If you want to know about Hans von Spakovsky’s loathsome career, check in with Paul Kiel at the Muckraker.
In addition to our reporting on von Spakovsky’s attempts to intimidate Justice Department employees, stifle their appeals, single-handedly disenfranchise thousands of Arizonans and then give false testimony (later modified in written answers) to the committee about it, you can read Dahlia Lithwick’s take at Slate and ThinkProgress’ rundown of von Spakovsky’s past.
In a typical thumb-in-the-eye nomination, Bush has proposed von Spakovsky for a position on the Federal Election Committee (FEC). Committee members are normally nominated in batches of four (2 Dems and 2 Republicans) and they must pass through the Senate Rules Committee, which is currently chaired by Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA). The Rules Committee has 10 Democrats and 9 Republicans. Typically, the Senate Rules Committee is staffed with senators that are loyal to the Majority Leader. And that is largely the case in this congress.
Democratic committee members include Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, and Chuck Schumer from the leadership. Other members include Sens. Byrd, Dodd, Inouye, Murray, and Pryor. The problem is that the tenth member is Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska. And he decided, inexplicably, to royally screw the party and give his middle finger to black voters all across the country.
This morning’s result: faced with the defection of a Democrat on the committee, later revealed to be Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) chose to agree to send all four nominees, two Democrats and two Republicans, to the floor without recommendation. In other words, the committee did not vote to approve von Spakovsky, but he got through nonetheless.
Next up is a vote before the full Senate, and how that vote will occur will be determined by negotiations between the Democratic and Republican leadership. Republicans are likely to seek a vote on all four nominees at once and have threatened to spike all the Democratic nominees if Democrats seek to block von Spakovsky.
I’ve looked the other way on a lot of bad votes by Ben Nelson but this is crossing into Zell Miller territory. What earthly reason does Ben Nelson have to support a man that has disenfranchised Democratic voters and provided misleading testimony to Congress.
Earlier this week, six veterans of the Civil Rights Division’s voting rights section wrote the Senate Rules Committee to urge that they reject Hans von Spakovsky’s nomination as a commissioner at the Federal Election Commission. The reason, they wrote, was that von Spakovsky had been “the point person for undermining the Civil Rights Division’s mandate to protect voting rights” when he worked at the Justice Department.
Von Spakovsky, they wrote, had been instrumental in overruling career attorneys who objected to voter ID laws — such as the infamous case of Georgia’s 2005 law, which was ultimately blocked by a federal appeals court, likened by the judge to a Jim Crow-era poll tax.
Ben Nelson really should be ashamed of himself. This is unforgivable.
