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1 Gerald A. Reynolds, et al., Letter: Commission to Loretta King: Voter Intimidation and the New Black Panther Party 1 (2009)

handle is hein.civil/usccvc0001 and id is 1 raw text is: UNITED STATES 624 Ninth Street, N.W. COMMISSION ON Washington, D.C. 20425 CIVIL RIGHTS June 16, 2009 Ms. Loretta King Acting Assistant Attorney General Office of the Assistant Attorney General, Main Civil Rights Division U.S. Department of Justice 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20530 Dear Ms. King: One of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights' first official projects upon its establishment by the Civil Rights Act of 1957-the same act that created the Civil Rights Division-was to convene hearings in Alabama to look for evidence of racial discrimination in voting there. Witness after witness testified of efforts to interfere with their right to vote, whether by threats, intimidation, coercion, trickery or the erection of legal or other impediments. The data gathered by the Commission formed the basis for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which is unequivocal in its command that no person, whether acting under color of law or otherwise, shall intimidate, threaten, coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten or coerce any person fRom voting or attempting to vote or from aiding a voter. 42 U.S.C. § 1973i (2009). Investigating such claims and bringing them to the attention of enforcement entities such as the Department of Justice are a part of the Commission's statutory mandate to this day. 42 U.S.C. § 1975a (2009).1 Our mandate also includes investigating and reporting to the President and Congress on how well federal agencies are enforcing the nation's civil rights laws. So it is with great confusion that we2 learn of the Civil Rights Division's recent decision to dismiss a lawsuit against defendants who were caught engaging in attempted voter suppression the likes of which we haven't witnessed in decades. Specifically, defendants were caught on video blocking access to the polls, and physically threatening and verbally harassing voters during the November 4, 2008 general election. They wore uniforms bearing the insignia of the New Black Panther Party, described by the Division as a black-supremacist organization, and one of them actually brandished a nightstick in plain view of voters and poll observers. Complaint ¶¶ 9, 13. Furthermore, the Division's own complaint alleges that defendants made statements containing racial 1 In 2006, for example, the Commission called upon then-Attorney General Gonzalez to fully and vigorously investigate reports that Spanish-surnamed individuals in Orange County received correspondence seeking to intimidate them from voting in the mid-term elections that year. 2 The decision to send this letter was arrived at in an opening meeting of the United States Commission on Civil Rights on June 12, 2009 by majority vote of the Commissioners present. The vote was 4 to 0 with one member abstaining. The signatories to this letter all voted in favor of the motion.

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