One Week Before Architect of GOP Strategy Faces Senate Confirmation

Hearing, Experts and Former DOJ Staff to Brief on Nominee's Anti-Voting

Rights Record

    WASHINGTON, June 6 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following advisory
 was issued today by the Brennan Center for Justice and the Lawyers
 Committee:
     What: By now it seems clear that at least three of the nine U.S.
 Attorneys pushed out by the Bush administration -- David Iglesias in New
 Mexico, John McKay in Washington, Thomas Heffelfinger in Minnesota -- lost
 their jobs in part because they refused to prosecute voter fraud where it
 did not exist. Mounting evidence reveals a much broader strategy on the
 part of the Administration to use federal agencies charged with protecting
 voting rights to promote voter suppression and influence election rules so
 as to gain partisan advantage in battleground states.
     On Thursday lawyers from the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School
 of Law and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law will join
 former career professionals in the Justice Department's Civil Rights
 Division to discuss the impact of this strategy on legitimate voters,
 especially low- income and minority citizens as well as students and
 seniors.
     The briefing comes six days before the Senate Rules & Administration
 Committee holds a confirmation hearing for one of the architects of the
 Administration's voter suppression program, Hans von Spakovsky, for a seat
 on the Federal Election Commission.
     The briefing will cover how this pursuit of supposed voter fraud was
 used to justify stringent voter identification laws, crackdowns on voter
 registration drives and pre-election purges of eligible voters from the
 rolls that, all told, caused countless eligible citizens to be
 disenfranchised in the last election. The briefing will cover the ongoing
 consequences of these laws and policies as the nation heads into the 2008
 election.
     Who:   Lawyers from the Brennan Center and the Lawyers Committee
            Joe Rich, former chief of the Voting Rights Division, USDOJ
            Former USDOJ Civil Rights Division Professional Staff
 
     When:  Thursday, June 7, 2007
            1:00 P.M. -- 2:00 P.M.
 
     Where: National Press Club
            Zenger Room
            Washington, D.C.
 
     R.S.V.P. to jonathan@berlinrosen.com.  Lunch will be served.
 
 

SOURCE Brennan Center for Justice