Voting Chief Tanner ResignsToday, John Tanner resigned from his position effective immediately as chief of the Civil Rights Division’s voting section. His resignation email, with the subject line “Moving On” was sent out at approximately 11 AM to voting section staff. He said that he will be moving on to the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices. The email is reproduced below in full.
With Tanner, it had seemed like a matter of not if, but when. As we reported late last month, his travel habits had angered attorneys in the voting section, leading to an investigation by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility.
And that was after his comments about the tendency of minorities to “die first” led Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), and others to call for his removal. When he went before the House Judiciary Committee in October, he was lambasted for his tendency of “basing your conclusions on stereotypes” (like, say, claiming that African-Americans have IDs more than whites because they’re always going to cash-checking businesses).
But most of all, Tanner’s reign is notable for his collusion with the political appointees who oversaw the section, an ongoing effort to reverse the Civil Rights Division’s traditional role in protecting minority voters, particularly African-Americans, into one of aiding thinly disguised vote suppression measures (most infamously Georgia’s voter ID law). It was an effort that some career DoJ attorneys later described as “institutional sabotage.”
Who’ll be taking over? We’ve got a question into DoJ to see.
Nearly 32 years after I joined the Voting Section, I will be moving on to the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices. To better assist in a smooth transition, I am stepping down from my position as Section Chief immediately while I pack and sort through three decades of work.
I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the dedication and the accomplishments of all my colleagues in the Section. Their efforts in the two years I served as Chief has brought remarkable progress in securing and protecting voting rights for literally millions of people. They have made significant and tangible progress, and their achievements will be felt for generations to come.
They have tripled the number of new lawsuits compared to the immediately preceding period. In 2006, the Section filed the highest number of new lawsuits in its history. In just over two years the Section brought over 40 percent of all of the minority language cases in the history of the Act, and over 40 percent of all Section 208 cases in history to protect the right of voters who need assistance to receive it from a person of their own choice.
They have reinvigorated our Section 2 enforcement, more than doubling the number of cases over the immediately preceding period so that we are now approaching the Sectionâs historic average. And the Section now has solid new investigations and prospects for additional cases. More important, the reach of the Section 2 enforcement has been broadened to protect minority voters against discrimination at the polls that deters and suppresses their turnout.
Section 5 enforcement has advanced tremendously, not only technologically in the new on-line submission system, but much more importantly in our dramatically expanded contact with local minority community members. Contacts with minority citizens are now routine; they now include all affected minority communities, and they now include inquiry into compliance with all provisions of the Act, not just the very narrow Section 5 inquiry. Five new lawsuits generated by Section 5 inquiries this year alone attest to that improvement. And for the first time, traction has been gained in direct contact and understanding with the Alaska Native population.
These statistics are more than numbers. They are people. They are the African American voters of Euclid, Ohio, who had no opportunity to elect city council members of their choice. They are the Asian American voters in Boston whose ballots were taken from them and cast contrary to their wishes. They are the Latina voters in Pennsylvania who were ridiculed and humiliated by poll workers, and who left the polls in tears. They are the Laguna Pueblo voters whose registration applications were never processed, or who were removed from the rolls without notice, and who were denied their right to provisional ballots. They are the well over a million of our fellow citizens with limited English proficiency, too often beset by fear and hatred, who for the first time have full and equal access to the polls. All of this is thanks to our recent work.
The key to these improvements has been the development of systems to guide our enforcement. Our minority language and voter assistance enforcement systems have produced twice as many cases in five years as in the entire history of the Act, and we now have a template for extending those systems that have proved so successful in protecting language minority citizens to protect African American voters from suppression tactics under Section 2. There are now systems in place for voter registration enforcement under the NVRA, and to protect voters with disabilities under HAVA. The Section has expanded the language skills of Section staff beyond Spanish and Chinese to include Arabic, Gujarati, Hindi, Japanese, Korean and Portuguese, and improved training opportunities for all personnel. The Section now has a program to receive Fellows from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, as well as leading universities, that has broadened and enriched our office. These systems will continue and flourish.
The work of the Section matters. In the time I have been in Voting, my colleagues and I have worked on lawsuits and Section 5 enforcement that have increased the number of African American state legislators in Mississippi from only four in the late 1970s to 17 in 1982 to 46 today, and in Alabama from 16 African American legislators in 1982 to 32 today. There are now scores of African American elected officials across the Southeast who entered through doors I helped open. The more recent lawsuits are every bit as meaningful to the many voters who are now fully enfranchised.
I leave the Section with deep appreciation for the progress that has been made, but also with full awareness of the many challenges that remain and the work still to be done. That should be the focus. In leaving, I do so with confidence in the skill and passion with which the Section will meet and master those challenges, and with profound gratitude for the help, the support and the hard work of so many in the Section â past and present. The Voting Section is a group of talented men and women who are dedicated to this crucial mission. They have been real heroes in our struggle for the right to vote for all. I have been honored and humbled to have had the opportunity to work with them.
