[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 20]
[House]
[Page 26554]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        DEPARTMENT OF INJUSTICE

  (Mr. EMANUEL asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, as we celebrate Robert Kennedy's 80th 
birthday, the Robert F. Kennedy Justice Department maybe, given what 
has happened, should be renamed the Department of No Justice, because 
political operatives in charge have betrayed his legacy and the cause 
of justice in this country.
  As The Washington Post reports this morning, despite objections of 
the Justice Department's career professionals, President Bush's 
political appointees ``preapproved'' a controversial Georgia voter-
identification program that has been compared to a modern-day poll tax.
  This is just one of a series of incidents that have subverted the 
purposes for which the Justice Department exists.
  Last June, Justice Department political appointees announced that the 
government would seek $10 billion instead of the $130 billion 
recommended by career lawyers in a case they tried for 6 years against 
the tobacco industry, and won.
  In the voting rights section, political appointees have also 
overruled career lawyers in approving GOP-backed redistricting maps for 
Georgia and Texas in recent years.
  Now, that is a way to build morale.
  In fact, the Civil Rights Division has lost nearly 20 percent of its 
career lawyers this year alone because they are fed up with political 
interference. At this point, they might as well drop the word 
``justice'' from the masthead of the Department.
  It is time to end the political interference and let the Justice 
Department professionals do their jobs. Incompetence is not a virtue.

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