von Spakovsky opposed by former DOJ attorneys
The Dallas Morning News reports: A nominee to the Federal Election Commission hit a wall over Texas redistricting during his confirmation hearing Wednesday.
Democrats accused Hans von Spakovsky of injecting politics into the Justice Department's analysis of a 2003 Texas congressional redistricting map when he was a top lawyer at the department.
Eight career lawyers and election law experts who served under Mr. Spakovsky in the civil rights division signed a letter urging senators to reject his nomination. They said he and other Bush political appointees had no good reason to overturn a unanimous staff recommendation to reject the Texas redistricting plan, which they said clearly violated minority voting rights in some districts – including the Dallas-based 24th District long held by Democrat Martin Frost.
Mr. Frost was among the half-dozen Texas Democrats who lost House seats after the remap orchestrated in the Legislature by Tom DeLay, who was U.S. House majority leader at the time. --