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Civil Rights Supervisors Used Evaluations to Punish Lawyers
Now that Bradley Schlozman is in the sights of congressional investigators for his allegedly partisan approach to hiring at the Civil Rights Division, it's worth taking another look at how he ran the place.
As I reported last month, Schlozman made sure that attorneys underneath him knew that if they crossed him, they'd pay for it. But how? Partially by simply making life miserable for them, but also by providing negative performance evaluations for attorneys who disagreed with him. Performance evaluations are of vital important to civil service employees who may want to eventually work elsewhere in government or seek promotions.
Joe Rich, the former chief of the voting section, says that under Schlozman and Hans von Spakovsky, the two supervisors of the section, he was ordered to make changes to at least seven performance appraisals: "In several instances," Rich told me, he was ordered to include negative remarks about the work of at least five attorneys who had apparently done nothing more than make recommendations with which Schlozman and von Spakovsky disagreed.
Rich also said that it also went the other way: "I was also ordered to remove any remarks which noted areas where there could be improvement from the performance appraisals of attorneys who were favored by and had become allies of Mr. Schlozman."
Rich said that it was too strong of a characterization to say that he'd been ordered to "falsify" the evaluations, which would have been a crime. But he was clear that the orders, like so much of what the political appointees in the Justice Department has done, were a major departure from past practice. In his experience (he worked in the division for nearly forty years), Rich said, past political appointees had not inserted themselves into the evaluation process.
Comments (20)
Anonymous wrote on May 7, 2007 4:16 PM:I'm sure Scott Bloch will be all over this.
the truth will out wrote on May 7, 2007 4:18 PM:And as DoJ goes, so goes every other department of this whole criminal scam, pretending to be a government!
Reggae Bass wrote on May 7, 2007 4:20 PM:So Wait a minute. If this is not falsifing records then what is?
Mrs Panstreppon wrote on May 7, 2007 4:31 PM:Hans von Spakovsky is now an FEC Commissioner. According to his FEC bio (link below), he was Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the DOJ.
This afternnon, I've been reading about Jason Torchinsky who also was Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the DOJ.
Any word on how Torchinsky conducted himself at the DOJ? Torchinsky, now an attorney with Holtzman Vogel, is associated with the American Center for Voting Rights (AC4VR), a GOP front group set up to disenfranchise minority and poor voters.
I posted a lot of info about the AC4VR in another TPM MR post about Schlozman:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003157.php#comments
Mrs P wrote on May 7, 2007 4:32 PM:BTW, Jason Torchinsky is a member of the Federalist Society.
C92 wrote on May 7, 2007 4:39 PM:What's the operative difference between the American Center for Voting Rights and the Progress for America Voter Fund.
Both are known to be GOP front groups -- but what differentiates them, if anything?
angryvietnamvet wrote on May 7, 2007 4:53 PM:XScholman is a pig who should be hung for his nazilike tactics...a perfect SS specimen like so many others in this crime organization pretending to be a government...From Herr Rove on down...liars, bullies and traitors....Give them to me and I will take care of them Gitmo style.
Mrs P wrote on May 7, 2007 4:58 PM:C 92, $38 million?
C 92 wrote on May 7, 2007 5:14 PM:Mrs. P:
You may recall that a certain "fish" we were talking about earlier pulled down roughly $740,000 from the PFAVF in 03-04. Just wondering if PFAVF and ACVR work together.
shipwreckedcrew wrote on May 7, 2007 6:13 PM:This is BS.
Every performance evaluation requires the reveiw and signature of a "Rating Offical" and a "Reviewing Official".
The Rating Official is the immediate supervisor of the employee being reveiwed. The Reviewing Official is the next level up supervisor.
Both have responsibility for input on the form, and both are required to sign the form. The employee also must sign the form.
If the employee feels the rating is unfair, the employee may refuse to sign, and may object to the rating. There is then a review process for the rating under civil service rules.
Mrs Panstreppon wrote on May 7, 2007 6:49 PM:C 92@May 7, 2007 05:14 PM
Okay, I know who the big fish is but I don't remember you telling me about said fish raking in $740k from the Progress For America Voter Fund. Not a lot of info about PAFVF is available as I found out last year.
The 2005 PFAVF 990 is not available at the Foundation Center's 990 finder althought the 2004 one is and the 2004 and 2005 PFAs are, too.
Crack the PFA and PFAVF cases and hell will break loose!
Youffraita wrote on May 7, 2007 8:36 PM:Well. "Loyal Bushies" get their evaluations enhanced and loyal citizens get theirs tarnished. Business as usual under King George II, isn't it?
CRD Vet wrote on May 7, 2007 8:44 PM:Shipwrecked crew: interference by the reviewing official in these things, particularly where the reviewing official is a political employee, is a recent innovation of this Administration. Until Schlozman and his ilk, few line attorneys had political appointees in their review chain. Where they did, in practice such reviewers were no more than the audience for the report, not the coevaluator of specialists' skills they usually do not posses themselves.
In any case, such political appointees have little basis for ascertaining the skills and performance of attorneys at this level.
But even if some input from the "reviewing" official may be appropriate in some circumstances, Schlozman wielded a heavy hand, with a transparent political purpose. Many employees employees suffered greatly -- merely because Schlozman did not perceive them as conservative Republicans.
Anonymous wrote on May 7, 2007 9:26 PM:Man, what I am hearing is about 20 percent substance and about 80 percent whining.
"Oh, this isn't the way we *used* to do evaluations".
"Oh, political appointees didn't used to overrule career staff."
"Oh, line attorneys used to be insulated from the wrath senior political appointes by their superiors."
Gimme a break. If there are allegations of actual illegal conduct, then say so. But Joe Rich bitching that he didn't like the way the department was run hardly rises to the level of criminal conduct. In this case, Rich himself even admits that he was never asked or ordered to falsify reviews.
The big whistle blower looks like the whiner-in-chief to me -- Ty Clevenger (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/mcnulty-letter/?resultpage=1&). If you've ever ran an organziation or managed a large team of people, this letter says it all! You know the type.
badgervan wrote on May 7, 2007 10:18 PM:All of you 28%'s out there, consider this: what goes around, comes around in politics. In under twenty months, we are likely to have a dem prez, dem House, and dem Senate. Will you still be making the same comments after President Gore gets done doing what rove has been doing to our Justice Department?
Nonya Bizness wrote on May 7, 2007 10:49 PM:Its all true. Joe Rich is a hero who should be commended.
elemgee wrote on May 8, 2007 10:45 AM:Everytime I read another story about this issue, all I can say is:
WTF?!
Ok, I know I live about 2000 miles outside of the beltway, but my family has two lifelong civil service employees who have worked for the Department of Defense, at times in the DC area. They have never seen or experienced the kind of corruption that is obviously going on at DOJ. Throughout their careers, they have been witness to employee complaints about unfair hiring/evaluation practices that always ended up siding with the employee, and getting a supervisor's ass in hot, hot water. Now upper level supervisors, they are extremely careful in dealing with even an aggregiously incompetent (or in one case, psychotic!) employee to not have anything even smacking of political, religious or racial overtones be a part of their supervisory processes, lest they lose their jobs. Besides that, they themselves don't believe in using those criteria in any way to manage their programs.
Given all this, I simply can not understand how, given the strictness with which the Office of Personnel Management oversees all employee issues, these guys at Justice got away with what is blatenly illegal behavior. What about the Union? These folks must have been given the impression that they were not career employees or something.
We know there is always politics involved, even within the Civil Service System--someone gets a promotion within his agency over an outside candidate, etc--but come on. Does Justice not have to work under the same civil service employee laws as everyone else?
Bill wrote on June 12, 2007 5:06 PM:MSN I NIIPET
Bill wrote on June 12, 2007 5:07 PM:MSN
MSN I NIIPET
Bill wrote on June 12, 2007 5:08 PM:MSN
MSN I NIIPET
MSN