Ryan J. Reilly reports that the Department of Justice is looking into voter-intimidation allegations in Harris County, Texas, after a Tea Party group announced an anti-voter fraud effort there. The county includes the city of Houston, and there's no way Republicans would simply stand by while Democratic-leaning voters go to the polls without having their credentials challenged.
Conservatives, of course, are going to allege politicization on behalf of the voting section. There's a problem, though -- the person who requested federal election monitors is the former head of the voting section during the Bush administration, John Tanner:
"There are a lot of allegations out there on both sides. I think the county's perspective is that they are trying to do everything possible to protect the rights of all voters," Tanner told TPMMuckraker. "[The county has] faced a lot of difficulties," Tanner noted, including the fact that the warehouse storing voting machines burnt to the ground.
O'Rourke said Tanner made a request on Tuesday to have federal election monitors sent to the county. County Attorney Vince Ryan met on Tuesday with the Democratic and Republican chairmen in the county after he received complaints of possible voter intimidation on the first day of early voting as well, the same day the Houston Chronicle printed a story detailing the allegations.
I've spoken to a number of current and former Justice Department employees who speak very harshly of Tanner, whom they associate with the politicization of Bradley Schlozman's tenure as head of the Civil Rights Division. Tanner resigned in 2007 after suggesting that voter ID laws don't disadvantage minorities because they "die first," a remark that caused then-Sen. Barack Obama to call for him to be fired.
Tanner also sent the infamous e-mail referring to former Civil Rights Commission Chair Mary Frances Berry as "black and bitter," a remark Schlozman found so hilarious he forwarded it to his colleagues. According to an inspector general's report, Tanner, alongside Schlozman and Hans von Spakovsky, made decisions about whom to hire for the voting section at a time when Schlozman was breaking civil-service laws by hiring people based on political affiliation. Tanner was ultimately replaced by Christopher Coates, whom Schlozman considered a "true member of the team," and who has subsequently become a conservative celebrity based on his accusations of racial bias in the voting section.
It's going to be hard for conservatives to suggest that the Department of Justice is investigating the allegations for partisan reasons, given that someone so associated with the Republican Party is on record as having requested their involvement.
