Hungry Blues

"This is the first time in history the Justice Department has gone to court to side against voters who are trying to enforce their right to vote. I think this law will mean very little if the rights of American voters have to depend on this Justice Department," said Hebert, who worked in the voting-rights section from 1973 to 1994. (LA Times)

While minority Democratic voters are put at their ease with dummy ballots, the Bushites are poised to simultaneously steal the election and strike a death blow to voting rights.

The elections in Ohio and Florida have been taking on apocalyptic dimensions. It was beginning to look like the Republicans in both states were going use questionable interpretations of the law to shut down entire polling stations. We had this report from Florida (via AAbshier at DailyKos) and this report from Ohio. But now folks on the Democratic side are giving each other high fives and breathing a collective sigh of relief.

The Democratic Leadership Council is not my political cup of tea, but DLC blogger New Donkey has made some predictions that ought to be heeded about Karl Rovian tactics that seem to be at play here.

Now I have no direct evidence that Karl Rove has planned and is executing this voter suppression strategy, though it's interesting that every Republican hack and pundit in the universe started singing like a cicada about "voter fraud" about a week before the Ohio story got into the national news. But it sure as hell fits Rove's M.O. like a glove.

The Florida debacle of 2000 illustrated two Rove tactics that are devilishly effective:

(1) Getting in front of media interpretation of a controversy in a way that reshapes public perceptions of the actual event, and sticking with the spin come hell or high water. . . .

(2) Deliberately pursuing outrageous tactics and then using the opposition's outrage to establish a false moral equivalency. . . .

Now that the Republicans have made their dire threats to shut the polls down, their recent allowances seem like appropriate concessions.

Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell has offered a compromise position, telling

local election boards that even if challenges are upheld, voters should be allowed to cast provisional ballots, which are held for 10 days after the election while officials review whether an individual is eligible to vote. (NYT)

And now the latest news from Florida (via Blogwood) is that state Elections Director Dawn Roberts has issued a four-page memo that

emphasizes that voter challenges must be resolved without delaying other voters.

It says that even if a challenge is successful, the voter must be given the option to file a provisional ballot. And it reaffirms that inclusion on a controversial state felon list is not sufficient evidence to sustain a challenge.

In Ohio

Election officials have been peppering Blackwell's office for days with questions about how to proceed with holding potentially hundreds or thousands of hearings on the challenges by Sunday's deadline.

Blackwell's instruction tells election boards that they must hold hearings, and they must decide on each challenge after its hearing.

If the boards vote to uphold the challenges, the boards should remove the people from the registration roll -- but on a ``conditional basis.''

If those people show up at a poll on Election Day, they should be given a provisional ballot and allowed to vote, provided they are in their proper precinct, the directive states.

Likewise, if an election board has a tie vote over a challenge, the challenge should be viewed as a "non-decision,'' and those registrants also should be allowed to cast a provisional ballot at a poll, the directive states.

Summit County Board of Elections Director Bryan Williams said he believes the order does a good job of balancing state and federal voting rights laws. ``I think that this directive properly recognizes that since this is a federal election, these challenges can happen, but you still have to protect the person's right to vote,'' he said.

Williams said he believes that Blackwell, by offering a solution for tie votes, was able to head off potentially politically charged circumstances in which tie votes could be prevalent. Boards of election are made up of two Republican and two Democratic members. (The Beacon Journal, emphasis added)

In Florida Republicans and Democrats alike are praising Dawn Roberts' memo.

Roberts' memo brought praise from Democratic lawyers, who had strongly rebuked the office of Secretary of State Glenda Hood for a September memo that highlighted the rights of poll watchers to file a challenge.

Democrats thought that memo fell short on emphasizing precinct decorum and voters' rights.

"The most important thing is that they made it clear that the presumption is with the voters and their rights," said Mitchell Berger, a Fort Lauderdale lawyer who is general counsel for Sen. John Kerry's Florida legal team. "People sworn to uphold the law are now at least issuing memos that indicate closer to what the law actually is."

Mindy Tucker Fletcher, spokesman for the Florida Republican Party, called the memo "reasonable and balanced. If there is one thing we learned from 2000, it's that it's important to have the rules laid out beforehand."

Supervisors of elections appeared to welcome the advice as they braced for record numbers of poll watchers. By the end of the day Friday, more than a dozen counties had talked with state elections officials to say they planned to follow Roberts' guidelines.

"I'm glad that they gave us some guidance, that they provided some level of uniformity from county to county, which in 2000 was missing," said Pasco County Elections Supervisor Kurt Browning, a Republican. (emphasis added)

Yet these "reasonable" and "balanced" applications of state and federal voting rights law come after intense battles over just how the special ballots, instituted in the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), will be administered.

Democratic lawyers have generally taken the position that HAVA's federal requirements should be interpreted broadly to enfranchise as many potential voters as possible. Republicans have generally stressed the need to enforce state registration and other restrictions as a protection against voter fraud. . . .

In recent weeks, seven courts have ruled on the relatively narrow issue of whether HAVA mandates the counting of provisional ballots that are cast outside a voter's assigned precinct.

State lawmakers had addressed the issue with 17 states adopting a broader jurisdiction-wide approach, and 28 adopting the more restrictive precinct-based approach. The lawsuits were filed in five of the precinct-based states. All are considered key battleground states, and all have Republican secretaries of state running the elections.

Federal judges in Florida and Missouri, and the Florida Supreme Court, have upheld in both states the secretary of state's position that provisional ballots cast outside the voter's assigned precinct will be disqualified. Federal judges in Ohio and Michigan, as well as a state judge in Colorado, have sided with those opposed to the secretary of state in each of those states, ruling that provisional ballots must be counted as valid even if they are cast outside the voters' assigned precinct.

Last weekend, a federal appeals-court panel in Cincinnati reversed the Ohio judge. That same panel is now considering whether to uphold or overrule the judge in the Michigan case. (Christian Science Monitor via FindLaw, emphasis added)

What's at issue in this technicality? According to Spencer Overton, a professor at George Washington University Law School, in a newly released White Paper commissioned by the NAACP National Voter Fund,

In many states, provisional ballots will not be counted if they are cast in the wrong precinct. Many polling locations contain multiple precincts . . . so it is possible for a voter to be at the right location but cast a vote at the wrong precinct table. And poll workers . . . will often fail to direct voters to the proper location. Voters can leave the polling place assuming their votes will be counted, but they will not be . . .

But, really, there are more fundamental issues at stake when it comes to provisional ballots. Even more liberally interpreted, they are problematic.

No one knows how many provisional ballots will be cast in November, in part because only about half the states allowed such ballots or something similar in 2000. It will easily be tens of thousands nationwide. In Los Angeles County alone, 44,000 were cast in the March primary.

But verifying voter eligibility and hand-counting the ballots takes a long time. Some states, by law, give counties just days to finish. That has election administrators contemplating a nightmare scenario: What happens if the number of provisional ballots is bigger than the apparent margin of victory on Election Day? The outcome could hang in doubt while election officials rush to beat the clock. . . .

"It really could look like it's trying to open access, but because it is based on a state-by-state determination, it really could restrict access,'' [Maria] Valdez [midwest regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund] said.

Valdez and other activists cite Chicago's primary. Of the 5,914 provisional ballots cast, only 416 were ever counted. A total of 1,294 came from voters in the wrong precinct, 2,461 from voters who didn't fill out an affidavit properly and 1,461 from people who could not be verified as registered voters, according to Chicago's elections board.

Another factor is time. In Illinois, officials have 14 days to tally provisional ballots, while in California it's 28 days. Florida and Georgia give elections officials just two days, raising the possibility of another court battle if time is running out and ballots that could tip the election remain uncounted. (AP, emphasis added)

The recent "compromise" positions will merely make the voter challenge process more efficient. If your registration is challenged you can immediately opt for a provisional ballot. Amidst chaotic scenes at polls with long lines and poll watchers from both parties and from non-partizan organizations, poll workers—frequently insufficiently trained—and voters—generally insufficiently informed about their rights—will choose provisional ballots as a default for any problem that arises. The number of provisional ballots cast will far exceed earlier predictions. For reasons quoted above, vast numbers of these ballots will not be counted. Also, there is the more basic fact that this is the first presidential election where provisional ballots have been instituted across the country. When election boards planned for the election they did not anticipate the spike in uses of provisional ballots now assured by Republican maneuvers.

According to Daniel P. Tokaji, Assistant Professor of Law at The Moritz College of Law of The Ohio State University,

The application of different standards for counting provisional ballots from county to county – or even within a county – may give rise to an equal protection claim under Bush v. Gore. In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court held that Florida's process for conducting manual recounts violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution, due to the absence of "specific rules designed to ensure uniform treatment." Following this line of reasoning, it may be argued that a state's failure to have specific rules to ensure the uniform treatment of provisional votes within a state violates equal protection.

There is also mounting evidence that African American's are being disproportionately targeted in voter challenges. For example:

According to the Greater Cleveland Voter Registration Coalition, 46 percent of those names on the Republicans' list belong to African Americans--in a county where blacks represent only 27 percent of the population. (Ground War 2004 via Corrente.)

Legal experts should correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that if African Americans have their provisional ballots thrown out after having their voter registrations challenged on the basis of race, we will be talking about civil rights violations in addition to equal protection. Tokaji continues:

A final question that can be expected to emerge in cases challenging the implementation of provisional voting is whether or not plaintiffs may sue, if they believe that states or counties are failing to comply with HAVA. The act itself does not include a provision authorizing voters to bring suit. Citizens affected by a state's alleged failure to comply with HAVA may attempt to assert a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which authorizes claims to be brought against state and local officials, for deprivation of rights secured by federal law. On the other hand, election officials can be expected to argue that HAVA's omission of a private right of action should be interpreted to foreclose private lawsuits.

In fact this final question has already been brought to the fore in cases concerning the implementation of provisional ballots.The LA Times reports:

[I]n legal briefs filed in connection with cases in Ohio, Michigan and Florida, the administration's lawyers argue that the new law gives Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft the exclusive power to bring lawsuits to enforce its provisions. These include a requirement that states provide "uniform and nondiscriminatory" voting systems, and give provisional ballots to those who say they have registered but whose names do not appear on the rolls.

"Congress clearly did not intend to create a right enforceable" in court by individual voters, the Justice Department briefs said.

In one case the Sandusky County Democratic Party sued Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, arguing that the county's voters should be permitted to file provisional ballots even if they go to the wrong polling place on election day.

The Justice Department intervened as a friend of the court on Blackwell's side.

Saturday's decision in that case, and in other recent cases from Michigan and Florida, gave the department a partial victory. On the one hand, the courts agreed with state officials who said voters may not obtain a provisional ballot if they go to the wrong polling place.

However, all three courts that ruled on the matter rejected the administration's broader view that voters may not sue state election officials in federal court.

Still, the issue may resurface and prove significant next week if disputes arise over voter qualifications. Some election-law experts believe the administration has set the stage for arguing that the federal courts may not second-guess decisions of state election officials in Ohio, Florida or elsewhere.

Beyond its intent to deprive minority and low income voters of their franchise by driving up dramatically the number of placebo ballots that they will cast, the Bush administration also plans to use the ensuing opportunities for litigation to make an unprecedented reversal of federal protections for voting rights.

Historically . . . the department had been aggressive in supporting the idea of private suits as an important tool in fighting discrimination and other ills, even where such rights were not clearly spelled out by legislation.

"Before this administration, I would say that almost uniformly, the Department of Justice would argue in favor of private rights of action … to enforce statutes that regulate state and local government," said Pamela Karlan, a professor at Stanford University's Law School.

She said the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 did not originally include a private right to sue state officials who discriminated against aspiring black voters. The Justice Department backed the idea of private suits, nonetheless, in a test case that ultimately reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1969.

In their ruling, the justices said "the achievement of the act's laudable goal would be severely hampered … if each citizen were required to depend solely on litigation instituted at the discretion of the attorney general."

More recently, the Justice Department also sided with private plaintiffs in a 1996 case challenging a registration fee that had been instituted by the Virginia Republican Party as a racially motivated poll tax under Section 10 of the Voting Rights Act.

The section did not expressly mention private actions but the Supreme Court, at the urging of the Justice Department, found an "implied" right to sue, said Steven J. Mulroy, an assistant professor at the University of Memphis Law School and a former lawyer in the department's voting-rights section.

"It is pretty rare for the Department of Justice to take a position that there is no private right of action to enforce a federal statute guaranteeing voting rights," he added. (Ibid, emphasis added.)

We, with our desires to prevent election theft, are but pawns in a larger game. And the fix is already in. When the smoke clears and our national election has served only as precursor to electoral litigation, we'll discover that it's not only our votes against Bush that are on trial. John Ashcroft has ambitiously raised the stakes to prosecute what could be the case of his lifetime, the case against federally protected voting rights.

(I first read many of the news stories cited above via eRiposte's Vote Watch 2004)

FURTHER READING
Jeffrey Toobin, Poll Position: Is the Justice Department poised to stop voter fraud—or to keep voters from voting?
The Institute For Southern Studies, DOJ Actions on Election Law Benefit Republicans [pdf 175kb]
Tova Andrea Wang, Playing Games With Democracy [pdf 680kb]
Ari Z. Weisbard, Placebo Ballots: Will "Fail-safe" Voting Fail?

A couple of nights ago I blogged a despicable case of racist voter fraud charges in Georgia that were being used to challenge the registrations of almost every eligible Hispanic voter in Atkinson County. I'm happy to report that the creeps who forced a public hearing on the legitimacy of these voters have been told that "The challenges ... are legally insufficient because they are based solely on race."

In my post on the Georgia story, I linked to Prometheus 6 on why Republican voter fraud charges are usually not to be taken seriously. If you're following the news on voting problems, you know that Republican cries of voter fraud are getting louder and more numerous as we get closer to Nov. 2. Today, Rivka over at Respectful For Otters takes apart the "evidence" supplied in many of the Republican charges.

People are registering at addresses where they don't live, as evidenced by returned mail.

The Republican Party of Ohio sent registered letters to tens of thousands of newly registered voters. A lot of those letters came back as undeliverable, which the Republicans claim is prima facie evidence that those voters don't exist at those addresses.

But what happens when someone tries to deliver a registered letter, and you aren't home? Around here, the mail carrier leaves a little slip inviting you to pick up the letter at the post office. And my carrier always notes who the letter is from.

Now imagine that you're a Democrat, and you get a registered letter from the Republican Party. Why on earth would you go all the way down to the post office and wait in line to pick it up? What could the Republican Party possibly have to say that you'd be interested in reading? Most likely, you ignore the letter. Eventually, the post office returns it to the sender as "undeliverable." [snip]

There are more registered voters than eligible voters in some Ohio cities.

What happens when you move, and have to re-register to vote at your new address? You fill out a voter registration card and send it in. The elections board adds you to the rolls for your new precinct and notifies your old precinct that you're no longer registered there. Eventually, your old precinct takes you off the rolls. But that process isn't instantaneous. There's nothing unusual or improper about voters temporarily appearing on the rolls twice, while the bureaucracy grinds through the process of removing them from their previous precinct of record. In particular, it's not surprising that, as voter registration deadlines approach, elections boards are more concerned about adding people to the rolls than they are about removing them from the rolls.

None of this adds up to fraud until a voter actually votes twice. And none of it is under the control of individual voters or organizations conducting voter registration drives. When I moved from the suburbs to the city, it wasn't up to me to tell my suburban precinct not to let me vote there anymore. It was up to the elections board. Did my name appear on the rolls of my suburban precinct for the primary election, when I voted in the city? I have no idea. I didn't try to vote there. So even if my name were on the rolls twice, no fraud was committed.

People have been submitting voter registrations under names like "Mary Poppins" and "Mickey Mouse."

That's what happens when you pay your voter registration workers by the completed form, instead of by the hour. This is perfectly well known, which is why most legitimate voter registration organizations don't give employees or volunteers incentives to forge registrations. Sure, it's fraud on the part of the guy standing outside the supermarket with a clipboard - but is it really going to lead to voter fraud? Could it really be part of a Democratic scheme to stuff the ballot box? I can't see how.

Let's try to imagine how that scenario would play out, shall we?

Someone shows up at the polls in a swing state and tells a pollworker, "My name is Mickey Mouse."

And the pollworker says... "Okay, Mr. Mouse, here's your ballot." The pollwatchers on hand from either party look on, sipping their coffee in unsuspecting bliss. . . .

(Whole thing.)

At the end of her post, Rivka links to the DLC's New Donkey on the tactical underpinnings of Republican voter challenges in Ohio.

The latest political news from Ohio is important and instructive. A federal judge in Columbus blocked Republican efforts to force county election boards to review tens of thousands of new voter registrations. Before the ink was dry on the judge's order, the Ohio GOP's top lawyer said the action meant the GOP would challenge such voters at the polls on November 2. "We wanted to have all these questions resolved this week," said attorney Mark Weaver. "Now they won't be resolved until Tuesday, when all of these people are trying to vote. It can't help but create chaos, longer lines and frustration."

In other words, the GOP is using the demise of one prong of its voter suppression strategy to pre-justify the other. And I wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly the way they planned it. Now they can can get their "volunteers" out to "create chaos, longer lines and frustration" in minority polling places and sadly say that an "activist judge" who didn't care about voter fraud left them no choice.

For certain the Republican strategy is to suppress minority votes at all costs. The viscous and dogged persistence of the Republicans in their efforts belies their shameless intent to steal another election. As I will discuss in my next post, the Republican tactics are also part of a broader, deeply alarming agenda to redefine federal protections for voting rights.

I was going to blog about Greg Palast's new revelations and about the latest development in Duvall county (via Body and Soul), and about a few other things (Kevin Drum via Vote Watch 2004), but when I was driving to work earlier this evening, I heard this story on NPR [realplayer], and it made me sick to my stomach for two hours. There's no text version to link to, but the summary blurb reads:

Three white residents in rural Georgia have challenged most Hispanic voter registrations in their precinct, charging they are fraudulent. Most of those challenged have already proven their legal status as voters, but one wants a public hearing.

The only original news coverage in print is at WALB News, Albany, Georgia.

Ninety-eight letters were sent by the Board of Registrars to Hispanics registered to vote in Atkinson County. A version in both English and Spanish informs them of a challenge to their right to vote based on the fact that registered voters must be legal U.S. citizens.

You have to listen to Pam Fessler's NPR piece to understand that that's ninety-eight Hispanics out of the county's 123. The Hispanic voter who wants a public hearing is Antonio Hernandez, who was born in Texas thirty years ago and has lived in Georgia for the last twenty. According to Frank Sutton (in the WALB story), one of the three who initiated the challenge to almost every Atkinson County hispanic voter,

We discovered quite accidentally that we had a lot of non-citizens registered to vote in Atkinson County.

Pam Fessler reports that Sutton came into the office of the Election Superintendent and asked for the names of every Hispanic voter in the county. The Superintendent also explains that under Georgia law, any registered voter can challenge the legitimacy of any other voter if he or she believes there is a reason. These challenge rules were instituted in Georgia and in other states for the specific purpose of keeping Black voters from the polls. And what was Sutton's "reason" for challenging the registrations of as many Hispanic voters as he could? Here's Sutton, verbatim from Fessler's report:

We're contesting these because of a deep belief on my part that citizens of the United States are the ones that people have died for to give us the right to vote. That's the reason that we're contestin' these people that we feel the vast majority of 'em are not citizens of the United States.

That's right, Frank Sutton is contesting the right of US citizens to vote wholly on the basis of their ethnicity—a practice of selection also known as racial profiling. This white, southern man, who appears old enough to have fully enjoyed the benefits of segregation, uses racial profiling and Jim Crow tactics to keep Hispanics from voting, all in the name of the Southern Freedom Movement.

Now do you call that civil rights?
No, no
You call that civil rights?
No, no
You call that civil rights?
No, no
Scandalize my name.
If you read the whole article on the WALB News site or watch the streamed video of the newscast, you might get the impression that this is a story about a possible voter fraud case, where 98 Hispanics may all be trying to falsely register. Listen to Pam Fessler's article and decide for yourself. You would, however, do well to remember Earl Dunovant's words from yesterday morning, "Republicans have made such charges before, and they never find supporting evidence."

---------
photo: Frank Sutton on streamed video, WALB News, Channel 10, Albany Georgia.

Your first problem if you aspire to vote but your color isn't white and you live in the South, is how to get your name on the registration books as qualified to vote and to keep it there.

Originally registration was designed merely as a means of preventing unscrupulous persons from casting more than one ballot, but Negro Emancipation prompted Southern officials to seize upon registration requirements, as a means of barring Negroes from the polls.

To begin with, many Southern states open their books for new registrants for a very limited time only—generally at a time far removed from an election, so that public interest would be at a low ebb. Indeed, the opening of the books is often something of a state secret, as there is no desire on the part of the incumbents to increase the number of white voters either. . . .

If you do go to your county courthouse to register, in segregated territory you will doubtless find two lines—one for whites, one for Negroes. If you are a Negro, it might be well to take along a box lunch of some sort, as it is not unheard of for Negro applicants to be kept standing in line for one or more days. . . .

Your session with the registrar may be something of an ordeal. . . . [I]n some states the registrar may simply qualify certain applicants as being "of good character and understanding the duties of citizenship." This latter criterion, however, you will generally find reserved for white folks.

This machinery thus enables the registrar to refuse to register you if you are a Negro and he so chooses . . .

Of course, you are free to appeal against a registrar's decision in the courts, but by the time a ruling can be had, the election will undoubtedly be over. . . .

The current trend is for the states to vest more and more discretionary power in the registrars so that the actual discrimination can be left to them, without appearing in statutory form. . . .

Don't think, if you put on the uniform of the United States in time of war to defend democracy, that this will in any wise improve your chances of voting in the South when the war is over if your skin color isn't white. On the contrary, special efforts have been made to deter Negro war veterans from voting. . . .

Should you succeed in getting your name on the list of qualified voters, your troubles may have only begun. . . .

For one thing, your name may be purged from the list before you get a chance to vote. . . . In some counties the vast majority of Negro registrants were stricken from the lists. Appeals to the U.S. Department of Justice were in vain. . . .

Any white person, it would appear, can challenge any number of Negroes on all sorts of grounds. For instance, G. R. Fossett, who purged 183 Negroes from the voting list of Spaulding County, Georgia, admitted that he did so solely on the basis of their handwriting. . . .

If you are a Negro and your name is on a voters' list somewhere in segregated territory, as Election Day draws nigh you may decide that those whose names are merely purged are the lucky ones.

While the hand of every white man may not be turned against you, you may get the impression that it is. Candidates, officeholders, law enforcement officers, and Klansmen may severally or collectively resort to intimidation and violence to dissuade you from actually going to the polls. . . .

If, despite such as this, you persist in going to the Polls, be careful not to take with you any sort of memorandum—even one you prepared yourself—because election officials are in the habit of arresting Negroes early in the day on charges of carrying "dummy ballots," so that the publicity in the afternoon papers will deter other Negroes from voting. . . .

Don't think that by establishing residence in one of the 150 or more Southern counties where Negroes are still in the majority you can find more self-government; the more Negroes there are in any given political entity down South, the less the political expression permitted them.

If you happened to be visiting in Great Britain while the U.S. State Department had on display there its exhibit "Souvenirs of American Elections," complete with facsimile of the Declaration of Independence, you shouldn't think you could go back to the American South in this century and raise the standard of the American Revolution, "No Taxation without Representation!," with impunity. Nor would the latter-day Tories of the American South be likely to tolerate any refusal on the part of Negro Southerners to pay taxes on this basis.

--Excerpts from "Who May Vote Where," Chapter 10 of Stetson Kennedy, The Jim Crow Guide: The Way It Was (1959)

            ***         ***         ***Update: David Scott Anderson took the time to explain to me something about blogging etiquette I hadn't understood before—that when I send a trackback it should be from a post that explicitly links to the one I pinged. I have often sent trackbacks simply to alert other bloggers that my post is relevant to theirs. So, without further ado, here are some blogs with recent posts on Republican use of overt Jim Crow tactics to suppress the votes of African Americans and other minorities.

In Search Of Utopia
Blogs Of War
DebWire
Oliver Willis

direct them to eRiposte's John Kerry For Dummies.

(eRiposte is the same person who brought you Vote Watch.)

Unable to counter the bad news with stories of major successes, the Bush campaign has turned almost exclusively to the so-called war against terror. The message in a nutshell: be very afraid.

A Bush campaign commercial released a few days ago shows wolves advancing menacingly toward the camera. A voice in the ad says, "Weakness attracts those who are waiting to do America harm."

At the same time, the Republican Party is doing what it can in key states to block as many Democratic votes as possible. Party officials have mounted a huge organized effort to challenge - some would say intimidate - voters in states like Ohio and Florida, in a bid to offset the effects of huge voter registration drives and a potentially heavy turnout of voters opposed to Mr. Bush and his policies.

Election officials in Ohio said they'd never seen such a large drive mounted to challenge voters on Election Day.

Voter suppression is a reprehensible practice. It's a bullet aimed at the very heart of democracy. But the G.O.P. evidently considers it an essential strategy in an environment with so little positive news. (Bob Herbert)

The Republican sponsored Jim Crow 2004 campaign is in full swing. Decent, democracy-loving people are rightfully enraged. There is renewed talk about the important Election Protection campaign to protect voting rights. If you'd like to help but cannot travel to one of the high stakes locales, check out election Match. There, you can plug in the info about where you'd like to work and they'll match you up with a local, non-profit, non-partisan poll-watching group.

I personally cannot travel because of my family obligations, but I'm going to do poll watching in my own community, in the Boston area, where Kerry's victory is assured. Even where there are not outright attempts at election theft, the system is broken (lost votes, polling sites) and probably won't get fixed without local activism throughout the country. Our electoral system is so decentralized [pdf] that even good, well funded federal legislation to fix the problems (as compared to the Help America Vote Act) would be quite difficult to fashion and implement. Get involved now because you're afraid the Republicans will steal another election—and use this is as an opportunity to stay active in making our electoral system democratic.

(Note that poll watching organizations need to train their volunteers and time is running low. You probably need to act now if you want to take part in this important means of improving our democracy.)

Haven't done one of these before, but this one from Rox Populi (via Body and Soul) seemed fun. The instructions are: "get out your moble tune device, set to random play and list the first ten songs." Here's what I got on mine:

Peretz Tants — The Klezmatics
Weary Blues — Louis Armstrong and His Hot 7
Can't Get That Woman Off My Mind — Lightnin' Hopkins
Hitler In My Heart — Antony and the Johnsons
The Rooster Moans — Iron and Wine
Daybreak Blues — The Port of Harlem Jazzmen
Saturday Sun — Nick Drake
I'm Yours — Billie Holiday
Yellow Submarine — The Beatles
Faith Children — Little Wings

Jeanne asks further, "What does your list say about you?" I wish I knew . . .

p.s. do I understand how to use "meme" correctly?

There is now a good single site to go to if you're trying to follow all of the funny business in our broken electoral system. Vote Watch 2004 "is dedicated to tracking voting irregularities, vote suppression, vote fraud, voter intimidation and other such acts of compassionate conservatism during Election 2004." Actually, aside from it being a good resource for anyone who cares about these issues, here's the part I like:

The inspiration for this site is in part Florida 2000. But it is also in part - history.

Check it out.

(via Ampersand)

ASK YOURSELF THIS
IMPORTANT QUESTION:
WHAT HAVE I PERSONALLY DONE TO
MAINTAIN Segregation?

If the answer disturbs you, probe deeper and decide what you are willing to do to preserve racial harmony in Selma and Dallas County.

Is it worth four dollars to prevent a "Birmingham" here? That's what it costs to be a member of your Citizens' Council, whose efforts are not thwarted by courts which give sit-in demonstrators legal immunity, prevent school boards from expelling students who participate in mob activities and would place federal referees at the board of voter registrars.

Law enforcement can be called only after these things occur, but your Citizens' Council prevents them from happening. . . .

Is it worth four dollars to you to prevent sit-ins, mob marches and wholesale Negro voter registration efforts in Selma?

(From the Selma Times Journal, Sunday, June 9, 1963, reprinted in James Forman, The Making of Black Revolutionaries, p. 316)

The Washington Post article is about Blacks in Jacksonville, Florida who are finding new challenges to their voting rights.

Despite attempts by Florida officials to prevent a repeat of the controversy that dogged the last presidential election, black leaders said they are concerned that this year new registrations are being rejected for technical errors and that limited accessibility to early polling places could lead to more disputes, roiling Florida and the nation long after Election Day.

For me, the key part of Jeanne's quote from the article was here:

records show that the number of blacks added to the rolls since 2000 approximately equals the number of non-Hispanic whites.

You see, Jacksonville is in Duval County, one of the Florida counties that historically has been part of the Southern Black Belt. Black Belt counties have typically been the seat of some of the fiercest White Supremacism. In Dallas County, Alabama for example,

the ratio was 57.7 percent "nonwhites" to 42.3 percent [whites] (census figures for 1960). Of the blacks, 84 percent existed on less than three thousand dollars a year and 82 percent of those who worked held jobs as maids, janitors, farm and other kinds of laborers, truck drivers, and helpers. Of the blacks over twenty-five years old, 95 percent had less than a high school education, while 62 percent had completed six years or less of school. Among the whites on the other hand, 81 percent had incomes of three thousand dollars a year or more while 73 percent fell into the better paid and more desirable job categories, and only 11 percent had six or less years of school.

In Dallas County, only 130 black people were registered to vote out of an eligible 15,115 according to a 1961 Civil Rights Commission report. Adjoining Wilcox County had never had a black voter, although its population was 78 percent black. Lowndes County, which also borders Dallas and also has a huge black majority, had never had registered black person either. . . . During the Civil War Selma had been one of the most important military depots of the Confederacy. In 1963 it was the birthplace and stronghold of the White Citizens' Council, the authors of that advertisement in the Selma Times Journal. Nothing had changed. (Forman, 317-18)

Black citizens were excluded from voting in order to deprive them of resources and power. It's important to say this because, while there is all too much truth in the caricature of the racist, seething with pathological hatred for Blacks, such images limit racism to something individually felt, something that is largely emotional and reactive. It is that, of course, but personalized, visceral race hatred goes hand in hand with calculated deprivations of rights and resources—thus our country's infamous voter application forms and literacy tests as well as the orchestrated terror campaigns of the KKK designed to intimidate and subdue Blacks.

Is it hyperbolic to note that Florida has one of the more active Klans in the country and that Jacksonville has its own chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens? I would say, no. I believe these facts, along with a perusal of Jacksonville's history, are essential for understanding the recent events in Duval County and what goes on in Florida elections in general. But let's stay closer to the article Jeanne brought to our attention. Here's what she quoted in full:

[i]n Duval County, 31,155 black voters had been added to the rolls by the end of last week. That is more than the total number of ballots nullified here four years ago, in a race that George W. Bush won by 537 votes.

But hundreds more could show up at the polls only to find they cannot vote. The office has flagged 1,448 registrations as incomplete, and as of last week had yet to process 11,500 more.

A Washington Post analysis found nearly three times the number of flagged Democratic registrations as Republican. Broken down by race, no group had more flagged registrations than blacks.

This, in a heavily GOP county where records show that the number of blacks added to the rolls since 2000 approximately equals the number of non-Hispanic whites.

When Jeanne comments on voter registrars who are "really picky about accepting new voter registrations -- but only in a county that has a huge increase in the registration of black voters," she's alluding to this part of the article, which she didn't quote:

Secretary of State Glenda E. Hood, a Republican appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's brother, recently ruled that for registrations to be deemed complete, new voters must not only sign an oath attesting to their citizenship, but also check a box that states the same. Unlike many counties, which have chosen to ignore the directive, Duval County chose to enforce it.

You see we've gone from literacy tests to more mundane forms of bureaucratic obstructionism and from White Citizens' Councils to Councils of Conservative Citizens.

To paraphrase H. Rap Brown, the disenfranchisement of Black voters is as American as cherry pie. Racist manipulations of voter registration and election outcomes is not just about stealing elections. It is about protecting unequal distributions of resources by directly thwarting Black participation in the political process and by barraging Blacks with different forms of the message that their participation is unimportant and inessential to the function of our society.

While I'm writing all of this, I'm thinking about a conversation that was going on in my yoga class last night when I walked in. My teacher, a wise, intellectual woman who is in her early sixties, was explaining that she never votes. I came in too late to catch her main point, but one of my fellow students was encouraging her to register before today's registration deadline in Massachusetts. He said that even here, where Kerry's victory is assured, it is important to vote. Otherwise we send the message that we don't care that much about what happens. Another student was saying how he wasn't going to vote because he plans to spend November 2 in New Hampshire, helping to get the vote out. Why not get an absentee ballot, the first student asked? Second student said going to New Hampshire is more important; it's a swing state.

As the deadlines for voter registration are starting to pass, I want to make a last plea that EVERYONE register and then go and vote—but not just because we need to do everything possible to get George W. Bush out of office. To readers who are white, like myself, I want to say this: when white Americans don't vote, we're saying that we take our power for granted. If we oppose George Bush, and if we oppose the interests of his racist base, we have to take opportunities to use our power as voters and to make clear demonstrations of where we stand. Otherwise we help broadcast our nation's constant message, the one that never has to be uttered out loud to be powerfully clear, that some members of our society deserve their rights and others don't.

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Images:
Map from Ronald C. Wimberley and Libby V. Morris, 1997, The Southern Black Belt: A National Perspective, Lexington: TVA Rural Studies Press, reprinted at http://sasw.chass.ncsu.edu/s&a/grad/ruralcom.htm.
Citizens' Council insignia from the back cover of a 1957 White Citizens' Council pamphlet, digitized at Middle Passage and African American History Museum.

[from United States Commission on Civil Rights, Redefining Rights in America: The Civil Rights Record of the George W. Bush Administration, 2001–2004, Executive Summary, xii-xiv (pdf)]

By continuously improving access to federal programs, an administration can promote equal opportunity and reduce economic and social disparities. President Bush has made efforts to improve access, but as with past administrations, equal access remains elusive and requires greater federal investment.

Language Minorities: President Bush has indicated a commitment to improving access to federal programs for limited English proficient (LEP) individuals. Among the administration’s actions:

• DOJ issued a memorandum to federal agencies stating the Bush administration was committed to implementing a Clinton executive order to improve LEP access.

• The administration created the Federal LEP Interagency Working Group to improve efficiency and effectiveness of Title VI and executive order implementation, as well as the HERE Hispanic Initiative Grant Award to provide English instruction for immigrant workers and new American citizens.

• However, the administration has not required agencies to develop output measures or other assessments to evaluate progress. No procedures exist to assess whether federal programs and services are becoming more accessible to language minorities, hampering Title VI enforcement.

Underserved Minority Groups: President Bush extended several initiatives of earlier administrations designed to improve access for specific minority groups. Some assess a population’s general needs and develop solutions while others focus on a specific purpose. The administration modified each in some way. For example:

• President Bush extended the work of the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (PACAAPI) until July 7, 2003. Before the group’s work could be completed, President Bush let the initiative’s renewal lapse. Almost a year later and after pleas from Congress and civil rights groups, he renewed it. However, the administration moved the initiative from the Department of Health and Human Services to the Department of Commerce and, without input from affected communities, changed its focus from broad appeal to a narrow one of economic and small business development. Advocacy groups criticized the changes, stating that they narrowed the mission and would result in neglect of pressing health problems.

• In 2001, the President also renewed the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans. He created an advisory commission and charged it with developing a multiyear action plan to close the achievement gap. The administration has developed a Web site to help parents and students make college decisions, and increased funding for Hispanic serving institutions. Overall, it developed many plans but undertook few actions and offers minimal demonstrable outcomes.

• In 2002, President Bush reestablished the President’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and extended the White House Initiative on HBCUs, a program to increase the participation of these institutions in federal grants and contracts. The board recommended that 27 participating agencies designate 10 percent of all money spent on higher education to HBCUs; only the Department of Education has met the goal. The board also is more than two years behind schedule in releasing annual performance reports, rendering a governmentwide evaluation of HBCU programs difficult.

Funding for Religious Groups: When President Bush took office, he expanded the ability of religious groups to receive federal funds through the Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Although the initiative constitutes a retreat from civil rights, President Bush has consistently presented it as an extension of civil rights to religious groups.

• He advanced the plan as a flagship initiative, mentioning it in more than 350 speeches, issuing executive orders, directing federal agencies to revise regulations, and working with Congress to pass and strengthen related legislation.

• President Bush does not speak about civil rights initiatives often, but when he does he promotes the faith-based program more than any other. He has presented the initiative as an end to discrimination against religious organizations, using terms such as “remove barriers,” “equal access,” and “equal treatment,” which convey that such programs have civil rights relevance. In reality, the program does not remove barriers to discrimination. On the contrary, it allows religious organizations that receive public funds to discriminate against individuals based on religion in employment.

[from United States Commission on Civil Rights, Redefining Rights in America: The Civil Rights Record of the George W. Bush Administration, 2001–2004, Executive Summary, x-xii (pdf)]

African American rights dominated the pre-1970s struggles for equality, but they shared a common goal with other minority groups and women who sought comparable solutions to discriminatory treatment. Although the country has made progress, its struggle toward equal rights for all remains elusive.

Immigrants: This report examines three administration immigration proposals or policies. All lack strong civil rights protections for immigrants.

• President Bush has made encouraging comments about the extension of rights to immigrant workers, but has not followed through with action. For example, he initially considered granting amnesty to approximately 3 million undocumented Mexican immigrants in 2001, but subsequently terminated his efforts. In January 2004, the President again proposed a temporary worker program for undocumented immigrants but has not pushed for its passage.

• President Bush has endorsed policies that allow discrimination against certain groups in the processing of asylum requests. For instance, on the unproven claim that Haitian refugees may threaten national security, President Bush granted authority to federal agents to hold them in detention indefinitely without bond until their cases are heard by an asylum court. The United States does not apply such policy to any other immigrant group.

• Following the terrorist attacks, the administration instituted policies that singled out immigrants from Middle Eastern and Muslim countries. The DOJ allowed local law enforcement to contact and question visitors, citizens, and other residents. It also detained witnesses on minor violations, held many in secret in harsh conditions, and did not inform them of charges against them. The administration limited available channels for legal entry and began requiring individuals from selected countries to register and submit fingerprints and photographs upon arrival.

Native Americans: President Bush has acknowledged the great debt America owes to Native Americans. However, his words have not been matched with action. Commission reports document that the President has not effectively used the stature of his office to speak out on ending discrimination against Native Americans. Nor has he engaged in a consistent effort to alleviate their problems. He has not applied resources to improving conditions or adequately funded programs that serve Native peoples. For example:

• President Bush has not requested sufficient funding for tribal colleges and universities, has proposed terminating $1.5 billion in funding for education programs that benefit Native Americans, and has not provided adequate resources to meet NCLB goals that apply to Indian Country.

• For 2004, the administration requested $3.6 billion for the Indian Health Service, the primary provider of Native American health care. This falls far short of the $19.4 billion in unmet health needs in Native communities.

• President Bush’s budget requests for housing programs have not approached the $1 billion required to meet the demand, and consequently, Native Americans have an immediate need for 210,000 housing units.

• In 2003, President Bush terminated funding for critical law enforcement programs, including the Tribal Drug Court Program. Experts agree that problems with the criminal justice system in Indian Country are serious and understated.

Persons with Disabilities: President Bush has demonstrated a commitment to improving the lives of individuals with disabilities, a goal he outlined during his campaign. Although too soon to measure the ultimate impact of the administration’s efforts, the disability rights community has embraced them.

• The administration implemented the New Freedom Initiative (NFI) to integrate disabled individuals into the labor force and abolish hurdles to full participation in community programs and services.

• President Bush directed several agencies to assist states in expanding community-based services for individuals with disabilities, and introduced a Web site to make information more readily available.

• In his 2004 budget, the President proposed $2.1 billion in NFI funding over a five-year period.

• President Bush also created the President’s Commission on Excellence in Special Education (PCESE) to gather data on and examine special education programs. It offered recommendations for the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), many of which were similar to those the Commission made in 2002. However, while PCESE supported a limited amount for IDEA, the Commission noted the need for full and immediate funding. Congress has yet to finalize IDEA’s reauthorization. In the meantime, President Bush has the opportunity to demand congressional action and demonstrate his commitment to individuals with disabilities.

Women: President Bush’s record on women’s issues is mixed. Economic gains for which he has paved the way are overshadowed by other actions that have set back women’s rights. For example:

• The Bush administration closed the White House Office for Women’s Initiatives and Outreach and attempted to close the Women’s Bureau at the Department of Labor (DOL). It retreated amid objections from women’s groups.

• The administration withdrew Department of Education guidance on sexual harassment in schools from the Internet and ended distribution of information on workplace rights of women.

• President Bush attempted to redirect Title IX enforcement, but ceased his effort after overwhelming public expressions of support for the law.

• The administration commendably launched a plan to improve women’s access to capital by creating a Web site for women entrepreneurs and holding related conferences, but at the same time abolished DOL’s Equal Pay Initiative.

Gay Men and Lesbians: President Bush appointed some gay rights supporters to Cabinet and administration positions. However, other actions he and his administration have taken have almost completely eclipsed the efforts he made. For example:

• In 2003, Attorney General John Ashcroft did not allow a Gay Pride Month celebration at DOJ, even though it had been an established program at the agency. He relented after protestations, but did not permit the use of agency funds, even though they are used for other heritage and history commemorations.

• President Bush opposes the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and Hate Crimes Prevention Act, both of which include protections for gay individuals.

• In 2004, the Office of Special Counsel removed documents pertaining to sexual orientation discrimination in the federal government from its Web site. Only after the action was publicized did the administration direct that the materials be re-posted.

• President Bush has stated unequivocal support for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages. If passed, the amendment would be the first in U.S. history to limit rather than preserve and expand the rights of a group.

[from United States Commission on Civil Rights, Redefining Rights in America: The Civil Rights Record of the George W. Bush Administration, 2001–2004, Executive Summary, viii-x (pdf)]

While judicial and legislative achievements of the 1960s and 1970s largely broke down the system of segregation and legal bases for discrimination, the effects persist and hamper equal opportunity in education, employment, housing, public accommodations, and the ability to vote. President Bush has implemented policies that have retreated from long-established civil rights promises in each of these areas.

Voting Rights: Despite promising to unite the nation and improve its election system, the President failed to act swiftly toward election reform.

• He did not provide leadership to ensure timely passage and swift implementation of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002. Thus, Congress did not appropriate funds for election reform until almost two years into his presidency.

• The administration seated the federal election reform oversight board 11 months behind schedule, resulting in delayed fund distribution to states. Consequently, states did not have the equipment, infrastructure, or guidance they needed to meet HAVA’s deadlines, including implementation of statewide voter registration databases, development of voter complaint procedures, and installation of new voting equipment.

As a result of the President’s inaction, little will change before the 2004 elections, and the problems that linger, unless resolved, will most likely disenfranchise some eligible voters.

Equal Educational Opportunity: Early in his administration, the President widely promoted an education reform proposal, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), and garnered bipartisan support. Despite its worthy goals, however, NCLB has flaws that will inhibit equal educational opportunity and limit its ability to close the achievement gap.

• NCLB does not sufficiently address unequal education, a major barrier to closing the achievement gap between minority and white students.

• NCLB defers to states responsibility for defining achievement and adopting assessment measures. Educators fear that, unless there are safeguards in place, states will attach high stakes to tests, punishing students for the system’s failure to teach.

• Students, especially those who are minority, limited English proficient, low income, or have a disability, disproportionately attend schools that do not have the resources to provide necessary learning tools and, thus, are more likely to be identified as low performers and subject to sanctions.

• The lowest performing schools are also the poorest, amplifying the need for sufficient resources. However, President Bush has not aggressively pushed for increased funding, leaving NCLB underfunded every year except its first.

Affirmative Action: The President’s stance on affirmative action is equivocal at best. President Bush has tried to please both supporters and opponents, a tactic that has resulted in a misleading and vague position. He has not exhibited strong leadership on this issue where leadership is vital.

• In 2001, the administration asked the Supreme Court to dismiss a case challenging a Department of Transportation program for disadvantaged businesses. In announcing and discussing the case, it was clear that the administration was not basing its position on support for affirmative action, but procedural technicalities with the case.

• The administration later filed briefs with the Supreme Court challenging programs that allow race to be considered as one factor among many in college admissions decisions, discrediting existing case law and arguing erroneously that this practice amounted to a quota.

• Instead of promoting affirmative action in federal contracting and education, the administration promotes “race neutral alternatives,” even though in some situations they are not applicable and in others not overly effective at maintaining diversity.

• President Bush frequently speaks about the importance of diversity and exhibits such a standard within his own Cabinet. However, his actions with respect to affirmative action are not in line with that professed commitment as he has undercut programs designed to achieve diversity.

Fair Housing: Policies instituted under the Bush administration have diminished housing opportunities for poor, disproportionately minority families.

• The President shifted resources away from rent assistance for the poor and toward home purchasing programs for minorities. Although a worthwhile effort, the President’s A Home of Your Own program is hampered by insufficient funding to relieve the chronic affordable housing crisis.

• The President outlined a plan to eliminate billions of dollars from programs to help low-income and disabled persons pay for housing through rent vouchers, including the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program, and HOPE VI, which rebuilds distressed communities.

Environmental Justice: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under this administration, despite some attempts, has not always been successful in advancing the cause of environmental justice.

• Although it developed an action plan for ensuring environmental justice goals are met, the agency has not developed measures of accountability and progress.

• EPA has taken few actions to ensure that minority and low-income persons are not disparately affected by environmental contamination and has failed to develop a standard for assessing how exposure to hazards affects public health.

• EPA has de-emphasized the significance of minority and low-income populations in its environmental justice efforts.

• The administration has developed environmental proposals without adequate participation from minority populations, and has thus failed to consider the civil rights consequences of its actions.

Racial Profiling: Early in his term, President Bush promised to end racial profiling. Although he has not completely fulfilled that promise, he issued guidelines to prohibit racial profiling in federal law enforcement, an action unprecedented among U.S. Presidents. President Bush took other actions, however, that had negative effects.

• The administration responded to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by instituting regulations that facilitate profiling rather than prevent it. Immigrants and visitors from Arab and Middle Eastern countries were subjected to increased scrutiny, including interviews, registration, and in some cases removal.

• Early on, some federal agencies denounced profiling in the performance of their agents’ routine duties, but the administration did not introduce governmentwide policies complete or comprehensive enough to have measurable positive effects after September 11.

• Commendably, two years later, the Department of Justice (DOJ) issued guidelines that prohibit federal agents from making enforcement decisions based on race or ethnicity. However, the guidelines contain a broad and loosely defined exception that permits race targeting if law enforcement alleges that individuals are suspected of posing a national security threat. This exception allows profiling in certain undefined circumstances and potentially gives cover to abusers.

Hate Crimes: The administration paid little attention to hate crimes until after September 11. Since then, the President’s words and actions have conveyed mixed messages.

• Immediately after the attacks, the administration declared that acts of violence and discrimination against Arab Americans, Muslims, and those perceived to be of Middle Eastern descent would not be tolerated. The executive branch launched a coordinated campaign to prevent hate crimes against such individuals.

• The administration did not sustain its strong rhetoric after September 11. Neither did President Bush support passage of the Local Law Enforcement Act, a proposal that would protect gay men and lesbians, and persons with disabilities from hate crimes.

• President Bush has further stated that “all violent crimes are crimes of hate,” a view which does not acknowledge the bias associated with such acts.

[from United States Commission on Civil Rights, Redefining Rights in America: The Civil Rights Record of the George W. Bush Administration, 2001–2004, Executive Summary, vii (pdf)]

Through public statements and actions, by establishing a diverse executive branch that affirms civil rights, and by funding enforcement, an administration can express its commitment to equal opportunity. This report finds that President Bush has not defined a clear agenda nor made civil rights a priority.

Statements and Action: Public statements are a means by which Presidents draw the country’s attention to important matters. However, President Bush seldom speaks about civil rights, and when he does, it is to carry out official duties, not to promote initiatives or plans for improving opportunity. Even when he publicly discusses existing barriers to equality and efforts to overcome them, the administration’s words and deeds often conflict.

Federal Diversity and Support for Civil Rights: Although not to the extent of the previous administration, President Bush has assembled a commendably diverse Cabinet and moderately diverse judiciary. However, many of his nominees and appointees do not support civil rights protections. The effect may be eventual weakening of civil rights laws.

Civil Rights Funding: Requests for funding is one means by which Presidents make their priorities known. In his first three years in office, the net increase in President Bush’s requests for civil rights enforcement agencies was less than those of the previous two administrations. After accounting for inflation, the President’s requests for the six major civil rights programs (Departments of Education, Labor, Justice, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) amount to a loss of spending power for 2004 and 2005.

Civil rights problems remain entrenched in American society, the stubborn result of unequal treatment over time. Discrimination in housing, employment, and the voting booth, unequal educational opportunity, and other problems still stand between some Americans and true equality. Presidential leadership is necessary to break down obstacles and realize the promise of civil rights.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (Commission) examined the George W. Bush administration’s commitment to that end. What follows are the results of the Commission’s examination, expressed in terms of:

(1) whether civil rights enforcement is a presidential priority;
(2) federal efforts to eradicate entrenched discrimination;
(3) expanding and protecting rights for disadvantaged groups; and
(4) promoting access to federal programs and services for traditionally underserved populations.

This report finds that President Bush has neither exhibited leadership on pressing civil rights issues, nor taken actions that matched his words. The report reaches this conclusion after analyzing and summarizing numerous documents, including historical literature, reports, scholarly articles, presidential and administration statements, executive orders, policy briefs, documents of Cabinet-level agencies, federal budgets and other data.

[United States Commission on Civil Rights, Redefining Rights in America: The Civil Rights Record of the George W. Bush Administration, 2001–2004, Executive Summary, vii (pdf)]