The Washington Post, on its front page today, has another of its look-what-the-bastards-are-doing-now stories that many of us will regard as good news:
Civil Rights Focus Shift Roils Staff At Justice
Veterans Exit Division as Traditional Cases Decline
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, which has enforced the nation’s anti-discrimination laws for nearly half a century, is in the midst of an upheaval that has driven away dozens of veteran lawyers and has damaged morale for many of those who remain, according to former and current career employees.
Nearly 20 percent of the division’s lawyers left in fiscal 2005, in part because of a buyout program that some lawyers believe was aimed at pushing out those who did not share the administration’s conservative views on civil rights laws. Longtime litigators complain that political appointees have cut them out of hiring and major policy decisions, including approvals of controversial GOP redistricting plans in Mississippi and Texas.
Let me get this straight: the career civil service lawyers are upset that the political appointees in charge of the division (appointees whose views of civil rights most of the careerists do not share) have “cut them out of hiring and major policy decisions”? Imagine that! Politically responsible appointees actually following the policy preferences of the administration that appointed them! As Roger Clegg of the Center for Individual Rights points out, “elections have consequences in a democracy.” I know this sort of thing doesn’t happen often in Washington, but still, this peeved response seems rather perverse. These people actually seem to believe that “the permanent government,” the career officers, really are, well, the government.
In any event, some of the criticism seems off base.
Justice spokesman Eric Holland noted that the overall attrition rate during the Bush administration, about 13 percent, is not significantly higher than the 11 percent average during the last five years under President Bill Clinton.
….
Holland … said critics are selectively citing statistics. For example, he said, the department is on the winning side of court rulings 90 percent of the time compared with 60 percent during the Clinton years. Federal courts are “less likely to reject our legal arguments than the ones filed in the previous administration,” he said.
Ralph F. Boyd Jr., the civil rights chief from 2001 to 2003, agreed: “It’s not a prosecutor’s job to bring lots of cases; it’s a prosecutor’s job to bring the right cases. If it means fewer cases overall, then that’s what you do.”
That must be because the courts, like the DOJ, are “out of the mainstream.” Just ask mainstream experts like Senators Schumer, Reid, and Kennedy.
To my mind, there is a big difference between being peeved that recent appointees are failing to solicit the input of the seasoned litigators who will be at the fore of the battle and being peeved that “[p]olitically responsible appointees actually following the policy preferences of the administration that appointed them.”
Unfortunately, I don’t think that the Washington Post article involved enough research to fairly locate the true complaint along that spectrum. Assuming the worst form of the complaint and then rebutting it, however, does little to add to the analysis.
Elections have consequences
“Civil Rights Focus Shift Roils Staff At Justice; Veterans Exit Division as Traditional Cases Decline” is the headline at the Washington Post today. The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, which has enforced the nation’s anti-discrimination law…