REMEMBER WHEN IT WAS BAD TO POLITICIZE THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT? A Split At Justice On D.C. Vote Bill: Holder Overrode Ruling That Measure Is Unconstitutional. “Justice Department lawyers concluded in an unpublished opinion earlier this year that the historic D.C. voting rights bill pending in Congress is unconstitutional, according to sources briefed on the issue. But Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who supports the measure, ordered up a second opinion from other lawyers in his department and determined that the legislation would pass muster. . . . In deciding that the measure is unconstitutional, lawyers in the department’s Office of Legal Counsel matched a conclusion reached by their Bush administration counterparts nearly two years ago, when a lawyer there testified that a similar bill would not withstand legal attack. This may look bad, but “Holder portrayed the basis for his override of the OLC ruling as grounded in law, not politics.” So there. |
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