Hans von Spakovsky...Buh-bye

From AJC's Political Insider, former Fulton County [GA] GOP chairman and DoJ voter suppression expert Hans von Spakovsky emailed his supporters on New Year's Eve to say good-bye:

“Today was my last official day as a Commissioner on the Federal Election Commission,” he wrote. “The Senate officially adjourned today without acting on my nomination… I wanted to thank everyone for their support over the past two years while I was going through this confirmation battle. All of the telephone calls, emails and notes I received from people were great encouragement for me.”

Von Spakovsky attached an endorsement by the Wall Street Journal, though he added that “it did not help in the end in convincing the Democrats to vote to confirm me.”

Didn't help? Boo-hoo-hoo. I wonder why? The Political Insider goes on to describe a tit-for-tat:

Democratic senators blocked von Spakovsky’s appointment, over concern about his tenure in the Justice Department’s civil rights division, where he sided with efforts of Georgia Republicans to require that voters present a photo ID.

Republican senators retaliated by blocking the appointments of two Democrats to the FEC.

But, the Repubs didn't give reasons for their usual obstructionism -- or I missed it because most of what they say is BS -- whereas, von Spakovsky’s efforts to suppress Georgia voters is a very good reason to stop his appointment. IOW, he's a jerk.

Buh-bye and good riddance, Hans. Don't let the door hit you in the...

[That's all. No more after the jump.]

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Judicial Watch Reports That The Democrats Will Block Von Spakosky

Judicial Watch is reporting that top democrats are going to block Hans von Spakosky's nomination to the Federal Election Commission. According to Judicial Watch

Leading the chorus of opposition is California Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Rules Committee Chairwoman, who says it’s a “real problem” that the president’s Federal Election Commission nominee (Hans von Spakovsky) didn’t protect minority voters as a government attorney.

If true this might be an important development. It had been thought that Von Spakosky would survive because nominees to the FEC come in pairs, Republican and Democrat, and Democrats don't want to lose one of their nominees.

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Is Hans von Spakovsky a Jerk?

I was chatting with a friend last weekend and he mentioned, not at all off-handedly, that he sat beside Hans von Spakovsky during a recent luncheon. My friend is a lawyer who regularly does election law for his big corporate overlords. I will refer to him as Corpulent Juris. For those of you who need a refresher, von Spakovsky is the Civil Rights Division muck up who was up in front of the Senate on Wednesday trying to win approval to serve on the Federal Election Commission.

CJ said that Hans "is even more dislikable in person than his picture, or his name, suggests."

Really? Go on...

"He was a smug, I'm smarter that you, sanctimonious puke."

Is this true? I have no doubt that he is smarter than my friend. Being the 'smartest guy in the room' in a room that includes CJ is (as the old phrase says) like being the world's tallest midget. But is Hans von Spicklehammer a dislikable sanctimonious puke?

Mike Pitts says "Yes!" Rick Hansen posted a letter from Pitts over at Election Law Blog on Thursday. Pitts, who is now an assistant professor of law at Indiana University, is also a former DOJ civil rights attorney who worked under von Spastic. He writes that he hadn't really opposed Hans' nomination until he watched the hearings and read the letter his former colleagues had sent in opposition to von Spittakes' nomination to a full term.

Pitts says that there are three reasons to "question Hans' fitness to serve on the Federal Election Commission": his lack of open-mindedness, his "needlessly antagonistic" managerial style, and his "targeting" of those who disagree with him.

Describing the antagonistic managerial style, Pitts says:

If one were to subpoena the e-mails Hans sent to career lawyers it would be clear...that he was typically an advocate for a particular viewpoint, actively worked to convince his superiors (to the extent they needed to be convinced) of his viewpoint, and did this in a very hostile, adversarial, and slash-and-burn manner. When Senator Feinstein asked Hans why so many career lawyers had signed a letter opposing his nomination...in my opinion, a truthful answer would have been: Because I was a real jerk to a lot of career people."

But, then, Pitts also says that Hans' antagonism "stood in contrast to his affability on a more personal level". Which now just makes me question Corpulent Juris' entire characterization of his discussion with the man.

CJ said that he asked von Spksvmelijy about the controversy surrounding his tenure at the DOJ. Hans' response was that "it's very typical of Democrats to criticize the voting rights policy of a Republican administration."

What a puke.

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Texas Attorney J. Gerald Herbert Opposes Hans Von Spakovsky

The Politico has reprinted a Democratic lawyer's letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) Chairperson, and Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) Ranking Member, of the Senate Rules Committee opposing Hans Von Spakovsky's permanent appointment to the Federal Election Commission.

The letter is signed by J. Gerald Herbert, a well known Texas attorney who represented Texas Democrats as they attempted to resist Tom Delay's redistricting plan. That redistricting plan, supported by the Bush DoJ, was ultimately overturned by the United States Supreme Court. Herbert outlines Von Spakovsky's role (along with that Bradley Schlozman) in that case, as well his endorsement of (over the opposition of the career staff) a voter ID in Georgia a federal judge easily determined to be an illegal Poll Tax.

You might want to read the entire letter, it provides lots of good information about Von Spakovsky. You are going to hear a lot about Hans all weekend.

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Von Spakovsky and Schlozman, The Tweedledee and Tweedledum of Republican Voter Suppression

Next week, unless he decides to quit, (my bet) there will be a confirmation hearing for Hans Von Spakovsky to the Federal Election Commission.

This afternoon the Brennen Center for Justice and the Lawyers Committee sponsored a press conference providing background information about Von Spakovsky's role in the Republican voter suppression campaign. The presser was held at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. The questions were answered by Joseph Rich, former chief of the Voting Rights Division, of the Civil Rights Division of the USDoJ's Professional Staff.

Unfortunately, I live a thousand miles away. As much as I would like I just couldn't attend. Because Von Spakovsky is the next big name on the voter suppression hit parade, I am looking for a complete transcript. We will hear a lot about Hans during the coming week.

Because they office in DC and they have a real budget, ThinkProgress was able to send a reporter. (Blue girl, you need to do something about that.)

The press conference took a 1/2 step away from Von Spakovsky when one of the reporters ask Rich questions about Bradley Schlozman and the ACORN indictments. You will recall that Schlozman is adamant that Craig Donsanto, the director of the Election Crimes branch in the Public Integrity section, ordered him to go forward with the indictments in the face of express directions published the manual Donsanto wrote. ThinkProgress is reporting this evening that Rich believes

“Schlozman’s the person who recommended those lawsuits, he pushed to get them, and I suspect [Schlozman] pressured Donsanto.”

According to ThinkProgress, Rich said, “I’ve heard that Schlozman talked to [Michael] Elston, which indicated he may have gone over Donsanto’s head to get approval.”

That kind of pressure might explain why Schlozman was so sure Donsanto would back him up even though everyone agrees the indictments flew in the face of Donsanto's own manual, DoJ rules and long standing tradition.

Whatever rock you turn over in this voter suppression mess you find Von Spakovsky and Schlozman. They are virtually Tweedledee and Tweedledum. I wonder how high up the food chain we have to go to find their master?

This has been an interesting exercise. I have learned how to spell some funny sounding German names.

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Wink, Wink, Nod, Nod

There are a lot of folks don't take the time to read the outstanding work of McClatchy Washington Bureau's Greg Gordon. Sadly, many of you may be forced to read abridged versions of his stories. I know that Fired Up Missouri routinely criticizes the Kansas City Star for making Gordon's stories more GOP friendly. Gordon is the kind of reporter who doesn't pull any punches. He is really focused on the Justice Department.

Today's story entitled Complaints abound over enforcement of voter registration law is no exception. In 1993, the Congress passed the "National Voter Registration Act," requiring state public assistance agencies to simultaneously offer applicants an opportunity to register to vote. Initial compliance was pretty good. During the period 1995-1996 state agencies registered 2.6 million voters.

Somebody figured out that poor people vote Democratic. Fast forward to 2003-2004 and compliance with the law, especially in red state America, had fallen dramatically. During that two year period just about a million voters were registered under the program. The United States Department of Justice has enforcement responsibilities. They are supposed to encourage states to comply. States have lots of reasons not to comply. Especially red states.

Gordon reports that in 2004 representatives of three public interest groups, Project Vote, Demos, a New York-based think tank, and People for the American Way, a civil rights group, met with Joseph Rich, former chief of the Justice Department's voting rights section, Alexander Acosta, the civil rights chief, and Hans von Spakovsky, then Acosta's voting counsel.

The groups' representatives told the Justice Department officials: "Look, we have physical hard evidence that states aren't doing this (enforcing the law.) They're taking their eye off the ball. We want to see some enforcement." . . .

Acosta and von Spakovsky listened quietly and then made comments to the effect of "hmmm" and "that's interesting," but took no action.

Despite claims to the contrary there has been very little enforcement during the Bush administration. Compliance in many states is still woefully inadequate. For example, Gordon reports that Missouri recently advised the federal Election Assistance Commission that its agencies took 15,568 applications in 2005-2006, down from 143,135 in 1995-1996.

When an investigator for Project Vote crisscrossed Missouri last spring, however, the picture wasn't so bright.

Nyana Miller said she went to 14 public-assistance agencies in the St. Louis and Kansas City metropolitan areas in early May and asked for benefit applications.

"Nobody ever asked me, `Would you also like to register to vote?'" as required by the law, she said.

I have focused on Missouri to make sure our Missouri readers have an opportunity to read what Gordon has discovered about their home state.

Republicans don't want the good people in the DoJ to work very hard enforcing the law. They are engaged in a campaign to suppress the Democratic vote. Republicans don't offer poor people much hope so they tend to vote Democratic. Gordon reports that according to Joseph Rich

without enforcement of the registration requirement of the 1993 law, which a Democratic Congress passed, fewer Democrats are signed up to vote. Similarly, he said, purges aimed at ineligible voters hurt Democrats by knocking poor voters off the rolls even though they're legitimately registered because they frequently change addresses.

To maximize their program to purge voter rolls, Republicans need to make sure state agencies aren't re-registering poor voters.

Gordon does go on to report improvement in some states such as North Carolina, Tennessee, Colorado and Maryland. Here is a link if you want to read a detailed report on the subject entitled Ten Years Later The National Voter Registration Act in Public Assistance Agencies, 1995-2005,A Promise Unfulfilled.

Oh, Hans von Spakovsky is currently a Federal Elections Commissioner. He is scheduled for a confirmation hearing on June 13, 2007. Bet that will be fun.

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I Am Afraid Monica's Freudian Slip Is Showing or How Rachel Paulose Can't Catch A Break.

God I love this job. I have been following the really brain dead public relations campaign to rehabilitate the fading career of Rachel Poulose. Rachel is a young Republican with a wonderful resume. She seems to have some problem with the "little people." Shortly after she took the job of US Attorney in Minneapolis, four of her top aides got so fed up with her imperious ways they took demotions rather than spend time working with her directly. Instead of learning the obvious life lessons from that early debacle, she apparently has decided to fight back. As near as I can tell she has surrounded herself with a truly clueless PR posse that has done an absolutely crappy job. For example, last monday she tried to reintroduce herself just days before Monica Goodling was going to testify. That reintroduction didn't go very well. Neither did Katherine Kersten's followup whine.

Luckily for Rachel, Monica didn't have a lot to say about her, and it was mostly good. Monica did make some unfortunate comments about Rachel's predecessor, Tom Heffelfinger. Heffelfinger was the very model of a loyal Republican US Attorney right up to last week. All through the US Attorney scandal, even after he was found to be on the list of attorneys to be fired, he insisted that his resignation was entirely voluntary.

As has been typical of the Gonzales Justice Department, Monica found a way to really anger the former US Attorney. She criticized his professional work. As will be revealed below, the Clucking Stool thinks she might have suffered what we used to call a Freudian slip.

In response to a question from Representative Keith Ellison, Monica said, "There were some concerns that he (Heffelfinger) spent an extraordinary amount of time as the leader of the Native American subcommittee of the AGAC (Attorney General's Advisory Committee)."

Heffelfinger replied by telling KARE11 News he was "extraordinarily outraged" to hear his work criticized. Heffelfinger was proud of his work with Native Americans. He told the AP, again quoting KARE11,

"I did spent a lot of time on it," Heffelfinger said of the American Indian issue. "That's what I was instructed to do" by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft. Given the higher rates of violence suffered by American Indians, Heffelfinger said, the time was warranted, but it didn't take away from other priorities.

"I had to work hard, but I was comfortable with the mix of my local responsibilities and my Native American responsibilities," said Heffelfinger, who oversaw his office's investigation into the 2005 shooting that claimed 10 lives on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in far northern Minnesota.

Throughout the US Attorney scandal there is a common theme, a theme most of the loyal Bushies like Sampson, Goodling and their boss have yet to figure out--you just don't tell a proud professional that the work he is proudest of is crap, not unless you really want to have your hat handed to you.

This morning the LA Times carried a story by Tom Hamburger, Times Staff Writer, and former Minnesota native, tying Heffelfinger's good work on behalf of Native Americans to another overarching theme of the Gonzales justice department--the ongoing Republican campaign to suppress the minority vote. Yep, Heffelfinger refused to take part in a campaign to suppress the Native American vote, a campaign that involves two of our old favorites, Brad Schlozman and Hans von Spakovsky.

As you will recall Von Spakovsky and Schlozman are voting suppression specialists linked to Republican voter suppression campaigns in Missouri and Georgia. Since most poor people of color are Democrats, from the point of view of Brad and Hans suppressing the vote of poor people of color is a good thing.

The basic Republican voter suppression plan, as advanced in Missouri and Georgia, is for local Republicans to plant the frightening image in the minds of the local media and the general public of thousands of poor black people showing up at the polls to vote Democratic dozens of times.

For a lot of technical reasons the kind of "voter fraud" that concerns Republicans is virtually non-existent. That doesn't stop the patented Republican voter suppression campaign. The Republican solution to the terrible, but non-existant, problem of "voter fraud" is to require each voter to present a special and expensive voter ID card at the polling place on election day. Republican legislatures eagerly enact such laws. Members of the local media write puff pieces singing the praises of Republicans who have solved a truly frightening problem.

Since poor people can't afford to pay a lot for their voter or state ID, or they might not realize they need one until the last minute, voter suppression of the poor Democratic minority is almost a sure thing.

Ordinarily, the United States Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division is all over such state statutes. After all poll taxes and the like are illegal under Federal law, and have been since Jim Crow days. Enter Schlozman and Von Spakovsky. Their job was to overrule or otherwise defang the career professionals in the civil rights division. Theirs was the most successful part of the Republican voter suppression campaign in the last couple of elections. In both, the Civil Rights Division, now largely manned by loyal Bushies, was essentially neutered. Fortunately, opponents didn't need DoJ help to convince the courts that the Missouri and Georgia laws were illegal.

There are 32,000 Native Americans living in the Saint Paul area alone. The ID they use in their daily lives is the ID card issued by their tribe. It is widely thought that a lot of those Native Americans vote for Democrats.

According to LA Times:

Citing requirements in a new state election law, Republican Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer directed that tribal ID cards could not be used for voter identification by Native Americans living off reservations. Heffelfinger and his staff feared that the ruling could result in discrimination against Indian voters. Many do not have driver's licenses or forms of identification other than the tribes' photo IDs.

Heffelfinger had one of his staff e-mail the Civil Rights Division. It was made clear that Heffelfinger was very concerned about Kiffmeyer's directive and believed something needed to be done. The Times article continues

About three months after Heffelfinger's office raised the issue of tribal ID cards and nonreservation Indians in an October 2004 memo, his name appeared on a list of U.S. attorneys singled out for possible firing.

"I have come to the conclusion that his expressed concern for Indian voting rights is at least part of the reason that Tom Heffelfinger was placed on the list to be fired," said Joseph D. Rich, former head of the voting section of the Justice Department's civil rights division. Rich, who retired in 2005 after 37 years as a career department lawyer — 24 of them in Republican administrations — was closely involved in the Minnesota ID issue

Rich is the lawyer who received the e-mails from a member of Heffelfinger's staff. Rich started working the case. According to Rich Schlozman and Von Spakovsky promptly placed impossible conditions on the conduct of the investigation effectively squelching it.

According to the Star Tribune, one of Rachel Paulose's first acts after appointment was "to remove Lewis, who had written the 2004 e-mails to Washington expressing concern about American Indian voting rights." I wonder if that's when her management problems began?

UPDATE: I just remembered Hans Von Spakosky has a confirmation hearing scheduled for June 13. With this story breaking right now, maybe he is the guy who can't catch a break?

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Hans von Spakovsky Update

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.

-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.

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?

According to Gordon, Hans is scheduled to appear at a June 13 confirmation hearing before the Senate Rules and Administration Committee. Stay tuned.

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So Who Is Hans von Spakovsky, Anyway

Hans von Spakovsky's name has come up as one of the loyal Bushies who, along with Brad Schlozman, made sure that only the "right kind of people" were hired by the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division. What is known about Hans.

Currently he is a member of the Federal Elections Commission. According to his official FEC bio

prior to his appointment, Commissioner von Spakovsky served as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he provided expertise and advice on voting and election issues, including of the Help America Vote Act of 2002. . . . (before) entering public service, Commissioner von Spakovsky worked as a government affairs consultant, in a corporate legal department, and in private practice. He received a J.D. from the Vanderbilt University School of Law in 1984 and a B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981. He is a member of the Georgia and Tennessee bars. 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.

Boring stuff but his official bio hides much. Source Watch says Von Spakovsky was orignially appointed to the Commission on January 4, 2006, by President Bush as a recess appointment. A recess appointment? That's unusual. I wonder why?

Well it seems the administration probably thought he couldn't be confirmed by the Senate. His problems all go back to his ground breaking voter suppression work.

The Associated Press's Deb Reichmann reported January 5, 2006 that Senatory Ted Kennedy

"said von Spakovsky, a Justice Department lawyer who was Republican Party chairman in Fulton County, Ga., worked toward requiring Georgia voters to have a photo identification - a requirement critics said would harm black voters. Kennedy also contended that von Spakovsky was involved in a decision that rejected a recommendation of career Justice Department lawyers in a Texas redistricting case. Those lawyers had concluded that the redistricting plan violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 because it eliminated several districts where minorities had substantial voting power and illegally diluted black and Hispanic voting power."

VoteTrustUSA's Warren Stewart wrote in December, 2005,

Most of the attention has focused on Republican Hans von Spakovsky, a lawyer in the Department of Justice Voting Section. Von Spakovsky has supported state programs to require voters to have photo identification and was one of the two Department of Justice lawyers who overruled the DOJ experts recommendation that the DOJ file a formal objection to Rep. Tom DeLay’s Texas redistricting plan under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Senator Ted Kennedy has said that von Spakovsky "may be at the heart of the political interference that is undermining the [Justice] Department's enforcement of federal civil laws."

On April 19, 2007 Digby wrote authoritatively about von Spakovsky in a piece entitled Hans Across America .

Von Spakovsky is not just another Atlanta lawyer. He had for years been involved with a GOP front group called the "Voter Integrity Project" (VIP) which was run by none other than Helen Blackwell, wife of notorious conservative operative Morton Blackwell. (Many of you will remember him as the guy who handed out the "purple heart" bandages at the 2004 GOP convention but he's actually much better known for years of running the dirty tricks school "The Leadership Institute" and is even credited with coining the name "Moral Majority." Let's just say he's been a playah in GOP circles for a long time --- and the VIP is one of his projects.

Digby's long article continues:

I'm sure everyone is aware by now that the recent study by the NY Times pretty much takes voter fraud off the table as anything but a partisan Republican tool for suppressing the Democratic vote:

Five years after the Bush administration began a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department has turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections, according to court records and interviews.

Frankly you had to be something of an historical illiterate not to recognize from the beginning that these folks are up to the same tricks they've been using for decades. They tried mightily, with everything they had, the federal government, the Republican Lawyers Association, the country awash in patriotic paranoia, and they still couldn't prove this case --- even crookedly they couldn't do it. In fact, their insistence on finding it where there was none is what has caused their whole edifice to crumble.

He concludes by quoting J.Gerald Herbert's February 10, 2007, article entitled So exactly where were you, Hans von Spakovsky, on the nights in question?

But even putting aside his controversial tenure at DOJ, von Spakovsky’s performance at the FEC over the last year independently raises questions of whether he is worthy of Senate confirmation. His comments at FEC meetings have often been caustic and extraneous to the issue at hand. He has consistently scoffed at the spirit of campaign finance laws, thumbing his nose at the law as he seeks to help create routes of circumvention. He even accuses those reformers who seek regulation of the role of money in our political process as attempting to take us back to the days of the Alien and Sedition Acts. This is an easy accusation to make, and von Spakovsky has employed it a number of times, and it certainly is easier to attack those he disagrees with rather than to explain principled reasons for his own actions.

The Senate Rules Committee hearings will begin soon. When they do, the American people have the right to know all the details of von Spakovsky’s roles in both the Texas and Georgia matters, and his handling of FEC matters as a recess appointee. That record, if compiled, will make the vote on his confirmation quite easy.

If you want to learn more about Hans service to the Bush Administration and Republican Voter Suppression read Herbert's entire article. It is a sorry tale, indeed. Then again, what do you expect from a loyal Bushie.

Note: Recess appointments don't last forever. As the Herbert quote indicates, he has now been nominated for a permanent appointment, his nomination is being considered by the Senate's Committee on Rules and Administration for a term expiring April 30, 2011. I wonder how his nomination is going to be received.

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Schlozman Story Evolving Rapidly

The Bradley Schlozman story is developing so rapidly a guy can't even spend a couple of hours with a client without some new revelation hitting the wire. Now it seems TPMMuckraker's Paul Keil is reporting that:

Joe Rich, the former chief of the voting section, says that under Schlozman and Hans von Spakovsky, the two supervisors of the section, he was ordered to make changes to at least seven performance appraisals: "In several instances," Rich told me, he was ordered to include negative remarks about the work of at least five attorneys who had apparently done nothing more than make recommendations with which Schlozman and von Spakovsky disagreed.

Rich also said that it also went the other way: "I was also ordered to remove any remarks which noted areas where there could be improvement from the performance appraisals of attorneys who were favored by and had become allies of Mr. Schlozman."

Rich said that it was too strong of a characterization to say that he'd been ordered to "falsify" the evaluations, which would have been a crime. But he was clear that the orders, like so much of what the political appointees in the Justice Department has done, were a major departure from past practice. In his experience (he worked in the division for nearly forty years), Rich said, past political appointees had not inserted themselves into the evaluation process.

When you are told to include false negative remarks in the evaluations of your boss's opponents and to delete true negative remarks from the evaluations of your boss's friends, that is called falsifying documents. Mr. Rich just admitted being ordered to violate the law. If Mr. Schlozman hasn't lawyered up by now, maybe he should. I would suggest both Mr. Rich and Hans von Spakovsky do the same.

I'm sorry, this story is moving faster than the speed of light. Schlozman is in a world of hurt. He is going to be wondering why he didn't hire at least one democratic and three black lawyers during his time at the civil rights division.

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