Civil Rights Coalition Calls for Congressional Investigation Into Justice Department’s Failure to Enforce Voting Rights Laws

“Today’s revelation that politics has trumped law enforcement at the Department of Justice is but one more example of a clear pattern of abuse within a department that has had a long, bipartisan tradition of voting rights and civil rights enforcement.

When political appointees overruled a unanimous finding by career staff that the controversial 2003 congressional redistricting in Texas was a clear violation of the Voting Rights Act, the will of Congress was perverted and a long, non-ideological tradition of enforcement ended. Whether it is career staff quitting in frustration or the Department’s refusal to prevent the state of Georgia from requiring the purchase of I.D.’s in order to vote, it is clear there is something very wrong in this administration’s Justice Department.

As a result, we are today calling on the Senate and House Judiciary Committees to investigate who is responsible and to determine whether any wrongdoing has occurred.”

# # #

The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) is the nation’s oldest, largest, and most diverse civil and human rights coalition.