So as I reported yesterday, former Bush-era Voting Section Chief Christopher Coates is set to testify Friday before the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in their investigation of the Justice Department's handling of the New Black Panther voter intimidation case.
Here's what's interesting: According to a source close to the commission, Coates' letter to the USCCR was written on plain stationery. He wasn't made available by the Justice Department, it's not even clear they knew of his decision to testify beforehand.
As I said yesterday, Coates is in a position to reinforce accusations leveled by conservative activist and former voting section lawyer J. Christian Adams that lawyers in the voting section are "hostile" to "race-neutral" enforcement of voting rights laws. In particular, Adams claims that Coates told him that voting section management instructed that "cases are not going to be brought against black defendants for the benefit of white victims."
Coates took over for former Voting Section Chief John Tanner, after Tanner stepped down over having made controversial remarks about black people dying too early to be adversely affected by strict voter ID laws. In January, I reported that Coates, despite not being hired during the Bush-era, came to be seen by former Civil Rights Division head Bradley Schlozman as "a true member of the team." That's important, because at the time Schlozman and other political appointees at the division had basically set up a hiring process where conservative credentials were more important than actual experience in civil rights law.
How close was Coates to the politicized Bush-era civil rights division leadership? So close that when Coates shocked his colleagues delivered a lengthy defense of his handling of the NBPP case at his office going away party, Hans von Spakovsky, whose nomination to the Federal Election Commission was blocked by Senate Democrats including then-Senator Barack Obama over his lengthy record of voter suppression efforts, produced a "paraphrase" of Coates' speech.
When Coates was transferred to South Carolina in January, conservatives sought to portray the move as an attempt to stymie the NBPP investigation. Whether that's true or not, it wouldn't really be very unusual for an incoming administration to replace the leadership of the voting section, particularly someone so tied into the outgoing administration.
