[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 18]
[Senate]
[Pages 24961-24962]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           EXECUTIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

                           EXECUTIVE CALENDAR

  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate 
immediately proceed to executive session to consider the following 
nominations on today's Executive Calendar: Nominations 422, 423, 427, 
429, 430, 431 and 434 and all nominations on the secretary's desk.
  I further ask unanimous consent the nominations be considered en 
bloc, the motions to reconsider be laid on the table, the President be 
immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate then return 
to legislative session.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The nominations considered and confirmed en bloc are as follows:


                          DEPARTMENT OF STATE

       Jeffrey Thomas Bergner, of Virginia, to be an Assistant 
     Secretary of State (Legislative Affairs).
       James Caldwell Cason, of Florida, a Career Member of the 
     Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be 
     Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United 
     States of America to the Republic of Paraguay.


             NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

       Shana L. Dale, of Georgia, to be Deputy Administrator of 
     the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.


              DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT

       Orlando J. Cabrera, of Florida, to be an Assistant 
     Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.


                   EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT

       Katherine Baicker, of New Hampshire, to be a Member of the 
     Council of Economic Advisers.
       Matthew Slaughter, of New Hampshire, to be a Member of the 
     Council of Econmic Advisers.


                         DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

       Wan J. Kim, of Maryland, to be an Assistant Attorney 
     General.


                           IN THE COAST GUARD

       PN844 COAST GUARD nominations (9) beginning David K. 
     Almond, and ending JEFFREY SAINE, which nominations were 
     received by the Senate and appeared in the Congressional 
     Record of September 8, 2005. .
       PN879 COAST GUARD nominations (56) beginning Steven J. 
     Andersen, and ending Vann J. Young, which nominations were 
     received by the Senate and appeared in the Congressional 
     Record of September 15, 2005.
       PN957-1 COAST GUARD nomination of Louvenia A. McMillan, 
     which was received by the Senate and appeared in the 
     Congressional Record of October 6, 2005.


            NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION

       PN797 NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION 
     nominations (7) beginning John W. Humphrey Jr., and ending 
     Mark H. Pickett, which nominations were received by the 
     Senate and appeared in the Congressional Record of July 
     29,2005.
       PN935 NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION 
     nominations (14) beginning Melissa M. Ford, and ending Jamie 
     S. Wasser, which nominations were received by the Senate and 
     appeared in the Congressional Record of September 28, 2005.


                        nomination of wan j. kim

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil 
Rights is the face of civil rights law enforcement in America. I will 
support Wan Kim's nomination for this important post.
  For nearly 50 years, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division 
has enforced Nation's civil rights laws and combated racism, 
discrimination, and other civil rights abuses. And during the past 50 
years, our Nation has made important strides in the fight for civil 
rights. The recent death of Rosa Parks is a reminder of how far we have 
come, and of the courageous acts it took to get here.
  I am concerned, however, about the Bush Administration's commitment 
to

[[Page 24962]]

civil rights law enforcement and especially voting rights. As Chief 
Justice Roberts testified at his confirmation hearing, the right to 
vote is the ``preservative'' right of all other rights. Without that 
fundamental right, citizens are voiceless and powerless.
  At his nomination hearing, I asked Wan Kim about the Civil Rights 
Division's August 26 preclearance of a voter identification law in the 
state of Georgia that is discriminatory and ``a national disgrace,'' in 
the words of the New York Times. The law requires people without a 
driver's license--a group disproportionately consisting of the poor, 
the elderly, and minorities to pay $20 or more for a State ID card in 
order to vote. There isn't a single place in the entire city of Atlanta 
where the cards are sold. The Georgia law aims to be an anti-fraud 
measure, but the Secretary of State in Georgia maintains there has not 
been a proven case of voter fraud in that state in nearly a decade.
  Although Mr. Kim has been the Deputy Assistant Attorney General in 
the Civil Rights Division for over 2 years, he said he has not 
supervised voting rights issues and does not have an opinion about 
whether the Georgia law should have been precleared. That's a fair 
answer.
  But I hope Mr. Kim reads a decision handed down just a few days after 
his nomination hearing by a Federal judge in Georgia, who enjoined the 
law and ruled that it appeared to be unconstitutional. The judge wrote 
that the Georgia law ``constitutes a poll tax.'' Just last week, this 
ruling was affirmed by a three-judge panel of the conservative U.S. 
Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. Two of the three judges on the 
panel were appointed by President George H.W. Bush.
  I am also concerned that the Bush administration has not brought a 
single voting rights lawsuit alleging racial discrimination against 
African Americans. Perhaps even more troubling is the fact that earlier 
this year the Justice Department filed its first case ever under the 
Voting Rights Act alleging discrimination in voting against white 
voters. This case was brought against a county in Mississippi, a State 
with a long and ugly history of discrimination against African 
Americans in voting.
  As Congress begins to consider reauthorization of the important 
Voting Rights Act, I urge Mr. Kim to take a hard look at the work of 
the Civil Rights Division's Voting Section and those who supervise it. 
The Voting Section has done an effective job enforcing voting rights on 
behalf of language minorities, but not, in the opinion of many, on 
behalf of racial minorities.
  Another area of concern is the productivity and management of the 
Civil Rights Division's Appellate Section. This section has been 
spending more time lately deporting illegal immigrants than enforcing 
civil rights. According to data provided by Mr. Kim, 62 percent of the 
briefs filed by the Civil Rights Division's Appellate Section in FY 
2005 involved defending the government's decision to deport illegal 
immigrants. Nearly 40 percent of attorney hours in the Civil Rights 
Division's Appellate Section were devoted to this work, according to 
Mr. Kim. These numbers are troubling and unacceptable.
  I am also concerned about the overall decline in civil rights 
appellate enforcement by the Civil Rights Division. According to Mr. 
Kim, during the first 5 years of the Bush administration, the Justice 
Department filed an annual average of 80 civil rights appellate briefs. 
By contrast, during the last 5 years of the Clinton administration, the 
Justice Department filed an annual average of 122 civil rights 
appellate briefs. In other words, there has been a 34 percent decline 
in civil rights appellate filings from the Clinton administration to 
the Bush administration. And there was a 73 percent drop in civil 
rights appellate amicus filings between 1999 and 2004. These are 
disturbing trends and I urge Mr. Kim to address them.
  The Bush administration has also created a serious morale problem 
within the career ranks of the Civil Rights Division. Several media 
reports have elaborated on this problem, most recently a September 2005 
Legal Affairs article entitled ``An Uncivil Division'' by a former 
high-ranking career official in the Civil Rights Division, William 
Yeomans. His article indicates that morale problems have largely been 
caused by heavy-handed tactics used by Civil Rights Division political 
appointees in making personnel decisions, communicating with career 
attorneys, and setting civil rights enforcement priorities.
  During the nomination hearing of Alberto Gonzales to be Attorney 
General earlier this year, Senator DeWine asked Mr. Gonzales what he 
would want to be remembered for as Attorney General. Mr. Gonzales said 
he wanted to be remembered first for fighting the war on terror, and 
second for protecting civil rights and voting rights.
  I hope Attorney General Gonzales will do a better job of fulfilling 
his pledge to protect the civil rights and voting rights of all 
Americans, and I urge Wan Kim to play a leading role in accomplishing 
this mission.

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