Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Wednesday derailed a plan blessed by Senate leaders to vote on controversial Federal Election Commission White House nominee Hans von Spakovsky, a move giving Democrats time to breathe in the ongoing Senate stalemate on FEC nominees.
Harry Reid had made a deal, he thought, to let a partisan Republican lawyer from DoJ's civil rights group, Hans von Spakovsky, get a vote on his nomination by Bush to the FEC – in a "package deal" that would let 3 others be voted on too. Von Spakovsky is one of the most repugnant of Bush's nominees to a position to monitor electioneering, 1 of the most influential of folks to jumpstart an outright purge of the voter rolls, beginning in Florida 2000.
For more on this go to the Daily Kos diary that is covering this. The diary asks What's so wrong with Hans von Spakovsky lording over US elections?
von Spakovsky at DoJ decimated voting rights of minorities --- and Hans was the brainchild behind the "Voting Integrity Project" database in Florida in 2000 that purged 1000s of blacks from the voter rolls by erroneously tagging innocents as felons.
Former colleagues, 6 from DoJ's Civil Rights division, wrote Congress to protest von Spakovsky's meddling to disenfranchise voters. They wrote he is "the point man for undermining the Civil Rights' Division's mandate to protect voting rights." The full objections of the DoJ civil rights alum, seen here.
Obama says he is an "unacceptable nominee." von Spakovsky has proved he is anything but impartial in administering voting rights. Go get 'em Barack. Now, let us move this political courage to Iraq and Iran.
