12201: Loretta Lynch Leading List…?

From The New York Times…

Loretta Lynch, Federal Prosecutor, Is Called a Leading Candidate for Attorney General

By Julie Hirschfield Davis and Matt Apuzzo

WASHINGTON — Loretta E. Lynch, the top federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, has emerged as a leading contender to be the next attorney general, officials close to the process said, as President Obama looks outside his inner circle to fill a crucial post.

The White House declined to comment on whether Mr. Obama would tap Ms. Lynch, who if chosen and confirmed would be the first African-American woman to serve as the nation’s top law enforcement official. She would replace Eric H. Holder Jr., who is stepping down.

Ms. Lynch, a low-profile prosecutor, has risen to the top of the president’s short list in recent days, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the nomination publicly. Officials said that a formal White House announcement could come soon, although it is unlikely to happen before Mr. Obama returns to Washington on Nov. 16 after a trip to Asia.

A Lynch nomination might carry substantial political benefits for a White House recalibrating its strategy after Republicans took over the Senate. Indeed, Ms. Lynch is a two-time United States attorney who has twice been confirmed by the Senate by acclamation — in 2000 and again in 2010. She has no personal ties to Mr. Obama or his policies, freeing her of the political baggage that has weighed down other candidates once thought to have an edge in the process.

The nomination would also allow the president, questioned in recent days about what he might do differently after the electoral thrashing by Republicans, to bring a fresh face into an administration many have criticized as too insular.

Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez, another contender for the post, is known to be close with Mr. Obama and faced virulent Republican opposition to his confirmation last year. A Perez nomination could be seen as a provocation to the newly ascendant Republicans, who would probably pick a fight over selection. That would leave open the top job at the Labor Department, which could engender a second messy confirmation fight.

Similarly, Donald B. Verrilli Jr., the solicitor general, has ties to Mr. Obama and his administration that could prove problematic during a confirmation process, including his role in defending the Affordable Care Act before the Supreme Court.

Kathryn Ruemmler, the former White House counsel who had been a top choice for the job, took herself out of the running last month after concluding that her confirmation process would likely devolve into a partisan free-for-all in a highly polarized political environment.

Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who is chairman the Judiciary Committee, said this week that with control of the Senate passing to the Republicans, Mr. Obama “has to look at somebody who would be easier to confirm.”

“There are some names that have been out there” that “could easily get confirmed,” Mr. Leahy told a Vermont public radio station on Wednesday, without offering any names. “Others would be far more difficult.”

The White House declined to comment on Mr. Obama’s choice or when he would announce it.

“We’re not going to speculate on this in advance of the president’s decision,” Eric Schultz, the deputy White House press secretary said.

Ms. Lynch declined through a spokesman to comment.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat who twice recommended Ms. Lynch to the White House as United States attorney, said she would make “an outstanding attorney general.”

She supervised the successful prosecution of a white New York police officer who sodomized a Haitian immigrant, Abner Louima, with a broken broomstick in 1997. The case became a national symbol of police brutality.

As United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Ms. Lynch oversaw all federal prosecutions in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Long Island. The office’s many terrorism cases have given it a reputation as a hub of expertise on national security matters. She also leads the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee, a panel of United States attorneys who advise the attorney general on policy and operational issues.

If Ms. Lynch is nominated and confirmed, it would be the first time in nearly two centuries that a president had elevated a United States attorney directly to the position of attorney general. The last time was in 1817, when President James Monroe chose William Wirt, the top prosecutor in eastern Virginia, for the job.

Ms. Lynch, who was born in Greensboro, N.C., has undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard.

After graduating law school in 1984, she spent six years as an associate for the New York law firm Cahill Gordon & Reindel before becoming a federal prosecutor. She rose through the ranks to become the chief assistant United States attorney in 1998 and was nominated the following year to lead the office for the remainder of President Bill Clinton’s term. Before returning to the job in 2010, she was a partner at Hogan & Hartson, the large law firm now known as Hogan Lovells.

12101: Eric Holder Is No Coward.

From The New York Times…

A Champion of Civil Rights, if Not of Civil Liberties, Just Like His Hero

By Matt Apuzzo

WASHINGTON — Something was not quite right when Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. had his photograph taken recently at Department of Justice headquarters. The wrong painting was on the wall behind him.

Aides scurried to reorganize the portraits so subsequent photographs would capture Mr. Holder, in the best light, framed by his hero: Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

Mr. Holder, who announced his resignation Thursday, frequently invoked the Kennedy legacy as he made civil rights the centerpiece of his six-year tenure. He succeeded in reducing lengthy prison sentences, opened civil rights investigations against police departments in record numbers and challenged identification requirements for voters.

“I have loved the Department of Justice ever since, as a young boy, I watched Robert Kennedy prove during the civil rights movement how the department can — and must always — be a force for that which is right,” Mr. Holder said at a White House farewell on Thursday.

But Mr. Holder has continued Mr. Kennedy’s work in another way, one he is less likely to embrace but is no less part of his legacy. Like Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Holder has frustrated and confounded even his staunchest allies for his views on civil liberties.

Mr. Holder approved of the National Security Agency’s authority to sweep up millions of phone records of Americans accused of no crime. He subpoenaed journalists and led a crackdown on their sources. He defended the F.B.I.’s right to track people’s cars without warrants and the president’s right to kill an American who had joined Al Qaeda.

“This is an attorney general who displayed an odd approach, an odd schism between civil rights and civil liberties,” said Elizabeth Goitein, a lawyer with the Brennan Center for Justice, a group that frequently supported Mr. Holder’s civil rights policies.

A child of the civil rights era, Mr. Holder, 63, was shaped by images of violence in Selma, Ala. He relished his place in history as the nation’s first African-American attorney general and used that to engage in discussions of race and inequality, even when President Obama was reluctant to do so.

A native of New York City, Mr. Holder spoke about being stopped without cause by the police and, after the recent shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., Mr. Holder sought to go there as the administration’s emissary.

But those who cheered him one day were bewildered the next as Mr. Holder, the most prominent liberal voice in the Obama administration, took positions giving the government wide authority to keep tabs on Americans.

It happened so often, it prompted a game of amateur psychology among civil liberties groups: Was Mr. Holder, at heart, unsympathetic to issues of privacy and government overreach? Was he overrun by other national security officials? Or had he been persuaded that keeping America safe required taking positions he might otherwise have opposed?

“At the end of the day, does it matter?” Ms. Goitein said. “If civil liberties were on his mind, and we didn’t see it, well, that and $2 will get you a cup of coffee.”

Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, praised Mr. Holder’s tenure but acknowledged being frequently frustrated.

“You build your legacy when you can, and you cut your losses when you can’t,” Mr. Romero said. “The attorney general cut his losses on civil liberties when it comes to national security.”

No attorney general is without critics, and each leaves a complicated legacy. Mr. Holder has faced criticism for not prosecuting the major figures in the financial collapse. Republicans grilled Mr. Holder and his aides over the flawed Fast and Furious gun trafficking investigation, which led to a vote holding Mr. Holder in contempt of Congress.

But Mr. Holder’s tenure is unique in that his biggest supporters are also among his loudest critics. Groups like the A.C.L.U. cheered his call to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for minor drug crimes and his push for prisoner clemency. They applauded when Mr. Holder, like no attorney general before him, cast the drug war in civil rights terms. He spoke of broken families and a cycle of prison and poverty.

Those same groups have sued Mr. Holder over government surveillance. They demanded documents — and were rebuffed — detailing the department’s policies for tracking cars using hidden transmitters. They fought to release the legal opinions authorizing the attack that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an American who joined Al Qaeda.

Under Mr. Holder, the government accepted the theory that records that might someday be relevant to a terrorism investigation were immediately relevant — and could be seized. That analysis underpinned the N.S.A.’s collection of phone records.

“If you were to ask, ‘What would Bobby Kennedy do if he were sitting in Eric Holder’s chair?’ You might not find many differences, on all these issues,” said Thomas J. Perelli, a lawyer who served as Mr. Holder’s associate attorney general.

Though Mr. Kennedy presided in a different era with different laws, he similarly used wide surveillance authority to target Communists and other threats. He authorized wiretaps of civil rights leaders including the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“Bobby was certainly not shy about using wiretapping and used it as much as any attorney general,” said Evan Thomas, a journalist and Kennedy biographer. “Holder is following in Bobby’s footsteps in that sense.”

In a brief interview Thursday, Mr. Holder said he saw no contradiction in his views.

“I have national security responsibilities that obviously I have to take seriously, but I perform that national security responsibility in a way that is consistent with how I view these other civil rights issues,” he said. “There is a consistency there that, if they examine it closely, I think they can find.”

Asked about the N.S.A.’s authority to seize phone records, Mr. Holder said he supports proposals to limit that authority. But he declined to say why he accepted it in the first place.

Those who worked closest with him say Mr. Holder is easygoing and eager to be liked. But it was the reality of the office, they say, that underpinned his opinions.

“You see the intelligence every day. You see the threats come in, you see the plots getting thwarted, and you become a believer,” said Amy Jeffress, a lawyer at Arnold & Porter and a former counselor to Mr. Holder on national security. “That makes it harder to throw out entire programs because they’ll be unpopular with civil liberties groups.”

Mr. Holder’s Justice Department started more investigations than any of his predecessors into government officials who disclosed information to reporters. He subpoenaed journalists’ emails and phone records, and demanded their testimony. The New York Times reporter James Risen, who has refused to reveal his sources about information on Iran, remains under subpoena.

Mr. Holder acknowledged in the interview that those efforts went too far at times and pointed to new rules limiting investigations involving journalists.

Mr. Holder said the changes he helped enact in the criminal justice system were his proudest accomplishment. “We turned this aircraft carrier around after years of overreliance on incarceration,” he said.

Sherrilyn Ifill, the president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said that in that area, Mr. Holder’s legacy was secure. “On the issue of civil rights, he has been the most engaged and extraordinary attorney general,” she said.

Michael D. Shear and Charlie Savage contributed reporting.

11868: The True Civil Rights Threat.

From USA TODAY…

Wickham: Holder cites true threat to civil rights

By DeWayne Wickham

Attorney general’s commencement speech focuses not on Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling but court conservatives.

BALTIMORE — The thing to remember about the commencement address Attorney General Eric Holder gave Saturday is not that he wrote off the racist musing of people such as Donald Sterling and Robert Copeland. As deplorable as they were, he correctly said, they “are not the true markers of the struggle that still must be waged” against far greater threats to the civil rights of this nation’s minorities.

Sterling is the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team who was caught on an audio recording speaking disparagingly of blacks. Copeland was the Wolfeboro, N.H., police commissioner who resigned Monday after he was overheard in a restaurant referring to President Obama as “that f------ n-----.” As bigots go, both men were forged from the same mold that produces the rank and file Klansman.

But Holder didn’t come to this city, the birthplace of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education to call out the foot soldiers of this nation’s still deeply entrenched resistance to civil rights. He didn’t have to travel up the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and take the stage of Morgan State University’s commencement ceremony to do that, no matter how many news organizations put that tag on his speech.

Instead, Holder — the first black to hold the job as the nation’s top law enforcement officer — courageously named Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts as a greater threat to the cause of civil rights than “misguided words that we can reject out of hand.”

Coming from a sitting attorney general, Holder’s sharp rebuke of Roberts — and the conservative majority that he leads — is unprecedented. But it is not unwarranted.

He “has argued that the path to ending racial discrimination is to give less consideration to the issue of race altogether,” Holder said of the chief justice. “This presupposes that racial discrimination is at a sufficiently low ebb that it doesn’t need to be actively confronted.”

Then Holder craftily — and maybe too subtlely for some reviewers — invoked the words and judicial logic of one of the Supreme Court’s liberal justices to counter Roberts’ myopia.

As “Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote recently in an insightful dissent in the Michigan college admission case, we must not ‘wish away, rather than confront, the racial inequality that exists in our society. … The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to speak openly and candidly on the subject of race.’”

Indeed. Holder, of course, knows that. But by using the platform of a university commencement speech to focus attention on “policies that too easily escape” the strict scrutiny courts give to openly discriminatory laws “because they have the appearance of being race-neutral,” Holder is calling out the conservatives on the court.

Can I get an “amen” here?

Such biting criticism will not endear the attorney general to the conservative legion that is the Praetorian Guard of Roberts’ “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” school of racial justice. But there are times when a battle for that which is right must be fought in the court of public opinion.

Holder understands that the victory he seeks in the fight for racial justice needs the support of a broad cross section of Americans — not just the minorities who will be its most obvious beneficiaries. I suspect that is why he made this point to appeal for wide support among fair-minded people: “In our criminal justice system, systemic and unwarranted racial disparities remain disturbingly common.” Black men, he said, “have received sentences that are nearly 20% longer than those imposed on white males convicted of similar crimes,” Holder told the members of Morgan’s graduating class.

Then, smartly, he left this emerging generation of leaders to make the connection between that harsh fact and Roberts’ head-in-the-sand strategy for ending racial discrimination.

I don’t think they’ll have any problems doing that.

DeWayne Wickham, dean of Morgan State University’s School of Global Journalism and Communication, writes on Tuesdays for USA TODAY.

11865: Eric Holder Unplugged.

From USA TODAY…

Holder: Subtle examples of racism ‘cut deeper’

By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY

Attorney General Eric Holder delivered a sharp rebuke Saturday to recent racist remarks by the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team and a Nevada rancher, but he said the greatest threat to equality are “subtle” expressions of bigotry that remain a “troubling reality behind the headlines.”

In a commencement address to Morgan State University, Holder did not mention Clippers owner Donald Sterling and rancher Cliven Bundy by name, but he referred to the incidents of the “last few weeks and months” as “jarring reminders of the discrimination — and the isolated, repugnant, racist views — that in some places have yet to be overcome.”

“These outbursts of bigotry, while deplorable, are not the true markers of the struggle that still must be waged, or the work that still needs to be done — because the greatest threats do not announce themselves in screaming headlines,” Holder said. “They are more subtle. They cut deeper. And their terrible impact endures long after the headlines have faded and obvious, ignorant expressions of hatred have been marginalized.”

Holder’s comments were the most pointed on the issue of race since a controversial 2009 speech when he described the United States as a “nation of cowards,” saying Americans have avoided candid discussions on race.

Speaking on the 60th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision that forced the integration of public schools, Holder said “significant divisions” still persist in schools, the criminal justice system and other national institutions.

He said that school discipline policies, “while well-intentioned and aimed at promoting school safety, affect black males at a rate three times higher than their white peers.”

Within the criminal justice system, Holder said “systemic and unwarranted racial disparities remain disturbingly common.”

He referred to a 2013 U.S. Sentencing Commission study in which black men received prison terms that were 20% longer than those imposed on white men involved in similar crimes.

“Like a growing chorus of lawmakers across the political spectrum, we recognize that disparate outcomes are not only shameful and unacceptable — they impede our ability to see that justice is done,” Holder said. “And they perpetuate cycles of poverty, crime and incarceration that trap individuals, destroy communities and decimate minority neighborhoods.”

Holder also took issue with Chief Justice John Roberts, whom the attorney general said has “argued that the path to ending racial discrimination is to give less consideration to the issue of race altogether.”

Roberts was part of a court majority earlier this year that upheld the rights of states to ban racial preferences in university admissions. The 6-2 decision came in a case brought by Michigan, where a voter-approved initiative banning affirmative action had been tied up in court for a decade.

“This presupposes that racial discrimination is at a sufficiently low ebb that it doesn’t need to be actively confronted,” Holder said. “In its most obvious forms, it might be. But discrimination does not always come in the form of a hateful epithet or a Jim Crow-like statute. And so we must continue to take account of racial inequality, especially in its less obvious forms, and actively discuss ways to combat it.”

11275: Holder Doesn’t Hold Back.

From The New York Daily News…

Attorney General Eric Holder calls Trayvon Martin killing ‘tragic’ and ‘unnecessary’ as Justice Department weighs civil rights charges

In his first remarks since the acquittal of George Zimmerman, Attorney General Eric Holder describe Trayvon Martin’s killing as a “tragic, unnecessary shooting,” and urged the nation to use the case as way to try and better understand one another.

By Associated Press / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric Holder said Monday the killing of Trayvon Martin was a “tragic, unnecessary shooting” and that the 17-year-old’s death provides an opportunity for the nation to speak honestly about complicated and emotionally charged issues.

In his first comments since the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the Martin case, the attorney general said that Martin’s parents have suffered a pain that no parent should have to endure. He said the nation must not forgo an opportunity toward better understanding of one another.

On Sunday, the Justice Department said it is reviewing evidence in the case to determine whether criminal civil rights charges are warranted.

The Justice Department opened an investigation into Martin’s death last year but stepped aside to allow the state prosecution to proceed.

Holder said, “We are … mindful of the pain felt by our nation surrounding the tragic, unnecessary shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., last year.”

“I want to assure you that the [Justice] Department will continue to act in a manner that is consistent with the facts and the law,” said Holder.

“Independent of the legal determination that will be made, I believe that this tragedy provides yet another opportunity for our nation to speak honestly about the complicated and emotionally charged issues that this case has raised,” Holder said in remarks to the 51st national convention of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority.

“We must not — as we have too often in the past — let this opportunity pass,” he added.

The Justice Department says the criminal section of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, the FBI and federal prosecutors in Florida are continuing to evaluate the evidence generated during the federal investigation, plus evidence and testimony from the state trial.

The NAACP and others are calling on the Justice Department to open a civil rights case against Zimmerman. Thousands of demonstrators from across the country protested the jury’s decision to clear Zimmerman in the shooting death of the unarmed black teenager.

Also on Monday, the White House says President Barack Obama won’t involve himself in the Justice Department decision on whether to pursue civil rights charges against Zimmerman. White House spokesman Jay Carney said it would be inappropriate for Obama to express an opinion on how the department deals with Zimmerman.

7336: $3.4 Billion American Indian Settlement.

From The New York Times…

U.S. Will Settle Indian Lawsuit for $3.4 Billion

By Charlie Savage

WASHINGTON — The federal government announced on Tuesday that it intends to pay $3.4 billion to settle claims that it has mismanaged the revenue in American Indian trust funds, potentially ending one of the largest and most complicated class-action lawsuits ever brought against the United States.

The tentative agreement, reached late Monday, would resolve a 13-year-old lawsuit over hundreds of thousands of land trust accounts that date to the 19th century. Specialists in federal tribal law described the lawsuit as one of the most important in the history of legal disputes involving the government’s treatment of American Indians.

President Obama hailed the agreement as an “important step towards a sincere reconciliation” between the federal government and American Indians, many of whom, he said, considered the protracted lawsuit a “stain” on the nation.

As a presidential candidate, Mr. Obama said, “I pledged my commitment to resolving this issue, and I am proud that my administration has taken this step today.”

For the agreement to become final, Congress must enact legislation and the federal courts must then sign off on it. Administration officials said they hoped those two steps would be completed in the next few months.

The dispute arises from a system dating to 1887, when Congress divided many tribal lands into parcels — most from 40 to 160 acres — and assigned them to individual Indians while selling off remaining lands.

The Interior Department now manages about 56 million acres of Indian trust land scattered across the country, with the heaviest concentration in Western states. The government handles leases on the land for mining, livestock grazing, timber harvesting and drilling for oil and gas. It then distributes the revenue raised by those leases to the American Indians. In the 2009 fiscal year, it collected about $298 million for more than 384,000 individual Indian accounts.

The lawsuit accuses the federal government of mismanaging that money. As a result, the value of the trusts has been unclear, and the Indians contend that they are owed far more than what they have been paid.

Under the settlement, the government would pay $1.4 billion to compensate the Indians for their claims of historical accounting irregularities and any accusation that federal officials mismanaged the administration of the land itself over the years.

Each member of the class would receive a check for $1,000, and the rest of the money would be distributed according to the land owned. In addition, legal fees, to be determined by a judge, would be paid from that fund.

Philip Frickey, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who specializes in federal Indian law, said that of all the Indian land claims and other lawsuits over the past generation, the trust case had been a “blockbuster” because it is national in scope, involves a large amount of money, and has been long-running.

The lawsuit spanned three presidencies and engendered seven trials covering 192 trial days, generated 22 published judicial opinions, and went before a federal appeals court 10 times.

Over its course, the federal judge originally assigned to the case, Royce C. Lamberth, put contempt orders on two secretaries of the interior over their handling of the lawsuit. In 2006, after the Bush administration complained of bias, a federal appeals court removed Judge Lamberth from the case.

Judge James Robertson has handled it since, and he pushed both parties to negotiate — including brokering a last-minute deal over an undisclosed problem that nearly derailed the settlement late Monday, said David J. Hayes, the Interior Department deputy secretary.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Tuesday characterized the case as “intense, and sometimes difficult.”

“The United States could have continued to litigate this case, at great expense to the taxpayers,” Mr. Holder said. “It could have let all of these claims linger, and could even have let the problem of fractionated land continue to grow with each generation. But with this settlement, we are erasing these past liabilities and getting on track to eliminate them going forward.”

The settlement also seeks to resolve an ever-growing headache of the trust system that contributed to the government’s problems — especially in the pre-computer era — in keeping track of the allotments: the original owners, most of whom died without leaving wills, have many heirs, which has “fractionalized” the ownership interests.

For example, one 40-acre parcel today has 439 owners, most of whom receive less than $1 a year in income from it, Mr. Haynes said. The parcel is valued at about $20,000, but it costs the government more than $40,000 a year to administer those trusts.

In an effort to resolve such problems — and prevent them from worsening in subsequent generations — the settlement would establish a $2 billion fund to buy fractional interests in land from anyone willing to sell. The program would seek to consolidate ownership in parcels of land for the tribes, while reducing the Interior Department’s work in keeping track of the trusts.

“This is an historic, positive development for Indian country,” said Ken Salazar, the Interior Department secretary, “and a major step on the road to reconciliation following years of acrimonious litigation between trust beneficiaries and the United States.”

Over the years, the plaintiffs have contended that they were owed tens of billions of dollars, while the government has at times taken the position that it owed them little or nothing.

Elouise Cobell, the lead plaintiff who filed the class-action lawsuit in 1996, said she believed that the Indians were owed more, but that it was better to reach an agreement that could help impoverished trust holders than to spend more years in court. She said she had originally expected the litigation to last only two or three years.

“We are compelled to settle by the sobering realization that our class grows smaller each day as our elders die and are forever prevented from receiving just compensation,“ Ms. Cobell said.

Robert Clinton, an Arizona State University law professor who specializes in federal Indian law, said the settlement alone would not resolve the trust problem because many of the heirs who own tiny interests in parcels may not be willing to sell them.

Still, the settlement will provide an incentive for such owners to sell: the Interior Department will set aside up to 5 percent of the value of the land interests for a scholarship fund to help Indians attend college or vocational school.

7061: Holder Is No Coward.

From The New York Times…

Justice Dept. to Recharge Enforcement of Civil Rights

By Charlie Savage

WASHINGTON — Seven months after taking office, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is reshaping the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division by pushing it back into some of the most important areas of American political life, including voting rights, housing, employment, bank lending practices and redistricting after the 2010 census.

As part of this shift, the Obama administration is planning a major revival of high-impact civil rights enforcement against policies, in areas ranging from housing to hiring, where statistics show that minorities fare disproportionately poorly. President George W. Bush’s appointees had discouraged such tactics, preferring to focus on individual cases in which there is evidence of intentional discrimination.

To bolster a unit that has been battered by heavy turnover and a scandal over politically tinged hiring under the Bush administration, the Obama White House has also proposed a hiring spree that would swell the ranks of several hundred civil rights lawyers with more than 50 additional lawyers, a significant increase for a relatively small but powerful division of the government.

The division is “getting back to doing what it has traditionally done,” Mr. Holder said in an interview. “But it’s really only a start. I think the wounds that were inflicted on this division were deep, and it will take some time for them to fully heal.”

Few agencies are more engaged in the nation’s social and cultural debates than the Civil Rights Division, which was founded in 1957 to enforce anti-discrimination laws.

The division has been at the center of a number of controversies over the decades, serving as a proxy for disputes between liberals and conservatives in matters like school busing and affirmative action. When the Nixon administration took office, it sought to delay school desegregation plans reached under former President Lyndon B. Johnson. The Reagan administration dropped the division’s policy of opposing tax-exempt status for racially discriminatory private schools. And former President Bill Clinton withdrew his first nominee to lead the division, Lani Guinier, after her writings about racial quotas were criticized.

But such dust-ups were minor when compared with sweeping changes at the division under the Bush administration, longtime career civil rights lawyers say.

Now the changes that Mr. Holder is pushing through have led some conservatives, still stinging from accusations that the Bush appointees “politicized” the unit, to start throwing the same charge back at President Obama’s team.

Read the full story here.

6462: A Nation Of Cowards.

From The Chicago Tribune…

U.S. a ‘nation of cowards’ on race, 1st black attorney general says

Holder’s speech signals more active Justice Department on civil rights issues

By Josh Meyer

WASHINGTON — For the past eight years, the Justice Department and the Bush administration were relatively quiet on the issue of race and its place within the social fabric of America and the enforcement of civil rights and justice.

But on Wednesday, Eric Holder, newly confirmed as the nation’s first black attorney general, issued a call to action to Americans in and out of government, saying the United States is “a nation of cowards” on race relations that needs to finally—and urgently—begin confronting the issue before it polarizes the country even further.

“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards,” Holder said in a Black History Month speech to hundreds of Justice Department employees.

“It is an issue we have never been at ease with, and given our nation’s history this is in some ways understandable,” Holder said. “And yet, if we are to make progress in this area, we must feel comfortable enough with one another, and tolerant enough of each other, to have frank conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us.”

Civil rights activists welcomed the speech as an encouraging sign that the Justice Department under Holder and the man who appointed him, President Barack Obama, will be active on issues they said were largely neglected under President George W. Bush, such as voting rights and workplace discrimination.

Some conservatives, however, said Holder’s rhetoric was overly confrontational.

Mary Frances Berry, the former chairwoman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, said: “When I heard it, I called over there and told them to tell Eric that I thought it was a gutsy speech, a timely speech.”

Holder implied he plans to address issues such as race and social justice as the top law-enforcement official. Holder told his Justice Department subordinates that the nation “must do more, and we in this room bear a special responsibility.”

Joe Hicks, a black Republican and the former executive director of the Los Angeles City Human Relations Commission, called Holder’s comments incendiary and an inaccurate portrayal of a nation.

“Here’s the first black attorney general appointed by the first black American president, and he’s espousing views that appear to be almost ultraleft in their approach to race in America, that blacks are victims and whites are intolerant and accepting of quasi-racist views,” Hicks said.