Things That Happen In An Election Year

Yesterday’s Washington Post reported that seven Senate Democrats voted with the Republicans to block the nomination of Debo P. Adegbile as chief of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

Adegbile voluntarily took up the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, after Black Panther member Abu-Jamal was convicted of the murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.

The article reminds us that these votes were not about principle, they are about politics:

A senior aide to one of the senators who voted against the nominee said several senators’ offices were “very angry” at the White House for moving ahead with the nomination even though it could leave Democrats who are facing tough reelection races vulnerable to attack ads.

…Reid had spoken in defense of Adegbile and initially voted in favor but later switched his vote to no, making him the eighth Democrat to vote against the nominee. But Reid did so only to reserve his right as Senate leader to bring up the nomination again. Later Wednesday, aides couldn’t say whether that will happen.

Under President Obama, the Justice Department has become very politicized. Had the nomination of Debo P. Adegbile been allowed to proceed, the Justice Department would have become even more political. In the beginning of the Obama Administration, the direction of the Justice Department became clear when the New Black Panthers were not prosecuted for voter intimidation. In the past, the Justice Department has not been a political arm of the President’s political party. Hopefully, when we are free of the Obama Administration in 2016, the Justice Department will go back to being an impartial judge of the laws of America. We can probably expect the nomination of Debo P. Adegbile to appear again after the 2014 mid-term elections.

 

 

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