Another Going-Away Party

Hans von Spakovsky / June 07, 2010

I previously reported for National Review Online on the memorable going-away speech by Christopher Coates, the former career head of the Voting Section in the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, who had been relieved of his post and “transferred” to South Carolina by the division’s new political leadership. Coates’s frankness and willingness to call out those who had criticized him for trying to enforce the Voting Rights Act in a race-neutral manner surprised and shocked the other career lawyers in the section, particularly since such evenhandedness runs directly contrary to the unofficial enforcement directives issued by the Obama political appointees who currently run the division.

Last Thursday, there was another going-away party in the Voting Section, this time for Christian Adams, the second Obama-administration casualty of the New Black Panther Party voter-intimidation case. Adams was one of the lead career lawyers who worked on that case, as well as an earlier case in Noxubee County, Miss., that infuriated the radical civil-rights establishment and their ideological soulmates who occupy nearly every nook and cranny in the section. (more…)