This may seem like inside-pool, but it’s an interesting example of how congressional Republicans chose to do business these days.
There are currently four vacancies on the Federal Election Commission, two of which are to be filled with Republicans, two of which to be filled by Dems. For one of the GOP’s selections, Bush tapped Hans von Spakovsky, a top political appointee in Bush’s Justice Department. Dems balked, pointing to von Spakovsky’s work in voter-suppression schemes.
At that point, Bush and his Senate cohorts had a few options:
* Withdraw the von Spakovsky nomination, and replace him with a less ridiculous choice;
* Allow votes on the nominees individually, clearing the way for at least three uncontroversial nominees to clear the chamber easily;
* Demand one vote on all four nominees, including von Spakovsky, and refuse to compromise.
Take a wild guess which option they chose.
From what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said on the Senate floor last night, it appears so. Given the ongoing opposition to Spakovsky by Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Russ Feingold (D-WI), Reid called for a vote on the individual nominees to the Federal Election Commission. But the Republican leadership, as they have from the beginning, insisted on voting on the four nominees, both Democratic and Republican, together, thus protecting Spakovsky from being voted down, but also preventing the confirmation of any of the other nominees.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ken.) decided, arbitrarily, “They’re all four going to go together or none of them will be approved.”
How sadly predictable. The Senate was more than prepared to approve three FEC nominees, including one Republican, but the minority party felt so strongly about backing one ridiculous nominee that they’ve shut down the entire process.
I suppose the Senate Republicans assumed Dems would back down. Fortunately, that didn’t happen, because there was no way von Spakovsky deserved to be approved. He was, after all, a leading player in what McClatchy labeled the administration’s “vote-suppression agenda.” When it came to voter disenfranchisement, von Spakovsky was a reliable member of Team Bush. That’s not a compliment.
Naturally, the president decided to give him a promotion for his efforts, rewarding von Spakovsky with a six-year FEC nomination. Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick recently made a very powerful case that the nomination itself was insulting.
For those of you who want more background on von Spakovsky, I hope readers will take a couple of minutes to read Lithwick’s whole piece, but the point to remember here is that he has been at the heart of the indefensible, right-wing effort to prevent eligible voters from participating in elections. Tom DeLay’s re-redistricting scheme that violated the Voting Rights Act? Von Spakovsky approved it. Georgia’s re-redistricting scheme to disenfranchise black voters? Von Spakovsky approved that, too. The conservative campaign to fabricate an epidemic of voter fraud? Von Spakovsky helped create the scheme and execute it. When a U.S. Attorney in Minnesota discovered that Native American voters were being disenfranchised? It was Von Spakovsky who shut down the investigation.
As Lithwick concluded, “More than almost anyone else — perhaps even including Alberto Gonzales — Hans von Spakovsky represents a Justice Department turned on its head for partisan purposes. Even if a seat on the FEC is merely symbolic, the last thing Democrats should be doing is confirming to that seat someone who symbolizes contempt for what it means to cast a vote.”
As of today, we’ve probably heard the last of him. Good.