ACLU Lawyer Vanita Gupta To Serve As DOJ Acting Chief For Civil Rights

President Barack Obama, accompanied by Attorney General Eric Holder, speaks in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 25, 2014, to announce Holder is resigning. Holder, who served as ... President Barack Obama, accompanied by Attorney General Eric Holder, speaks in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 25, 2014, to announce Holder is resigning. Holder, who served as the public face of the Obama administration's legal fight against terrorism and weighed in on issues of racial fairness, is resigning after six years on the job. He is the first black US attorney general. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) MORE LESS
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President Barack Obama intends to nominate ACLU lawyer Vanita Gupta to lead the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Decision, according to a person familiar with his plans who said the nomination should come later this year.

In the meantime, Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday revealed he will appoint Gupta — the deputy legal director of ACLU and the head of its Center For Justice — as acting director of the DOJ’s civil rights division. She’ll start on Monday.

“She is being brought in as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General and, in that role, will serve as acting head,” Brian Fallon, a Justice spokesman, said in an email.

To become the permanent head of the division, Gupta (pictured right) will need Senate approval. It would be difficult — but not out of the question — for Democrats to attempt that in the lame-duck session. Republicans might gain control of the chamber in January, and would have a larger say in the nomination.

Conservative activist Grover Norquist told the Washington Post that Gupta has “been open to working with conservatives on good policy. She has played a strong role in the left-right cooperation in criminal justice issues.”

Obama’s most recent nominee for the civil rights division, Debo Adegbile, was blocked by the Democratic-led Senate in March amid criticisms of his past legal defense of Mumia Abu Jamal, who was convicted in 1981 of killing a police officer. Obama withdrew the nomination last month.

Acting appointees are not subject to Senate confirmation, nor do they require a recess-appointment, according to George Washington University political science professor Sarah Binder. “There’s generally a 210 day limit on service in the position,” she said, “but the law provides alternative ways to keep a person in the position.”

(Photo credit: Gupta’s profile page on ACLU.org)

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