Hans von Spakovsky

"While he was at the Civil Rights Division, Mr. von Spakovsky played a major role in the implementation of policies that injected partisan political factors into decision-making on enforcement matters, and into the hiring process, and included repeated attempts to intimidate career staff. Moreover, he was the point person for undermining the Civil Rights Division’s mandate to protect voting rights."

This is a quote from a letter submitted to the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration on June 11, 2007 by six former career staff in the Voting Rights Section of the Department of Justice, including Lawyers' Committee Project Directors Joe Rich – a 37 year veteran at the Department and a former Voting Section chief—and Jon Greenbaum – who spent nearly a decade in the Voting Section. The letter served as the basis for the sharp line of questioning von Spakovsky received from Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL). Following his testimony, the six former career staff sent another letter responding to much of von Spakovsky’s testimony.

The letters chronicled that von Spakovsky:

• Failed to recuse himself from considering a Georgia statute that would have been the most restrictive voter identification law in the country, despite his strong partisan ties to his home state of Georgia and his explicit advocacy for restrictive voter identification laws in Georgia and throughout the country.
• Took the unprecedented step of drafting legal briefs on the eve of the 2004 election, in favor of the Republican position, in three battleground states, breaking with established Department policy banning involvement with partisan litigation.
• Drafted a letter in support of the Republican Party position in a 2004 dispute between the Democratic and Republican parties concerning an Ohio law permitting political parties to challenge voters position, even though the law didn’t implicate any statute the Department enforces.
• Introduced a new initiative in 2005 targeting states to demand they purge their voter lists under Section 8 of the Voter Registration Act despite a lack of evidence registration deadwood leads to invalid votes. A Missouri federal court recently threw out the Department of Justice’s complaint because the Department insisted on suing only the Democratic Secretary of State, instead of those counties with actual deadwood problems. The court also noted there was no evidence of voter fraud or evidence any voter was denied the right to vote.
• Demanded the Chief of the Voting Section alter performance evaluations for career professionals because of personal disagreement with their legal or factual conclusions and differences with the recommendations they made. The act of changing performance evaluations at the behest of a political appointee had never occurred before in the Section’s history.