DOJ Employee Contempt for Mississippi Citizens on Facebook

PJ Media has obtained Facebook postings from Department of Justice Voting Section employees demonstrating contempt for the states for which they have oversight authority under the Voting Rights Act, including for voter ID approval. One such posting demonstrates open contempt for Mississippi, a state which recently passed a photo voter identification law. The same Voting Section employees have the power to approve the law.

On her Facebook page, Voting Section supervisory civil rights analyst Stephanie Celandine Gyamfi says about the people of Mississippi:

“Disgusting and shameful. Hey, that should replace the state motto: ‘Mississippi: Disgusting and Shameful’. . . forget the Magnolia State motto.”

The DOJ inspector general is conducting a wide-ranging investigation of Civil Rights Division employee bias against conservatives and other misconduct, including the perjury matters in von Spakovsky’s article. Sources say no remedial action has yet been taken for any of the employee misconduct in the Civil Rights Division.

Shortly, Mississippi will have to decide whether to submit its photo voter identification law for approval to Eric Holder’s Department of Justice Voting Section where Gyamfi reviews such submissions. Employees of the Voting Section view southern states with, at best, skepticism and, at worst, as demonstrated in this Facebook posting, with contempt. As I write in my book Injustice:

When I worked at the Voting Section, other attorneys openly expressed the view that travels to the South made them uncomfortable, including the white attorneys. They viewed southerners as oppressive and bigoted.

Why do the personal biases or bigotry of DOJ lawyers matter? They matter because states such as Mississippi, Texas, and South Carolina are subject to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. This law requires covered states to submit all election changes to either the DOJ or to a federal court for approval.

The contempt that DOJ Civil Rights Division employees have for southerners manifests in public policy — whether skepticism toward legislative motives in enacting voter ID, or, as I experienced firsthand, unwillingness to protect whites in Mississippi who were the victims of racial discrimination by black officials.

If states make the mistake of submitting election changes opposed by the NAACP, such as voter ID, to Gyamfi, these DOJ employees will hunt for evidence that racial bias motivated the change. And they will see racial bias where few do. The biases of the DOJ employees toward southerners, like the one shown in the Facebook posting, will manifest in concrete DOJ decisions. The biases, for example, will view election integrity measures to instead be a sinister scheme to return to Jim Crow.

As former Democratic Congressman Artur Davis said this past weekend at the True the Vote summit, “a driver’s license is not a billy club. A photo ID is not a fire hose.”

Hopefully, this particular Facebook posting will give southern states like Mississippi and Alabama a taste of what they are up against if they submit voter ID to the DOJ. Even if Holder is run out of office in November, career staffers wielding enormous power will do the front-line factual investigations that even Romney political appointees will struggle to overcome.

Speaking of which, truth-challenged Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez is at it again. He recently gave a speech in which he said the Obama administration now allows Voting Section employees like Gyamfi to “express their opinion” about Section 5 submissions. This whopper was used to portray the Bush administration review of voting changes as heavy-handed. Perez refers to the 2005 fight over Georgia voter ID.

The Left has created the myth that fellow PJ Media columnist Hans von Spakovsky, in collusion with then-Voting Section Chief John Tanner, muzzled Voting Section employees, including Gyamfi, and approved Georgia voter ID over the reasoned objections of [leftist] career staff. What Perez fails to mention is that other career staff, including line attorney Joshua Rogers, also recommended preclearance along with Tanner.

Hence, when Perez says that career staff may “again voice their opinion,” he is not telling the truth. They could always voice their opinion. After the inauguration, the Holder Justice Department implemented a new rule on Section 5 submissions when Christopher Coates was the section chief. The new Obama rule permitted multiple written recommendations on any given Section 5 submission to reach the political appointees, instead of a unitary Voting Section recommendation. The new rule was designed in the short-run to circumvent Coates, and in the long run, to foil a future Republican appointed section chief in Voting.

In January, the Romney administration must revoke this policy so as to avoid a constant cackle of leftist obstructionism in the Voting Section, designed to blunt the results of the November election and provide fertile material to be leaked to the media as in the Georgia voter ID fight in 2005. And most of all, unlike the current occupant of the office, the Romney-appointed assistant attorney general for civil rights needs to tell the truth about the policy and why it matters.

I am the real racist here....lol

No, I am! At any rate, that makes at least two of us. If societies and cultures are made of the people in them, I know that I don't want to live in the most dysfunctional one. I prefer the one which created western civilisation, and so must others, even as they try their darndest to destroy it, or they would be elsewhere. Of course, they stay here, because they want this civilisation without subscribing to this civilisation's values. It can't and doesn't work that way, but with DWL leading the way while at the same time keeping themselves and their own well-distanced from the chaos and the dysfunction, the DWL think they will be the new "masters" of the coming plantation. Won't they be surprised when the very ones they helped stir up in race foment against most whites, turn against them too, because they're white also. Their liberal bona fides will be absolutely meaningless. Just ask all the "kumbaya" types in South Africa. So many have been forced to change their tune, NOW that it's affecting THEM, NOW that they've already inflicted it on everyone else, including the hapless blacks who can't feed themselves or protect their families as violence spirals ever upward.

“I am the real racist here....lol”

No...me...Me...ME!!!

I’m the REAL racist here! lol

I will make NO apologies for thinking that Dr. King had a great concept in taking people as they come...warts and all, and judge them as you will.

That makes me a racist.

Well...that and I don’t like the white black man who occupies the White House.

Folks who are against the Voter ID seem to forget that because the black voting population of MS is so large, it is THEIR votes that need protecting, as much as those of white voters in MS. Black people waited long years to have the opportunity to vote, it should be as important to them to ensure that the vote is correct. I would think those claim to support black people wouldn’t want to have their votes diminished by those who would ‘cheat’ in voting.

After a trial in early 2007, US District Judge Tom Lee ordered Brown to have nothing to do with Noxubee County elections in 2007. Lee appointed former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Reuben Anderson as “superintendent of elections” until Nov. 20, 2011, and charged him with overseeing the county electoral process. Brown was ordered to stay away from the Noxubee County circuit clerk’s office during the two weeks leading up to the election, and was banned from visiting polling places on election days.

The ruling is currently being appealed.
http://www.colom.com/ike_brown_case_detail.html

“The ruling is currently being appealed.”

Of course, it is.

I hope that...

“Brown was ordered to stay away from the Noxubee County circuit clerk’s office during the two weeks leading up to the election, and was banned from visiting polling places on election days.”

...doesn’t mean he’s allowed to “community organize” on a certain candidate’s behalf.

Thank you, WKB, for the info. I didn’t know that.

You are absolutely right and it’s why the Republican party will always be hoisted on its own petard of being on the defense regarding race. Even liberals check the demographics of neighborhoods when looking for a place to live-if they have children, it’s done under the guise of “good schools”. The premise is correct, it’s the hypocrisy that’s maddening, sickening, and frustrating.

Look what the so-called “establishment” right did to Derbyshire when he spoke nothing but the truth, backed by statistics, which is more than blacks have when they give their version of “the talk” in which it’s supposedly always open season on blacks by whites, when crime statistics show exactly the opposite.

I’m so sick of conservatives cowering to political correctness and rushing to defend themselves against accusations when they’ve said or done nothing to defend.

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