Resurrecting Jim Crow: The Erratic Resume of the Voting Section Chief

Cho, Roxy, StandingUp, wanderindiana, and Aaron Barlow
xposted at ePluribus Media

When John K. Tanner replaced Joe Rich as section chief of the Justice Department's Voting Rights Section in 2005, a breathtaking politicization -- already under way after Alex Acosta was put in charge of the Civil Rights Division -- accelerated sharply. The exodus of talent, expertise, and knowledge of civil rights law in the two years under Tanner's stewardship is numbing.

Roughly 50% of the staff

--  attorneys, including many of the top litigators, researchers and analysts -- have left, and Tanner has waged an aggressive effort to remake the section in his own image -- not an image that most people who promote the core mission of the Voting Rights Act, which the Section is primarily responsible for enforcing, would support.