*** 10 AM HOUSE JUDICIARY: Oversight Hearing on the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division ***

[L. Coyote]

HOUSE JUDICIARY: Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties
Oversight Hearing on the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.
http://judiciary.house.gov/schedule.aspx


http://boss.streamos.com/real-live/judiciary/17223/56_judiciary-coj_2141_070212.ram
Tuesday 10/30/2007 - 10:00 AM

WITNESS LIST:

John K. Tanner, Chief, Voting Right Section, U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division

Toby Moore, Former Geographer/Social Science, analyst, CRT Voting Section

Laughlin McDonald, Director, ACLU Voting Rights Project, ACLU Southern Regional Office

Robert N. Driscoll, Alston and Bird

Julie Fernandes, Senior Policy Analyst & Special Counsel, Leadership Conference for Civil Rights

Good background link: TPM http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/cats/civil_rights_division/

DU Discussion yesterday: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2158469

[bdamomma]

1. thanks will this be on c span also.

[lonestarnot]

2. Keep us cube rats informed won't cha.

:donut:

[ThomWV]

3. C-Span III Will Carry It As Well - Link Provided

http://www.cspan.org/

Half way down the page, towards the center. All three C-Span channels are available on line, you want to chose the one for C-Span III for this particular hearing.

[bdamomma]

7. thanks

:thumbsup:

[L. Coyote]

4. TPM: Conyers Has More Questions For DOJ's Tanner

TPM has a good series of U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division stories with their usual great linking:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/cats/civil_rights_division/

This story gives the best idea of what to expect today at the hearing.

============================
Conyers Has More Questions For DOJ's Tanner
By David Kurtz - October 12, 2007
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004452.php

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers has issued a statement in in response to Paul Kiel's reporting 9http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004438.php0 earlier today on the unprecedented written public assurance that DOJ voting rights chief John Tanner gave to election officials in Ohio that the Justice Department had found no evidence of intentional African-American voter disenfranchisement in the 2004 election.

As Paul reported, Tanner wrote a June 2005 letter to election officials in Columbus, Ohio, offering a lengthy explanation for why the Department had not discovered sufficient evidence of discrimination, the effect of which was to "poison the well" for future litigation or investigation of the alleged election improprieties.

In his statement, Conyers says:

"I am concerned about the extreme lengths Mr. Tanner went to in order to justify the reasons African-Americans were not treated equally in the 2004 Ohio election. The committee needs to consider this matter. I am aware of no precedent for the Department acting in this capacity in the past.

[L. Coyote]

5. Paul Kiel's article: Bush's Legacy on Voting Rights: A Story from Ohio

Bush's Legacy on Voting Rights: A Story from Ohio
By Paul Kiel - Oct 12, 2007
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004438.php


In June of 2005, John Tanner, the chief of the voting rights section, wrote Columbus, Ohio's election officials to publicly assure them that the Justice Department had found no evidence of intentional African-American voter disenfranchisement in the 2004 election.

Not only was that an unprecedented move, former Department lawyers say, but the letter is another, and particularly galling, example of Tanner using the force of the Department to further Republican aims -- in this case, to hamper future lawsuits or investigations concerning the problems in Columbus.

"It really looked like the Civil Rights Division was used to run interference for Republican election officials in Ohio," former voting rights section deputy chief Bob Kengle told me.

At issue was the experience of thousands of voters in Franklin County, Ohio, in the 2004 election. Voters in mostly African-American precincts were forced to wait hours in long lines to vote. An investigation by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) found (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/conyers-ohio-report/) that voters often waited as many as four to five hours, .....

=======================
From the Conyers Report:

"... it is imperative that we examine any and all factors that may have led to
voting irregularities and any failure of votes to be properly counted."

"... we find that there were massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in Ohio. In many cases these irregularities were caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior...."

Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio = http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/ohiostatusrept1505.pdf
Status Report of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff, Jan. 2005.

[L. Coyote]

6. WA POST: And Now We Return to 'Dead Men Suffer No Bias' . . .

And Now We Return to 'Dead Men Suffer No Bias' . . .
By Al Kamen - Oct 12, 2007; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/11/AR2007101102146.html

Back in 2005, when last we checked with John K. Tanner, chief of the voting rights section in the Justice Department's civil rights division, he was rippin' about the leak of a document that showed most of the section's lawyers -- but not Tanner -- thought a Georgia voter-ID law discriminated against black voters.

"Despicable," "clear breach of ethics," "unprofessional" and so forth, he railed in his e-mail -- which was promptly leaked. Anyway, the courts in effect struck down that law as -- whaddaya know? -- discriminatory.

Last week, the Brad Blog posted a video of Tanner's more recent musings on voter-ID laws -- laws needed to combat the endemic and growing problem of illegal voting, apparently by vote-deprived Canadians sneaking across the border.

These laws, Tanner told the National Latino Congreso in Los Angeles, do not, in fact, discriminate against minorities.

.............

[L. Coyote]

8. LIVE NOW on C-Span 3 and the Comm. Web Cast. Starting Shortly.

[bdamomma]

9. kick and more recs please are needed

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

10. Ah, so this is why King Georgie was b*tching about congressional hearings,...

,...a little while ago.

HA!!!

Gawd forbid information about voter fraud reach the public eye.

[bdamomma]

12. he hates everything about the legislative branches

we should know that by now, and cheney makes no secret of it, he hates Congress.

[L. Coyote]

13. OHIO 2004, long lines, civil rights lawsuits, should be interesting.

It certainly is hilarious to watch George and Laura lamenting Congress "doing nothing" :rofl:

[spanone]

11. KICK and CONVICT

[L. Coyote]

14. Rep. Jerrold Nadler chairing the subcommittee. Third hearing in a series.

[bdamomma]

15. Nadler opening statements.

[L. Coyote]

16. Rep. Trett Franks moves the topic off topic to the distraction of illegal alien voters.

Voter ID is a discriminatory tactic.

[bdamomma]

17. Conyers is up!!

Conyers: "we are in a crisis"

[L. Coyote]

18. Has anyone mentioned Conyers as a VP candidate?

[bdamomma]

19. not that I know of.

[mod mom]

20. Conyers brings up Tanner's Ohio letter regarding Franklin co allocation of machines!

[L. Coyote]

21. OHIO letter brought up by Conyers. Here is the link:

Conyers Has More Questions For DOJ's Tanner
By David Kurtz - October 12, 2007
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004452.php

[bdamomma]

22. just sworn Tanner in.

[malaise]

27. Mr Tanner that is public information

Get on with it moron.

[mod mom]

23. Wow what a champion of voter rights! What about Ohio, Mr Tanner:

An Open Letter to John Tanner, Chief, Voting Section, U.S. Department of Justice
July 2, 2005

An Open Letter to John Tanner, Chief, Voting Section, U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Section in response to his June 29, 2005 letter to Nick A. Soulas, Jr., Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, Civil Division, Franklin County:

Dear Mr. Tanner:

I was curious to find that you had “conducted an investigation into the November 2, 2004 general election in Franklin County, prompted by allegations that Franklin County systematically assigned fewer voting machines in polling places serving predominantly black communities as compared to its assignment of machines in predominantly white communities.”

Let me begin by suggesting the word “contrasted” would be more appropriate than “compared.” Indeed, the difference is literally black and white.

You praise the bipartisan nature of the Franklin County Board of Elections (BOE). But you fail to mention that the Director, Matt Damschroder, is the former Chair of the Franklin County Republican Party, and that J. Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio’s Secretary of State and the Co-Chair of the Bush-Cheney Re-election Committee appoints all board members as well as officers, and they serve at his pleasure. Blackwell’s actions throughout the election year were openly partisan and obviously unethical.

For example, I was at a meeting prior to the election where Mr. Damschroder informed a delegation of esteemed international election observers that he would have them arrested based on the orders of Blackwell if they crossed the 100-foot line outside the polls to observe closer to the voting site. Is that what you mean by “the spirit of cooperation?”

-snip
http://freepress.org/columns/display/3/2005/1158

Justice Dept: 2004 Ohio Voting Problems Solved
by FWIW

Sat Oct 13, 2007 at 09:40:37 PM PDT

TPMMuckraker has the story: a recently discovered letter from John Tanner, chief of the Justice Department voting rights section, explains the problems encountered in the November 2004 general elections. Tanner wrote that the investigation by the Justice Department had been closed, and:

...the principal cause of the difference appears to be the tendency in Franklin County for white voters to cast ballots in the morning (i.e., before work), and for black voters to cast ballots in the afternoon (i.e., after work).

Seriously.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. took exception to that explanation. He issued a press release the same day in which he said,

"The 2004 election exposed serious deficiencies in this section's failure to adequately investigate and prosecute voter suppression efforts nationwide and I hope he is prepared to address this issue head on."

FWIW's diary :: ::
Rep. John Conyers' full statement:

I am concerned about the extreme lengths Mr. Tanner went to in order to justify the reasons African-Americans were not treated equally in the 2004 Ohio election. The committee needs to consider this matter. I am aware of no precedent for the Department acting in this capacity in the past.

The Department of Justice – since the Voting Rights Act of 1965 – has a responsibility to thoroughly investigate allegations of voter suppression and discrimination, like those made in Ohio in 2004. I look forward to hearing more from Mr. Tanner in our committee later this month as he testifies about his work as chief of the voting section. The 2004 election exposed serious deficiencies in this section's failure to adequately investigate and prosecute voter suppression efforts nationwide and I hope he is prepared to address this issue head on.



-snip

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/10/14/04037/608

[bdamomma]

24. call me a cynic, but I do not believe these bushie loyals no more.

[L. Coyote]

25. LINK Voting Rights Chief Apologizes for Comments about Minorities

Voting Rights Chief Apologizes for Comments about Minorities
By Paul Kiel - Oct 29, 2007
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004586.php

Voting rights section chief John Tanner has apologized for saying earlier this month that "minorities don't become elderly the way white people do: They die first."

The apology went out to a number of attendees of the National Latino Congreso, where Tanner made the remarks. You can see one of them, to the president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, here. http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/tanner-apology/

..............

[bdamomma]

30. oh god what a vile comment, sickening absolutely sickening

[bdamomma]

43. Tanner acknowleged statement

Davis is asking for the accurately of his statement, Davis is asking it is a accurate statement. What a shit face guy Tanner is.

[L. Coyote]

26. DNC: Bush Republicans Have Used the Justice Department for Partisan Gain

DNC: Bush Republicans Have Used the Justice Department for Partisan Gain
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/10-29-2007/0004692575&EDATE=

WASHINGTON, Oct. 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Tomorrow, the Democratic
Leadership of the House Judiciary Committee will hold an oversight hearing
on the Voting Section of the Department of Justice, an office politicized
by the Bush Administration to promote their own divisive brand of politics.
Testifying at the hearing will be John Tanner, chief of the Voting Section.
Earlier this month at a meeting of the National Latino Congreso, Tanner
asserted that voter ID laws do not disenfranchise minorities because
"minorities don't become elderly the way white people do; they die first,"
a statement that has been widely criticized.

Under the Bush Administration's politicized Justice Department we have
seen an outright attack on voting rights. While the Democratic Party has
worked to protect every American's right to vote and have that vote
counted, Republicans have aimed to create roadblocks for certain Americans
to exercise their right to vote through restrictive voter ID laws, voter
purging, and voter intimidation tactics. In their latest scheme, the
Republican Administration has manipulated the mission of the Department of
Justice, firing US Attorneys who were unwilling to pursue phony "voter
fraud" cases, and politicized the Civil Rights Division.

DNC Chairman Howard Dean and DNC Voting Rights Institute Chair Donna
Brazile issued the following joint statement before Tanner's testimony:

"The right to vote is critical to our democracy, yet under Republicans
the Justice Department has waged an outright assault on this fundamental
right. John Tanner's outrageous comments underscore the GOP's utter
disregard for the integrity of our nation's election system and are an
affront to the spirit of the Voting Rights Act. He should be fired
immediately and replaced with someone who will work to make sure that all
citizens are able to vote and have their vote counted. In order to even
begin to undo the damage done by Bush Republicans, if confirmed as Attorney
General, Judge Mukasey must commit to replacing Tanner with someone who
will protect our rights, not ignore them for a partisan agenda."

Tanner Claims Voter ID Laws Don't Help Minorities Because Minorities
"Die First." At an Oct. 5 meeting of the National Latino Congreso, when
asked about voter ID laws Tanner said, "'Our society is such that
minorities don't become elderly the way white people do; they die first,'
Tanner said. 'There are inequities in health care,' Tanner continued.
'There are a variety of inequities in this country. And so anything that
disproportionately impacts the elderly has the opposite impact on
minorities; just the math is such as that.'"

[L. Coyote]

28. Demos and Project Vote Submit Letter to House Committee in Advance of the John Tanner Hearing

Demos and Project Vote Submit Letter to House Committee in Advance of the John Tanner Hearing
By Demos and Project Vote - October 29, 2007
http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2618&Itemid=26

Dear Chairman Nadler and Ranking Member Franks:

As principals of national non-partisan organizations dedicated to protecting and enhancing the democratic rights of U.S. citizens, we commend the Subcommittee for its ongoing oversight of the current activities and priorities of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the U. S. Department of Justice (DOJ). We understand that John Tanner, Chief of the Voting Section, is scheduled to appear before the Subcommittee on Tuesday, October 30, 2007. We take this opportunity to submit the following comments ..............

[mod mom]

29. WTF? "What is your greatest accomplishment?"

[mod mom]

31. Duplicate voting in different states. Tanner says this is criminal aspect they oversee

civil rights.

[L. Coyote]

32. Conyers now bring some reality to the situation: Bottom line is POLITIZATION!

Voter ID is a Republican voter discrimination tactic, pure and simple!!

[mod mom]

33. Conyers: 2 diametrically opinions of what is going on. Tanner says great accomplishments

and never been better.

Conyers: There wouldn't have been GA ID law if your dept followed recommendations of your career lawyers. Now we have other states with same issue.

Turns to Ohio

[bdamomma]

34. come on Conyers give it to him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[L. Coyote]

35. Hearing someone in Congress say "Ohio 2004" is soooo damn overdue!!

[L. Coyote]

36. Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio

From the Conyers Report:
"... we find that there were massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in Ohio. In many cases these irregularities were caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior...."

Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio
Status Report of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff, Jan. 2005.
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/ohiostatusrept1505.pdf

[mod mom]

37. Ohio Hearing with Stephanie Tubbs Jones, Sherrod Brown and others. He has

never seen so many hundreds of angry people all furious because of deceptive practices, Brings up letter, "whites vote in am blacks vote in pm (after work). That was not a problem. Many people purged. Long lines. Referes Tanner to "What Went Wrong in Ohio " which documents what they heard there. Tanner's letter doesn't address these concerns.

We have a lack of prosecution in the voting section. Conyers is concerned of what has been happening since 2000 elelction. He is staggered to hear that things have never been better.

[mod mom]

38. Tanner says he went to Ohio, gathered facts and statistics showed there was

MORE VOTERS PER MACHINE IN WHITE PRECINCTS. THIS IS WRONG!!!!!!

[L. Coyote]

42. One has to also account for the purging of voters.

What is relevant in this matter is the number of people who come to vote in relation to the machine count. If a precinct were purged first, then there might be many more "active" voters per machine.

Voter purging may be a tactic used to assign fewer machines per "active voter" while maintaining the "apparency" of equal machine distribution!

Hamlet's "protesteth too much" may apply here.

[L. Coyote]

39. BradBlog: LIVE-BLOGGING: John Tanner Hearings in the House Judiciary Subcommittee

LIVE-BLOGGING: John Tanner Hearings in the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil Rights
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5222

[emlev]

76. Was just going to post this. Thanks for beating me to it! n/t

[pdxmom]

40. So Tanner is basically saying that most of these things aren't his

problem and not his job. Sounds like we don't need him, if he doesn't have any jurisdiction over anything.

[bdamomma]

41. Repigs are such pigs, just because someone gives an

apology does get them off the hook. what such pigs. The 08 election is going to be another disaster, we know that this regime wants to take away our right to vote, shit, after 2000 and 2004 we all know what happened.

[L. Coyote]

44. Rep. Autur Davis is making him admit he lied. Racist Liar at that!

Man, Tanner is sooo FIRED if he does not resign now.

[bdamomma]

45. oh whew, Lewis is asking Tanner about his comment

about how minorities die first and whites don't or something like that?

Asking Tanner about this:

Voting rights section chief John Tanner has apologized for saying earlier this month that "minorities don't become elderly the way white people do: They die first."

The apology went out to a number of attendees of the National Latino Congreso, where Tanner made the remarks. You can see one of them, to the president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, here. http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/tanner-apology /

..............

[L. Coyote]

46. You, SIR, are a pontificating, stereotyping RACIST asshole!

[bdamomma]

47. his face is getting hot and red, what a lying pig.

can't you see a KKK hood over this guy's head. He did not look at the percentages. Another incompetent crony.

[L. Coyote]

48. Did Tanner make the statements to distract from the real issues, like OHIO 2004?

[halobeam]

49. I think he made the statements because he's a racist pig, but it had it's perks (distraction), too!

What a sleezy man... disgusting that people are this way, still, after everything this country has been through during the course of it's life. My god.

[mod mom]

50. to de-bunk the Republican stance on "voter fraud" :THE MYTH OF VOTER FRAUD

NOTE: Voter fraud is fraud by individual voters-as in the reason the OH Legislature passed the draconian HB 3 despite only 4 documented cases of voter fraud in Ohio in '04 despite over 5.7 million votes cast:

The Myth Of Voter Fraud

By Michael Waldman and Justin Levitt
Thursday, March 29, 2007; Page A19



As Congress probes the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, attention is centering on who knew what, and when. It's just as important to focus on "why," such as the reason given for the firing of at least one of the U.S. attorneys, John McKay of Washington state: failure to prosecute the phantom of individual voter fraud.

Allegations of voter fraud -- someone sneaking into the polls to cast an illicit vote -- have been pushed in recent years by partisans seeking to justify proof-of-citizenship and other restrictive ID requirements as a condition of voting. Scare stories abound on the Internet and on editorial pages, and they quickly become accepted wisdom.


But the notion of widespread voter fraud, as these prosecutors found out, is itself a fraud. Firing a prosecutor for failing to find wide voter fraud is like firing a park ranger for failing to find Sasquatch. Where fraud exists, of course, it should be prosecuted and punished. (And politicians have been stuffing ballot boxes and buying votes since senators wore togas; Lyndon Johnson won a 1948 Senate race after his partisans famously "found" a box of votes well after the election.) Yet evidence of actual fraud by individual voters is painfully skimpy.

Before and after every close election, politicians and pundits proclaim: The dead are voting, foreigners are voting, people are voting twice. On closer examination, though, most such allegations don't pan out. Consider a list of supposedly dead voters in Upstate New York that was much touted last October. Where reporters looked into names on the list, it turned out that the voters were, to quote Monty Python, "not dead yet."

-snip

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/28/AR2007032801969.html?nav%3Dhcmodule&sub=AR

[L. Coyote]

51. KING "organizations that advocate in favor of illegal immigrants" WHAT? Pure BS.

Here we go again. This is not the issue, just the waving of a false flag, that illegal immigrants vote. Pure BS.

[bdamomma]

52. Debbie Wasserman Schultz is up!!

[L. Coyote]

56. Hooray for an excellent grilling and not taking any false replies.

[L. Coyote]

53. FLORIDA 2000. Katherine Harris purged 100,000 eligible voters.

"Our section has nothing to do with voter fraud."

[mod mom]

54. Info on purges in Ohio found here:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/mod%20mom/1

[L. Coyote]

60. 175,000 purged voters in Cuyahoga County stronghold of the Ohio Democratic Party

and then add all the other problems thereafter in Cuyahoga, like ballot-switching, non-votes, wrong-precinct voting, long lines .....

The 2004 Ohio Presidential Election: Cuyahoga County Analysis
How Kerry Votes Were Switched to Bush Votes
http://jqjacobs.net/politics/ohio.html

" In a subset of 166,953 votes, one of every 34 Ohio voters, the Kerry-Bush margin
shifts 6.15% when the population is sorted by outcomes of wrong-precinct voting."

[bdamomma]

55. didn't want to answer Wasserman Schultz question.

this guy is toast.

[halobeam]

58. yes you are correct.

He's toast, and I'd add, getting darker by the minute, can he perhaps because of this, become a victim of his own prejudices?

He's slime.

[bdamomma]

57. this guy is toast.

[L. Coyote]

59. If Tanner made racist remarks to detract, IT IS WORKING wonderfully.

Bush steals an election or two, stealing Black votes in Cleveland for example, and they are focused on his stupid comments.

This has Karl Rove written all over it. "Say this sh*t, and they will forget 2000 and 2004."

[L. Coyote]

61. RECESS: 15 minutes to go to vote, then questions for the second panel.

[bdamomma]

62. 15 mins break they have gone to vote.

[bdamomma]

63. hey L Coyote are we the only ones here on this thread.

geez, that guy was terrible.

[L. Coyote]

64. 500+ views means we are not. 400+ of those are readers of the thread.

A lot of the DU users are not even registered, so they cannot post.

[bdamomma]

65. yes that is true, I noticed that.

[quiet.american]

69. Lol, Alyce -- it *did* look like just you and "L" there for a while. :)

[sonias]

66. I was listening to the questioning

Tanner looks very incompetent. I think it was Representative Arthur Davis from Alabama that nailed him. Alabama is probably close to GA in terms of voter participation, and the facts of voter participation didn't pan out like Tanner says in Alabama. Davis had his numbers ready.

Tanner finally had to admit that DOJ does not have the numbers of minority elderly voters in GA. This guy Tanner is all about stereotypes. He believes what he believes, and damned if he's not going to cherry pick those statistics to get the answer he knows is true. I'm sure the committee is going to ask to see his evidence that in GA minority elderly voters die before white voters and therefore aren't discriminated against when voter ID is the law.

Tanner is not helping himself here at all.

Sonia

[L. Coyote]

67. C-SPAN 3 is back LIVE NOW with the second panel.

[L. Coyote]

68. 700,000 eligible voters in Georgia lacked a driver's license, majoprity black.

"voter ID law had been enacted with a discriminatory purpose"
Laughlin McDonald, ACLU

[canadianbeaver]

70. K&R......Cube rat....feed me!! eom

[sonias]

71. Broad generalization and misuse of statistics

Focus on GA ID - nasty piece of legislation, draconian measures of the GA State law, and DOJ pre-cleared it.

Not allowed to do their job. They were only allowed to search for evidence that supports their pre-determined decision. Surprised?

It is not true that Black elderly voters die earlier than whites. Behind all great lies, lies a kernel of truth!

Way to go Toby Moore!

Wow! :wow:

Sonia

[L. Coyote]

72. Analyst Toby Moore contradicts and indicts the political appointees.

He is literally listing lies.

Tanner is the "cause and effect" of politization of the Voting Section ....

[L. Coyote]

73. Bob Driscoll tried to lay the purging problem on Congress! What an idiot.

It is not the purging law that is the problem. Political abuse of voter purging overthrew the Florida election in 2000, by Jeb Bush and Harris, not Congress.

[sonias]

75. No cases of racial discrimination in deep south in past 6 years

It more than strains belief. The only case brought in the South was a case in Mississippi to protect White voters. Of course the Voting Rights Act protects Whites as well, but it is unbelievable that no cases of racial discrimination against minorities was brought forward.

It's political and the Civil Rights Division is being used as a tool against minorities instead of correcting prior wrongs.

Julie Fernandes
Senior Policy Analyst & Special Counsel
Leadership Conference for Civil Rights

[L. Coyote]

74. Julie Fernandes. Civil Rights Division "no cases of voting discrimination"

under Bush. Not one case of racial discrimination on behalf of African-Americans in the Deep South in last six years.

Very indicting of politization opening statement. I'd like to find a link to this prepared statement.

[L. Coyote]

77. Rep. Trent Franks is defending Tanner and attacking Toby Moore's statements.

Saying he is adding a partisan element. These guys have no boundaries of reason. Franks defending Tanner is the partisan act.

[L. Coyote]

78. TPM has VIDEO already: Voting Rights Chief: "I Hurt People"

Voting Rights Chief: "I Hurt People"
By Paul Kiel - October 30, 2007, 12:37PM

After the brutal questioning by Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL), Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) followed up. This time, voting rights section chief John Tanner had a brief reply as to what he was really apologizing for, when he apologized for saying that minorities "die first."

VIDEO

"I hurt people," Tanner said quietly into the microphone.

Eventually, under Ellison's incredulous questioning, Tanner admitted that "people age in the same way." To which Ellison replied: "My dad is almost eighty. He's black."

[L. Coyote]

80. VIDEO: Davis Grills Tanner on Minorities "Die First" Comment

Davis Grills Tanner on Minorities "Die First" Comment
By Paul Kiel - Oct 30, 2007
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004598.php

If there's been a more brutal examination of a witness in a Congressional hearing since the days of Alberto Gonzales, I haven't seen it.

VIDEO

Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL) laid into voting section chief John Tanner during the hearing today over his comment earlier this month that "our society is such that minorities don't become elderly the way white people do. They die first." Tanner made the remarks as justification for his conviction that voter ID laws actually discriminate against whites. In Tanner's calculus, since minorities don't age "the way white people do," the effect of voter ID laws on the elderly means that whites are disproportionately affected. And since younger African-Americans frequently carry IDs because of racial profiling and the need to cash checks at "a check cashing business," voter ID laws actually favor African-Americans.

............

[sonias]

83. Reminds me of "I see dead people"

"I see voters who have hurt feelings, they talk to me, and I don't understand what they want."

Tanner still doesn't believe what he said is wrong, only that his tone was not appropriate.

Sonia

[L. Coyote]

79. Conyers "...and then have the votes count." Recommending additional hearing on this.

[bdamomma]

81. whats on C span 3 now hey these guys are having a conversation

when the mikes are on, is anyone listening to this????

[L. Coyote]

82. Hearing adjourned. One huge disappointment is the shift of focus to Tanner's

comments instead of the Ohio 2004 and Florida 2000 problems. I was really expecting to hear about the discrimination in Franklin and Cuyahoga Counties, and the illegal voter caging in Florida.