You might remember Hans von Spakovsky. He was Brad Schlozman's soul mate at the Civil Rights Division. It seems they worked hand in glove to make sure only the "right kind of people" got career jobs.
Greg Gordon, McClatchy's crack reporter has published more about Hans and his ground breaking work as an advocate for voter suppression. It must seem obvious to Hans that only the "right kind of people" should be permitted to vote. Gordon reports that Joseph Rich and
(O)ther former career department lawyers say that von Spakovsky steered the agency toward voting rights policies not seen before, pushing to curb minor instances of election fraud by imposing sweeping restrictions that would make it harder, not easier, for Democratic-leaning poor and minority voters to cast ballots.Gordon continues by saying that current and former federal officials and civil rights leaders told McClatchy Newspapers that von Spakovsky:
-Sped approval of tougher voter ID laws in Georgia and Arizona in 2005, joining decisions to override career lawyers who believed that Georgia's law would restrict voting by poor blacks and who felt that more analysis was needed on the Arizona law's impact on Native Americans and Latinos.While most of this has been known for a while, the last item is new. Apparently DeGregorio wasn't a loyal Bushie. Do we see a pattern developing?
-Tried to influence the federal Election Assistance Commission's research into the dimensions of voter fraud nationally and the impact of restrictive voter ID laws - research that could undermine a vote-suppression agenda.
-Allegedly engineered the ouster of the commission's chairman, Paul DeGregorio, whom von Spakovsky considered insufficiently partisan.
According to Gordon, Hans is scheduled to appear at a June 13 confirmation hearing before the Senate Rules and Administration Committee. Stay tuned.
