Comments (54)

Anonymous wrote on May 21, 2007 10:14 AM:

Fitting punishment: drop this dorky looking Nazi off in South Central with a cardboard sign around his neck saying, "I Hate Black People" and make him crip walk his way out. Now that's some reality programming I would pay to see!
Security Code: join
The Loyal Bushie Mantra is "Join and be one of us, one of us, one of us........."

asdf wrote on May 21, 2007 10:17 AM:

Can his appointment be extended, without pay, as it was reported Bolton’s could have been? Most of these guys don’t need the government pay; the sale of the public trust provides a more than adequate income.

Anonymous wrote on May 21, 2007 10:19 AM:

and on that note . . . documents released friday in the Steve Biskupic (Wisconsin) USA issue show a lot of hysteria about alleged voter fraud - this time regarding immigrants (we've seen lots of stuff before alleging voter fraud by felons, but this batch appears to be new). This is also pre-election 2004 . . . Biskupic appears to have investigated but not at the same level of hysteria as some seemed to have called for. Is that what got him on the firing list in Feb 2005?

Note also that the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a right-wing anti-immigration group, sent "testers" to try to prove that a latino advocacy group was registering non-citizens.

http://kohl.senate.gov/dojwisconsin1.pdf - 114 pages.

Anonymous wrote on May 21, 2007 10:19 AM:

It is fitting that the names of these characters could come from pulp fiction and their appearance from central casting.

Michele wrote on May 21, 2007 10:20 AM:

Given this new attention to the voter suppression agenda of this administration, is there any chance Katherine Harris' voter purge prior to the 2004 election when she was AG for the State of Florida will come under review? Love to see her do some time.

Anonymous wrote on May 21, 2007 10:22 AM:

Von Spakovsky was also running his own "personal?" propaganda/disinformation campaign under the non-de-plume "Publius." Apparently "Publius" was running his propaganda campaign while he was still at DOJ.

http://www.votelaw.com/blog/archives/003980.html

lotus wrote on May 21, 2007 10:26 AM:

Michele, Alligator Bag (who isn't a lawyer) wasn't AG of Florida but our Secretary of State, giving her sway over the running of elections. Alas.

dave wrote on May 21, 2007 10:35 AM:

He looks gay to me.

penalcolony wrote on May 21, 2007 10:36 AM:

From Spakovsky's official FEC bio: "He is a first-generation American whose parents immigrated to the United States in 1951. They met in a refugee camp as displaced persons after the end of World War II. He is originally from Huntsville, Alabama."

Huntsville is also the site of Redstone Arsenal, where Wernher von Braun worked from 1950 to 1970. Based on his college graduation in 1981, Spakovsky was born circa 1960.

great wrote on May 21, 2007 10:40 AM:

^ great, The Nazis have come full circle.

izzatxeaux wrote on May 21, 2007 10:40 AM:

Scholzman is Atta

Von Spakovsky is Ramzi Bin al-Scheib,

and yes, he was in florida prior to the recount, why do you ask ?

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Hans_von_Spakovsky

Anonymous wrote on May 21, 2007 10:44 AM:

Re Wisconsin -
http://kohl.senate.gov/dojwisconsin1.pdf

Also look at how thin these cries of "vote fraud" are. For example, on p. 4 the "report" claims that Maria Morales admitted in the newspaper to being an "illegal alien." But if you go to page 19 the article has a picture of Maria Morales and then talks below about A Maria - specifically saying it's a pseudonym - being undocumented. And the yahoos leap to the (WRONG) conclusion that the undocumented pseudonoynmous Maria IS Maria Morales. And launch an "investigation" and then push to the GOP and USA involved.

Ditto p. 48, some wing nut alleging Russian non-citizens are voting. Like, how does he know their immigration status? but it gets to the Milwaukee DA (pp. 46-7) and thence to Biskupic.

there's also hysteria over alleged Dem dirty tricks (some idiot sent a note to a republican urging him to vote for Kerry)pp. 42-3.. Again this winds its way up the food chain to the RNC, and then down to Biskupic (pp. 39-41) - and turns out to be a practical joke the guy's friend did, not an election conspiracy (p 38). DUH. like how stupid did Ed Gillespie think the dems were?

as a side note - article on 35-6 talks about the indictment of Damien Jones for alleged fraudulent voter registrations. close readers of TPM may recall that the Wisconsin state court overturned Jones' conviction earlier this year. http://www.wicourts.gov/ca/opinion/DisplayDocument.html?content=html&seqNo;=28782

Biskupic at least seems to be trying to slow down the freight train a little - and actually mentions concerns over civil rights violations (56-7).

there's more, but if this kind of "evidence" is what folks like Schlotzman and von Spakovsky were operating under to support all the vote fraud hysteria it makes it even more clear (to me at least) it was a partisan suppression effort.

Anonymous wrote on May 21, 2007 10:47 AM:

Huntsville? That's where we dropped off all those Nazi scientists right after the war? Hmmmmmmmmmmm? No wonder he HATES black people. Schlozman is a incredibly cheesy looking dude with a girlish voice and this guy- just looking at him I can't imagine how much fun it's going to be to listen to him testify. "Turtlish" is the first word that comes to mind when looking at that pic.

Michele wrote on May 21, 2007 10:48 AM:

Lotus,

Thanks for the correction. Surprised (not that I should be) that she's not a lawyer. She seemed so comfortable subverting and manipulating the law that I assumed she had some familiarity with it. Did that whole ugly episode just disappear or might it come back under scrutiny? I suppose at this point, she's a bit untouchable under "not guilty by reason of insanity" statutes.

Anonymous wrote on May 21, 2007 10:51 AM:

"Biskupic at least seems to be trying to slow down the freight train a little - and actually mentions concerns over civil rights violations (56-7)."

I'm guessing that's one of the reasons he got put on the list and had to play ball and bring some bogus charges.

Mrs Panstreppon wrote on May 21, 2007 11:01 AM:

@May 21, 2007 10:22 AM

I don't know what "pre-clearance" means but what the hell is Spakovsky doing writing anonymous articles as "Publius" while working for the DOJ?

I'd like to know how much contact Spakovsky and Schlozman had with the American Center for Voting Rights and the American Center for Voting Rights Fund, two GOP fronts set up to disenfranchise poor and minority voters?

From the American Center For Voting Rights website:

"March 21, 2005

ACVR Refers Voter Fraud Investigation To Department of Justice, Congressional Oversight Panel

Report Shows Third Party Effort to Circumvent Law and Register Illegal Voters

Contact: Jim Dyke, 843/722-9670

COLUMBUS, OHIO - Today the American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR) referred a compendium of preliminary findings of registration fraud, intimidation, vote fraud and litigation to the U.S. Department of Justice. The report was previously made available to the House Administration Committee who will hold a field hearing on election fraud in Columbus today..."

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003157.php

The ACVR and ACVRF appear to have disappeared off the face of the earth since the USA8 scandal started to break.

the truth will out wrote on May 21, 2007 11:03 AM:

@ 1 0:47 - agreed - head looks like a turtle - now what does that mean? teased as a kid, so he wants to belong - and will do ANYTHING to belong?

(shame on me for saying that!)

TheraP wrote on May 21, 2007 11:05 AM:

Go get em Mrs P!!

AltHippo wrote on May 21, 2007 11:05 AM:

If I may plug my own post on von Spakovsky (with the same creepy photo), von appears to be one of the architects of the 2000 Florida voter purge:

"In 1997, von Spakovsky wrote an article for the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, a conservative research group, that called for an aggressive campaign to ‘purge’ the election rolls of felons. Within months of that article’s publication, the V.I.P. helped put von Spakovsky’s idea into action."

My post is here.

Batard wrote on May 21, 2007 11:37 AM:

he looks like a clone of Alfred E. Newman to me.

JNagarya wrote on May 21, 2007 11:53 AM:

"Re Wisconsin -
http://kohl.senate.gov/dojwisconsin1.pdf

"there's also hysteria over alleged Dem dirty tricks (some idiot sent a note to a republican urging him to vote for Kerry)pp. 42-3.

"Posted by:
Date: May 21, 2007 10:44 AM"

Oh-oh. Better not talk to Republican'ts about politics, or -- especially -- suggest to Republican't friends that they might want to vote Democratic: One will end up on a list as a conspirator in vote/r fraud efforts.

SC = false. As in, Republican allegations of vote/r fraud are false, except when applied to Republicans.

JNagarya wrote on May 21, 2007 11:57 AM:

"Huntsville? That's where we dropped off all those Nazi scientists right after the war? Hmmmmmmmmmmm? No wonder he HATES black people. Schlozman is a incredibly cheesy looking dude with a girlish voice and this guy- just looking at him I can't imagine how much fun it's going to be to listen to him testify. "Turtlish" is the first word that comes to mind when looking at that pic.

"Posted by:
Date: May 21, 2007 10:47 AM"

Watch it: My favorite animal is the turtle. You insult them by including them in this context. (To my knowledge they have no interest in voting, let alone would they be able to make it to the polls in time to vote.)

SC = safe. As in, The turtle's shell keeps it safe from false comparisons with Republican scum.

bohdi wrote on May 21, 2007 12:16 PM:

Who Are These Guys? A long time ago someone should have been connecting some dots. Note the preponderance of German surnames in this crime wave that swept thru Washington. Note the intimacy of Prescott bush in Nazi banking and the support for Hitler in preWar East Coast Blue Blood. Note also the sick symbiosis of the Nazi victim and himself. This Crime Wave has been chock full of neoconservative 'intellectual' Jews who, typical of most victims, identify with and emulate their victimizers, i.e. the Nazis.

Now on to our friend Hans. The Nazi ranks were packed with self-loathing closeted homosexuals. Nancy boys facinated with sadomasochism. Goering and Roehm come to mind. The sickest of the sick. Those who project their rage and self disgust onto the innocent because they cannot face the horror of their own reality.

A voting rights purge of the much feared and very much envied Black Man is a classic projection by these little boys. And I mean little boys quite literally. What do you think a sand-in-the-face loser like Hans feels when he crowds the far corner urinal everyday at the Federal Building? Does he take delight in his 2 inch prize of manhood or can he even find it? Does he then want to remerge into the adult world daily from his private shame and crusade to punish the Lexington Steele? The Southern Mans' Shame. The Southern Man's Rage. Funny, simple but true. Neil Young nailed it 37 years ago.

regular lurker wrote on May 21, 2007 12:19 PM:

Speaking of Florida, article out today -- "O'Connor: Court should follow precedent" too bad she didn't feel the same way about setting precedent.

Hypocrite.

leftbadger wrote on May 21, 2007 12:19 PM:

Meanwhile:

http://www.slate.com/id/2166589?nav=ais

regular lurker wrote on May 21, 2007 12:25 PM:

bohdi,
Fascism is like water...it always seeks its own level.

Mrs Panstreppon wrote on May 21, 2007 12:36 PM:

AltHippo@May 21, 2007 11:05 AM

Thanks for pointing out von Spakovsky's 1997 memo for the Georgia Public Policy Foundation. I took a quick look at the Foundation's 990s at Foundation Center's 990 Finder but nothing jumped out at me.

I checked some of the links posted on the von Spakovsky SourceWatch entry (link below). The WH press release about von Spakovsky is a little light on facts:

"The President intends to nominate Hans von Spakovsky, of Georgia, to be a Member of the Federal Election Commission, for the remainder of a six-year term expiring April 30, 2011. Mr. von Spakovsky currently serves as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice. He previously served the Justice Department as a trial attorney for the Voting Reform Initiative. Prior to that, Mr. von Spakovsky served as a government affairs consultant. Earlier in his career, he was Assistant Vice President, Counsel and Secretary for Confederation Life Insurance Company in Rehabilitation. Mr. von Spakovsky received his bachelor's degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his JD from Vanderbilt University."

Government affairs consultant? Who were his clients? Why would they hire him if his only other experience was working for a life insurance company?

Sounds like another deal where the WH is doesn't want us to know what there guys were up to before they went on the public payroll. Recess apppointment probably is the only way to get this guy through.

Anonymous wrote on May 21, 2007 12:36 PM:

Meanwhile:

http://www.slate.com/id/2166589?nav=ais
Posted by: leftbadger

I hope Mrs. P reads that article, if she is not already aware of it. The title is, "The Fraudulent Fraud Squad: The incredible, disappearing American Center for Voting Rights."
Someone needs to take a look at Mark "Thor" Hearne. their former head. He was being given time on NPR to comment on voting issues- as if he was a legitimate commentator. And there is also that black guy in St. Louis who had on his resume that he was Vice President not that long ago- wonder if he's removed that by now?

Anonymous wrote on May 21, 2007 12:42 PM:

How much you wanna bet ACVR can be connected back to the White House and one Mr. Rove? The crookedness of these folks is simply unbelievable.

foggylady wrote on May 21, 2007 12:42 PM:

So it will not surprise anyone that Spakovsky
boy is also Federalist Society member, right?
I read somewhere, this weekend, that something like 25 DOJ folks were Federalist, with others spread around the Admin.
It is apparent that many of Bush's appointees to various programs and Depts. had a history with DOJ at one time or another.
And note: in the background infor. on the wingnuts working "against" voter fraud, thier activities go back to before 2000 in a lot of cases.
They have been working towards a single minded goal for a long long time now..

hmmmmmmmmm

Brooks Brothers Riot wrote on May 21, 2007 12:55 PM:

It all tracks back to the white knucled GOP thuggery that they like to call the "Brooks Brothers riot" back in Miami-Dade during the recount in 2000:

http://www.democrats.com/joel-kaplan

Anonymous wrote on May 21, 2007 2:33 PM:

JNagarya -

re Wisconsin - it's a little more than just telling a republican friend to vote for the dems, it was pretend GOP.com letterhead on the note - but still - for that to get all the way to the head of the RNC and for them to write an official several-pages letter demanding an investigation of the dems - is just silly. like the dems would really be stupid enough to do that as an official campaign activity? it's so obviously sophmoric . . . but maybe that's all the GOP's tiny little brains can handle

Mrs Panstreppon wrote on May 21, 2007 2:39 PM:

@May 21, 2007 12:36 PM

Nope, the black guy from St Louis, Eric F. Kayira, still lists being vice-president of American Center for Voting Rights as one of his charitable and civic endeavors on the Balckwell Sanders website. Jerk.

I recommend that anyone interested in the fake voter fraud" scandal read Richard L. Hasen's excellent 5/18/07 Slater story, "The Fraudulent Fraud Squad" (link below).

I've been thinking about putting together a TPM Post about the ACVR and ACVRF 990s. Where some of the money went, names of the officers etc

I think the Dems in Congress could have a lot of fun investigating the ACVR and blow a giant hole in the GOP voter fraud theory at the same time.

The ACVR was the only voting rights group to appear before Chairman Bob Ney's House Administration Committee in 2005 in connection with voter fraud. Why?

Ney is a convicted felon and obviously corrupt, that's why. The Dems should request all of the correspondence about the ACVR between Ney's office, Mark "Thor" Hearne, the WH etc before the ACVR appeared before the Committee to demonstrate that Ney rigged the hearing to favor the GOP.

LOL - I have a single web page from one of the ACVR's defunct websites which is not available from the internet archive. On it is an audio link to a story by Tony Snow of Fox News about the ACVR. Haul Snow before Congress and ask him about who told him to do a story about the ACVR.

The Dems could drive the WH crazy because at some point, this gets back to Rove.

Mrs Panstreppon wrote on May 21, 2007 3:43 PM:

More on Hans von Spakovsky.
#1
The Hill
By Sonia Lin
8/11/96

"MEET THE DELEGATES OF THE '96 GOP CONVENTION"

"...Hans Von Spakovsky is a Republican for the same reasons as many other Americans: He advocates individual rights, limited government and a vigorous anti-communist agenda.

However, he differs from many Americans in that his father Anatol fled Communist takeovers in two countries , Russia and Yugoslavia , before finding himself in America, which was amid an anti-communist, anti-Russian fervor.

It was the elder Von Spakovsky's escape from totalitarian governments, and his subsequent success in America, that influenced his son's decision to become an active Georgia Republican and an alternate delegate to the National Convention. "I'm a Republican because of all the experiences my parents have had. ... My parents have seen what really large governments can do to individual rights," he said.

His father was a professor in Europe, but he could not get a teaching job in America for several years after his arrival, probably due to his Russian roots, Hans Von Spakovsky said. "He was Russian. Even though he was a fierce anti-communist, he was Russian," he says. And it wasn't easy to be Russian in the time of McCarthyism.

Hans, 37, is an Atlanta lawyer and an active player in local politics. Recently appointed to the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections, he says: "It's kind of ironic that my parents had their right to vote taken away, and now I'm on the Board of Elections."

The 1996 National Convention is a first for Von Spakovsky, and again, he relates his goals for the convention to his family experience. "The biggest goal I have is to try to be sure there isn't a huge fight within the party. It's like the dinner table, where we would discuss politics and history. We all had fiercely differing opinions, but when dinner was over and we got up, we were a family. That's kind of the way I'd like to see the convention go..."

#2
TESTIMONY
April 14, 1997 WITNESS LIST
HOUSE COMMERCE ENERGY AND POWER ELECTRICITY DEREGULATION
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY & POWER

DATE: Monday, April 14, 1997

TIME & PLACE: 10:00 a.m., Atlanta Federal Center
61 Forsythe, Rooms B & C
Atlanta, GA 30303

SUBJECT: Electric Utility Industry Restructuring: Why Shouldn't All Consumers Have a Choice?

WITNESS LIST

Panel I
...
Hans von Spakovsky
6520 Burdett Drive
Atlanta, GA 30328

saving it "tens of millions of dollars a year," said Joanne Melcher, a government relations executive.

#3
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By Peter Mantius
4/14/97

"STATIC OVER ELECTRIC POWER;
Deregulation puts consumers who want lower bills at odds with utility chiefs who want more time."

"..Hans Von Spakovsky, an attorney who heads a Sandy Springs homeowner's association, said deregulation could help homeowners join together in large groups and negotiate significantly lower rates..."

AJC
2/1/98

"Despite recent talk of compromise, some leaders of the movement to create a city of Sandy Springs are saying they don't like the latest proposals coming out of Atlanta ---especially the provision that would set I-285 as the southern limit of their city.

The provision would effectively remove about one-third of the suburb's land area from the new city.

"This is an extremely bad deal by the city of Atlanta," said Hans von Spakovsky, president of the Sandy Springs Civic Roundtable, an umbrella group of homeowner groups, civic organizations and business leaders..."

Roxanne Jekot wrote on May 21, 2007 3:45 PM:

You want to know where he came from? Why, I have those answers for you..........

He starts here:
DATE: July 10, 1997
EDITION: The Atlanta Journal Constitution

Four Sandy Springs residents were among representatives of homeowners associations across metro Atlanta who met recently to formulate the "Livable Region Proposal," which details the mix of transportation programs and land-use projects thousands of residents want considered by the Atlanta Regional Commission.

John Cheek, Roger Blichfeldt, Hans A. Von Spakovsky and Barbara Prebble, who represent Sandy Springs Revitalization Inc.....

and then here:
DATE: August 28, 1998
PUBLICATION: The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution
SECTION: Editorial

The Editors: No one questions the appropriateness of using the military to strike terrorist organizations in Afghanistan and Sudan. But the news reports, as well as President Clinton and his advisers' statements, make it clear that we have known about Osama bin Laden and his terrorist organization for years, all the way back to his involvement in the death of U.S. Army Rangers in Somalia six years ago.

The president has not explained why he did not order actions against Osama bin Laden sooner. If bin Laden really was directly responsible for the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Africa, it is highly probable that if he had been hit a month earlier, 12 Americans and hundreds of Africans would not have been killed and wounded.
HANS A. VON SPAKOVSKY, Atlanta Unholy alliance

and then here:
DATE: September 12, 2001
PUBLICATION: The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution
FULTON: New chairwoman

Gloria T. Borders has been appointed chairwoman of the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections. Borders joins four other recently appointed board members: Naomi Brown, Wini Cox, Hans von Spakovsky and Elizabeth Hausmann. The appointments are for two years. The board sets policy and oversees the elections in the county.

and there's lots more where that came from......anyone interested?

Richard L. Adlof wrote on May 21, 2007 4:15 PM:

dave @ May 21, 2007 10:35 AM,

That is patently unfair to non-hetro folk everywhere. Just cuz the sight of Spakovsky (even with a bag over his/her/its head would send any same woman running to a nunnery or the local lesbian bar) does not mean a guy would wanta do him or be done by him.

There is a higher probablity that he/she/it reproduces asexually much like Schlozman - I am guess that budding or perhaps spores are involved.

Any-which-way, even if he/she/it were gay, the poverty of choices would keep he/she/it from mating.

twistedsister wrote on May 21, 2007 4:34 PM:

Why do these assholes all look the same? Like chub, Babyfaced yokels?

Mrs Panstreppon wrote on May 21, 2007 4:37 PM:

Roxanne Jekot@May 21, 2007 03:45 PM

I'm interested.

#1
USA Today
By Richard Wolf
12/7/99

"For e-voting to click, glitches must be worked out"

"...Voters also must be assured that their votes would remain confidential. That means turning completed ballots into computer codes before
they are received, and protecting against third-party intruders. "An Internet election is going to be a natural target for hackers," says Hans von Spakovsky of the Voting Integrity Project, a national organization that seeks to prevent voter fraud."

#2
AJC
12/16/99

"..."An opportunity does not come along very often in what are strongly Republican legislative districts," said Hans von Spakovsky, chairman of the Fulton County GOP..."

#3
US Newswire
1/21/00

"VIP Files Voting Rights Lawsuit to Block Internet Voting in Ariz. Dem Primary"

"The Voting Integrity Project ("VIP") and two Arizona Democratic voters (one African American man and one Hispanic American woman) filed a voting rights lawsuit today in federal district court in Phoenix challenging the Arizona Democratic Party's plan to conduct their presidential primary utilizing remote on-line Internet voting...

Deborah M. Phillips, 888-578-4343, M. Miller Baker, 202-310-5583, Timothy J Casey, 602-382-6231, Hans von Spakovsky, 404-851-9834, Kelley Wilson, 202-607-3030, Larry Hart, 202-261-2168, All for the Voting Integrity Project Web site: http://www.voting-integrity.org"

#4
Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville, FL)
By Walter C. Jones
10/29/00

"Law would keep felons off assembly Senator's conviction sparks amendment"

ATLANTA -- A former Savannah legislator is on the ballot, in a way, Nov. 7 as voters consider an amendment to the state constitution inspired by her reluctance to resign after conviction on federal mail-fraud charges...

'It was rather embarrassing during the legislative session when we have the chairwoman of the Corrections Committee convicted and yet there was nothing to make her give up her seat,' said Hans von Spakovsky, executive director and critic of alternative voting plans and essayist with the Georgia Public Policy Foundation..."

Mrs Panstreppon wrote on May 21, 2007 4:42 PM:

New York Times
By Leslie Wayne
11/10/00

"THE 2000 ELECTION: THE VOTING SYSTEM;
Close Vote Illuminates Hodgepodge of Ballots"

"...Hans von Spakovsky, an Atlanta lawyer and former Fulton County election official, said additional strains are also coming from reform efforts such as the "Motor Voter" law, which took away the ability of election officials to verify a voter's identify and makes it easier to file false registrations and vote multiple times.

"This was something that was designed with good intention, but by someone who had no practical experience in administering elections," Mr. von Spakovsky said..."

Mrs Panstreppon wrote on May 21, 2007 4:56 PM:

Gannett News Service
By Anna Radelat
3/20/02

"Miss. redistricting case, other disputes roil Justice Department"

WASHINGTON -- Civil rights groups are increasingly concerned about turmoil in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division that have sparked conflicts between the department's career civil servants and President Bush's political appointees.

"It's not unusual to have some policy shifts when there's a new administration," said Jocelyn Frye, head of the National Partnership for Women and Children. "What's of concern to us is whether people's ideological views will get in the way of civil rights enforcement."

The concerns may usher in an era of worsening relations between civil rights groups and Justice Department under Attorney General John Ashcroft.

According to several of the more than 250 lawyers in the division, clashes have occurred between the department's career lawyers and its new head, Assistant Attorney General Ralph Boyd. The reassignment of two lawyers who worked on job discrimination cases and the hiring of two conservative activists -- Hans von Spakovsky and Hugh Joseph Beard -- also created controversy.

One disagreement focused on the Justice Department's handling of a Mississippi redistricting case. State Attorney General Mike Moore had asked the Justice Department to expedite consideration of the plan, which is said to favor Democratic incumbent Ronnie Shows over his Republican rival Rep. Chip Pickering.

But, saying the department would "take as long as it needed to get it right," Boyd sent Moore new questions about the proposed political map.

Justice Department lawyers said Boyd ignored career staff recommendations to approve the plan. The delay allowed a panel of three Republican-appointed judges to impose a rival plan that is said to favor Pickering. The judges imposed their plan because time was running out for candidates to file for office in the state.

"We're not going to comment about our internal deliberations," Justice Department spokesman Dan Nelson said when asked about the controversy.

The Mississippi redistricting plan Moore submitted to the Justice Department is now in limbo. Nelson said the department will wait to see whether the Supreme Court hears a Democratic appeal of the federal judges' action in the fall and then decide what the next step will be.

The Congressional Black Caucus argues that the Justice Department's actions disenfranchise black voters by holding up a plan that had created a new district with a voting age population that's 37 percent black. That allowed it to be replaced with a plan creating a district that has a 30.5 percent black voting age population, the caucus says. The lawmakers have asked the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to investigate the Justice Department's action.

Frye, whose group is involved in employment discrimination cases, said she saw troubling signs of change in the Civil Rights Division in the summer when the department decided to end its involvement in a case against the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority. Lawyer Michael Churchill of the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia and the Clinton Justice Department sued the transit authority over its use of a fitness test to hire security officers, saying it discriminated against female applicants.

Frye said Boyd's decision to pull the Justice Department from the case -- after its career lawyers spent nearly five years on it -- is troubling.

"There's a core of civil rights work that should be done no matter who's in office," Frye said.

This is not the first time policy differences have split career staff and political appointees at the division.

Ted Shaw, an associate director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's Legal Defense Fund, joined the Civil Rights Division as a lawyer when Jimmy Carter was in the White House.

Shaw said the department was plunged into turmoil when former President Reagan appointed William Bradford Reynolds, a conservative who opposed affirmative action and school desegregation, to head the division. The policy changes that Reynolds ushered in prompted Shaw to quit.

But what happened in the Reagan Justice Department is different from what's happening now, Shaw said. While Reynolds made it clear during his confirmation hearings that he would change policy, Boyd promised vigorous enforcement of civil rights law, Shaw said.

"It is my hope that we do not see a repeat of the (Reagan) era," Shaw said. "But if we have to, we'll end up litigating against the department. They're not going to get a free pass because we're living in a post-September 11 world."

The Democratic-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee is trying to determine what's going on at the Civil Rights Division. In a letter in February and another this month, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the panel, asked Ashcroft about the Mississippi redistricting case and "whether the department's internal priorities in civil rights enforcement" have changed in the past year.

The Justice Department hasn't responded to the queries, increasing the chances that the Judiciary Committee will soon have a hearing on the internal workings of the Civil Rights Division.

Anonymous wrote on May 21, 2007 4:57 PM:

Panstreppon, "preclearance" is what the Justice Department grants or denies to voting changes in jurisdictions covered under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/sec_5/about.htm

Much of the scandal in the Voting Section concerns cases in which preclearance was granted when it should have been denied. Preclearance is supposed to be granted if a voting change does not have the purpose or effect of abridging the right to vote on the basis of race. The DeLay Texas re-redistricting and the Georgia photo ID law both had discriminatory effect (and possibly purpose). They should not have been precleared. The politicals in the Civil Rights Division overruled the recommendations of the career staff to not preclear, also called objecting to, these.

Von Spakovsky was one of the key figures in these decisions.

Security code: idea, as in I have an idea we should put together a grassroots campaign to get people to call their Senators to get von Spakovsky rejected by the Senate.

Mrs Panstreppon wrote on May 21, 2007 5:25 PM:

US Fed News
10/4/04

"SEN. LEAHY COMMENTS ON 'MAXIMIZING VOTER CHOICE: OPENING PRESIDENCY TO NATURALIZED AMERICANS'"

The office of Sen. Patrick S. Leahy, D-Vt., issued the following statement:

Statement of Senator Patrick Leahy

Ranking Member, Senate Judiciary Committee

Hearing on "Maximizing Voter Choice: Opening the Presidency to Naturalized Americans"

"...Meanwhile, we have done nothing to investigate whether conditions for the upcoming election are fair, despite this Committee's clear interest in and oversight of compliance with the Voting Rights Act. We see almost daily press reports about questionable activities by both Federal and State law enforcement officials that threaten the ability of minority group members to participate fully on November 2. People for the American Way has released an excellent report entitled "The Long Shadow of Jim Crow," detailing the curtailment of voting rights across the country in recent years. (I would like to place a copy of this report in the Record.) We have read that the Justice Department has placed a great and unprecedented emphasis on "voter integrity," which has all too often in the past been a euphemism for suppressing the votes of your opponent.

At the same time, the New Yorker has reported that a leading official at the Civil Rights Division, traditionally the protector of voting rights, has publicly suggested that the Justice Department should leave its voter access mission to volunteers and concentrate on "integrity" instead. I suppose this should come as no surprise, since that official - Hans von Spakovsky - came to the Justice Department with a lengthy background in the "voting integrity" movement. In addition to membership in the Federalist Society, a virtual requirement for lawyers holding senior positions in the Bush Administration, von Spakovsky served on the board of directors for the so-called Voting Integrity Project. He also wrote an article for the Georgia Public Policy Foundation urging the sort of aggressive approach to purging felons from the voting rolls that worked so disastrously in Florida in 2000. Indeed, the Voting Integrity Project worked on the design of Florida's 2000 effort. It should probably go without saying that Mr. von Spakovsky also worked for the Bush campaign as a volunteer during the Florida recount.

While the Justice Department increases its focus on "voting integrity," President Carter publicly expressed his fear last week in The Washington Post "that a repetition of the problems of 2000 [in Florida] now seems likely." He decried the "highly partisan" Florida voting officials, the absence of paper ballot printouts for voters, and the lack of uniformity in voting procedures throughout the State..."

Mrs Panstreppon wrote on May 21, 2007 5:50 PM:

Houston Chronicle
By R.G. Ratcliffe, Michael Hedges
12/3/05

"Political appointees had the final say on Texas redistricting; Justice defends officials' decision to overrule the staff's finding that it was illegal"

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Friday defended decisions by political appointees on the Justice Department staff to approve a Texas congressional redistricting plan despite objections from the agency's civil rights division.

A newly disclosed memo shows the Justice Department's long-term professional civil rights staff in December 2003 wanted to reject the Texas redistricting plan on grounds that it violated the Voting Rights Act by reducing "the level of minority voting strength."

But one of the top assistants to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft - Sheldon Bradshaw - overruled the staff and approved the plan for use in the 2004 Texas elections, Gonzales said. A lawyer representing Texas Democratic congressmen contends civil rights division political appointees made that call.

Gonzales described the dispute over whether to approve redistricting as a common difference of opinion.

"The fact that there's disagreement ... someone is charged with making that decision," Gonzales said. "And the fact that there may be disagreement somewhere within the ranks doesn't mean that the ultimate decision is the wrong decision."

Democrats riled J. Gerald Hebert, a lawyer who represented Texas Democratic congressmen in the legal battle surrounding redistricting, said the decision was nothing more than a partisan grab for power at the expense of minority voters in Texas.

"It's a compelling story about why the Justice Department's process was corrupted," said Hebert.

The Justice staff memo was obtained by the Lone Star Project and first reported by The Washington Post. The project is a spinoff of the leadership committee of former U.S. Rep. Martin Frost, D-Dallas, who lost his seat because of the Republican redistricting plan.

The story broke the same day the U.S. Supreme Court was considering legal challenges to the plan brought by Democrats and minority groups.

A decision on whether to affirm the plan or ask for oral arguments could be made by the court before the end of the month.

The Texas congressional redistricting plan was pushed through the Legislature by then-U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, during a contentious series of special sessions called by Gov. Rick Perry.

House Democrats halted the plan briefly in regular session by breaking a quorum and going to Oklahoma. Senate Democrats held it up for two months with a quorum break in New Mexico.

"Washington Republicans, led by the White House and Tom DeLay, are dismantling minority voting rights as fast as they can," said state Sen. Leticia Van De Putte, D-San Antonio and chair of the Senate Democratic caucus. "It is ironic to find out now that the Justice Department civil rights attorneys agreed with us."

The plan shifted the partisan balance in the state's congressional delegation from a 17-15 Democratic majority to a 21-11 Republican majority after the 2004 elections.

Redistricting upheld If Justice had ruled against the map, it could not have been used without revisions by the Legislature.

When the redistricting plan was upheld by the department in December 2003, Hebert first raised questions about the department's political staff overruling the professional staff. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott dismissed Hebert's contention, saying: "There's no truth or evidence to support aspersions such as that." Abbott declined to discuss the Justice Department memo Friday.

Abbott spokeswoman Angela Hale and Kathy Walt, a spokeswoman for Perry, both said the Texas redistricting case was reviewed after the Justice ruling by a three-judge federal court and was upheld.

"A three-judge federal court has exhaustively reviewed the record and unanimously found the plan to be constitutional, and we await the Supreme Court's final consideration of that decision," said Hale.

Hebert said the three-judge panel never considered any of the voting rights problems that were considered by Justice. He said issues about whether a redistricting plan harms minority voting interests on a statewide basis cannot be the subject of a lawsuit once the Justice Department has approved it.

The case before the Supreme Court involves district-level minority voting rights, questions of political gerrymandering and mid-decade redistricting.

Hebert said the original decision to override the professional staff was made by civil rights division political appointees Hans von Spakovsky and Brad Schlozman.

Lone Star Project consultant Matt Angle said Spakovsky had been involved in a project to remove African-Americans from the voting rolls in Florida during the 2000 presidential campaign.

The Justice Department denied that either Spakovsky or Schlozman was involved in the decision.

"The bottom line is that it was a legal decision and it was made by (Bradshaw). To say anyone else made the decision is not accurate," said Eric Holland, a Justice spokesman.

Justice's side of the story As for who made the decision, Gonzales said it was officials "confirmed by the Senate to exercise their own independent judgment."

Bradshaw, as a member of the Justice Department's legal counsel's office, had been an adviser to the Bush White House in 2001. Then he was appointed to the second-in-command spot in the civil rights division under Alex Acosta, who had helped Bush's 2000 presidential campaign in the Florida vote recount. Bradshaw took command of the Texas redistricting case when Acosta recused himself.

Acosta, who is now the U.S. attorney in Miami, in congressional testimony refused to say why he removed himself from Texas redistricting.

"I do believe that my recusal was appropriate, that it was the right thing for me to do. I have very able deputies, good deputies, and I have full confidence in their decision-making process," Acosta said in the March 2004 congressional hearing.

Bradshaw now is the chief counsel at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Hebert and other Democratic and minority lawyers involved in the case said they hope disclosure of the memo will prompt the Supreme Court to give their challenge to the plan a hearing.

"We wouldn't even have to be before the Supreme Court if the Justice Department had done its job," Hebert said.

bcg wrote on May 21, 2007 7:59 PM:

Not surprisingly, von Spakovsky was an elections official in Georgia before being appointed to DoJ by Mr. Bush.

I remember that large parts of the southern Republican Party were Dixiecrats, pro-segregation Democrats who changed party after the Democrats backed the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. From this perspective, it's hardly surprising to see the Bush Republicans trying to suppress the minority vote. They're the kind of people who would know about the social control methods used to minimize "minority" influence in the post-Civil War south. There're no new idea here -- it's just old wine in new bottles.

Ironic: these were just the tactics the Civil Rights Division was founded to counter.

whizkid wrote on May 21, 2007 10:24 PM:

So nice to see these individuals who are willing to work so hard to be the Goebbels and the Himmlers for Bush. Just take out an ad in Variety tories.

whizkid wrote on May 21, 2007 10:24 PM:

So nice to see these individuals who are willing to work so hard to be the Goebbels and the Himmlers for Bush. Just take out an ad in Variety tories.

Anonymous wrote on May 21, 2007 11:32 PM:

not that this adds much to the intelligent dialogue here, but i just HAVE to say it: truth really is stranger than fiction. i mean, c'mon, you couldn't make up a better name than HANS A. VON SPAKOVSKY if you tried to play such an evil doer. is the "A." for Adolf? tell me you can't see this guy circa 1943 standing on a platform outside a concentration camp while yelling at people and dividing them up between the yard and the showers...fastfoward to 2000, he's rocking his red suspenders, crisp parted hair, and purging black voters from the roles in FL...

taylor greenberg wrote on May 22, 2007 7:45 AM:

In the 1990s Hans von Spakovsky aka Publius aka Hans Anatole Shpakovski allegedly said his politics were informed by discussions within his parents' home. The senior von Shpakovski, born in Petersburg (aka Leningrad) @ 1895 would appear to have been a tsarist & anti-communist who was educated in Croatia and lived in the 3rd Reich during WW2. The early nazi party in the 1920s received some of its fudning from these "White Russian" expatriat tsarists. So I wonder what political ideals inspired young Hans as he grew up in Huntsville, Alabama listening to his father who survived living in nazi Germany. Although the elder Shpakovski came to the US in 1951 from a "DP" camp-residents of the DP camps were not all formerly persecuted victims of the hitlerian 3rd Reich-- many were former supporters. The sins of the father should not necessarily descend upon the children but it is a bit disconcerting when the first generation American son of 3rd Reich parents works so hard to restrict the voting rights of American Blacks whose ancestors came here in the 1600 and 1700s (as did some of my white ancestors).

Random Citizen wrote on May 22, 2007 11:38 AM:

Hit them where it hurts. If these guys are working to undermine or contravene existing voting rights laws, which one would think would be held as among the most sacred laws in this republic, that should be more than sufficient grounds to work to have them disbarred in whatever state they can do lawyer business in.

Hell, get a membership list for the Federalist Society, an alumni list for Regents Law, find out what kind of anti-rule of law chicanery they've gotten themselves into, then get them tossed from the practice of law. I hear Wal-Mart's still hiring greeters.

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Michael Gredell wrote on September 25, 2007 5:44 PM:

Isn't Shpakovski's warantless adoption of the aristocratic "von" (or elsewhere "van") a gas?
Who does he think he is? Someone really SPECIAL, I suppose.

Bob In Pacifica wrote on September 27, 2007 8:17 PM:

Huntsville, Alabama was where all the Nazi rocket scientists were settled by the CIA and the military after WWII, so if the von Spakovskys came to America to get away from the Nazis they went to the wrong town. After WWII there were all sorts of Nazis, fascists and collaborators brought into the US under the banner of anti-Communism. Those who are interested in that dark period of history (Ronnie Reagan was a spokesman for one of the CIA front groups for thesse "freedom fighters") should pick up a copy of Christopher Simpson's BLOWBACK.

So, yes, it's no coincidence that there are a lot of German surnames doing dirty work for the Republicans, not unlike back during the Nixon era.

Oh, and another White Russian with Nazi connections who presumed a royal ancestry was Count George de Morhenschildt, who worked in the oil industry and who had George H. W. Bush's phone number in his address book (under George's nickname "Poppy"). De Morhenschildt also was the "babysitter" for Lee Harvey Oswald in the months leading up to the assassination of JFK.

Just to let everyone know.