available video records an encounter between two Panthers and a young white man who was videotaping the incident. Questioning the two Panthers, he says, “I think you might be a little bit intimidating that you have a stick in your hand. . . . That’s a weapon.” A fair question for him to raise — but hardly conclusive evidence of actual or attempted intimidation.
As I said in my NRO piece, conservative commentators habitually describe the Panthers as wearing “jackboots” and being “armed.” It strikes me as a somewhat overwrought characterization; while a stick or club may be a weapon, I think the word “armed” usually connotes images of guns or knives in most peoples’ minds, and it seems gratuitous to object to the Panthers’ choice of footwear. The courts, as far as I know, have not established standards for prosecution of intimidating attire, and the libertarian in me questions why boots (not unlike ones my husband owns) are relevant to the question of voter intimidation.
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McCarthy, though, is surely wrong in asserting that the standards are “quite easy to meet.” The Voting Rights Act has governed the conduct of the last eleven presidential elections, 22 congressional elections, and literally thousands of state and local elections. And yet there have been only three successful prosecutions of voter intimidation under Section 11 (b). Is it possible that nothing conceivably intimidating to prospective voters ever occurred in our vast country over such a long span of time? No. Clearly, it is not “quite easy” to prove voter intimidation, or else there surely would be a very different track record to examine.
DOJ’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, Thomas Perez, testified before the Commission that DOJ was concerned that it could not meet the standard of proof required for these cases. That is a debatable proposition — but that was exactly Perez’s point: This is a judgment call that falls within DOJ’s discretion, not per se evidence of a policy of racial double standards.
If having men standing in front of a voting station is 'small potatoes',then we don't really need a US commission on Civil Rights or be concerned at all...
Funny that requiring a form of ID is considered by some to be disenfranchising voters....
If having men standing in front of a voting station is 'small potatoes',then we don't really need a US commission on Civil Rights or be concerned at all...
Funny that requiring a form of ID is considered by some to be disenfranchising voters....
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