WASTING RESOURCES:

Black Panther case reveals schism (Jerry Markon and Krissah Thompson, 10/23/10, Washington Post)

On Election Day 2008, Maruse Heath, the leader of Philadelphia's New Black Panther Party, stood in front of a neighborhood polling place, dressed in a paramilitary uniform.

Within hours, an amateur video showing Heath, slapping a black nightstick and exchanging words with the videographer, had aired on TV and ricocheted across the nation.

Among those who saw the footage was J. Christian Adams, who was in his office in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division in Washington.

"I thought, 'This is wrong, this is not supposed to happen in this country,' " Adams said. [...]

Two months after Election Day, Adams and his supervisors in the George W. Bush administration filed a voter-intimidation lawsuit against Heath and his colleagues, even though no voters had complained. [...]

The dispute over the Panthers, and the Justice Department's handling of it, was politicized from the start, documents and interviews show. On that Election Day, the issue was driven by Republican poll-watchers and officials and a conservative Web site.

At the department, Adams and his colleagues pushed a case that other career lawyers concluded had major evidentiary weaknesses.

Like the lack of a crime?

MORE:
In the American political system, realize that motives matter (Ruben Navarrette Jr., 10/23/10, WASHINGTON POST)

Voter suppression efforts are a lot sneakier than they used to be. Who needs poll workers asking folks to guess the number of beans in a jar or how many bubbles are on a bar of soap when you can just produce and try to air a phony Spanish-language ad intended to fool Hispanics into staying home.

The organization Latinos for Reform — directed by Robert de Posada, former head of Hispanic outreach for the Republican National Committee — prepared a 90-second spot urging Hispanics to punish elected officials for not passing immigration reform. The ad goes like this:

"This November we need to send a message to all politicians: If they didn't keep their promise on immigration reform, then they can't count on our vote. ... Don't vote this November. This is the only way to send them a clear message: You can no longer take us for granted. Don't vote."

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 24, 2010 7:50 AM