Voting

DOJ Vet: Plan For Panther Hearings Shows Key Voting-Rights Panel Is "Kind Of A Joke"

Zachary Roth | October 22, 2009, 3:24PM

USCCR Commissioner Todd Gaziano

Democrats and civil-rights advocates are slamming conservative members of a key federal voting-rights panel for a plan to hold hearings on the controversial "New Black Panthers" voter intimidation case, and are expressing intense concern that the commission is being shifted away from its traditional role as a protector of the rights of minority voters.

Yesterday, Main Justice reported that the commission, dominated by Bush appointees, planned to hold hearings on the New Black Panther case, which the Justice Department dismissed earlier this year. In a now-famous incident from Election Day 2008, a member of a group called the New Black Panther Party was caught on camera clad in combat boots and brandishing a night stick at a Philadelphia polling station.

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