The conservative dominated U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has been a thorn in the side of the Obama administration for the past two years. As I explained over at Greg's place, George W. Bush gamed the appointment system in order to shift the balance of power on the commission towards Republican partisans, resulting in the infamous New Black Panther Party investigation, a matter Rep. Darrell Issa has suggested he will pursue as head of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
In early December, two of the former presidential appointments to the commission stepped down, giving the White House an opportunity to balance the commission by replacing two conservatives on the panel. A month later, nothing has been done. Because of a compromise brokered by then Sen. Bob Dole in the 1980s, commissioners aren't subject to Senate confirmation, so the filibuster isn't an excuse.
I'm sort of at a loss for words to explain why there's been no action here. While conservatives have been alleging a deep conspiracy to protect the New Black Panther Party, the White House can't even get itself together to nominate commissioners that would be able to direct the commission towards more important matters--and, from a political perspective, away from the NBPP case. This undercuts the notion that the administration is involved in some kind of elaborate cover-up of their own wrongdoing, but it's also political malpractice.
