Prosecutor-gate: "Idiocy on the part of the administration"

That’s how Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, member of the Judiciary Committee, described the Bush White House and Justice Department’s firing of eight U.S. Attorneys (see previous post). This affair is cratering around "The Architect" Karl Rove. For perhaps the first time in six years, a desire for the appearance of integrity is a stronger motivator for many Republican members of Congress than loyalty to the President. There have been some mavericks before on the war and civil liberties, but what I’m calling "Prosecutor-gate" is bringing out Republican critics in significant numbers.

Today’s news reveals how deep the elbows of the President and senior White House aides were into this putrid mess, despite their repeated earlier denials. But there is another intriguing detail. Apparently the internal rationale used to justify firing the U.S. Attorneys was that they were not pursuing voter fraud cases.

Allegations of cheating in the last two close Presidential elections break down along on party lines. Republicans claim that a significant numbers of voters actually are ineligible to vote because they are felons (in some states) or non-citizens, or because they vote more than once in an election. Although very little voter fraud has been documented, Republicans say that election officials and prosecutors just aren’t looking hard enough.

Democrats assert the bigger problem needing attention is institutional disenfranchisement of poor people more likely to vote Democratic. One tactic Republican elections officials have used is dropping voters from the rolls in heavily Democratic precincts using inaccurate lists of felons, who by law in some states lose their right to vote. Another is threatening to arrest people if they show up to vote and are improperly registered or have outstanding warrants. This scares off people who fear the police. A third method is not providing enough resources to handle demand at polling stations in poor precincts. In the past twenty years, there is far more documented evidence of institutional vote suppression (committed by both parties) that has affected far more elections than there is of fraud committed by voters. The intense scrutiny of the close elections in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 found many instances of vote suppression, with the Republican Party in charge in both states.

Republicans want more focus on voter fraud for three reasons. The first is because they believe that people desperate enough to take money to engage in voter fraud are usually felons, migrants and poor people more likely to vote for Democrats. The second reason, say Democrats, is that making voter fraud the villain draws attention away from the Republicans' use of institutional disenfranchisement. The third reason is that threats to prosecute voter fraud are themselves a form of vote suppression, and Republican election strategy relies on intimidating indigent and poorly educated voters to stay away from the polls.

What Republican leaders want are some voter fraud prosecutions, especially in states where Democrats are in power. This is where the fired U.S. Attorneys come in. (Never mind that the U.S. Attorneys are supposed to be protecting us from organized crime and terrorists and that local law enforcement is much better suited to going after individual fraudulent voters – if they exist.) Senator Pete Domenici and Congresswoman Heather Wilson, both Republicans from New Mexico – a state with a large number of poor immigrants – have admitted asking the now fired U.S. Attorney to begin a voter fraud prosecution before the last election. Wilson is the ranking Republican member of the House Ethics Committee and should have known better. (By the way, the fired U.S. Attorney in New Mexico was the Navy prosecutor portrayed by Tom Cruise in the film A Few Good Men.)

It’s no surprise that of the eight U.S. Attorneys fired in Prosecutor-gate, seven are from states in the South or West with significant migrant farm worker populations. Seven are from states with administrations controlled by Democrats, or in the case of California, from a state where the Governor is a Republican in name only and the Attorney General is Democrat Jerry Brown. In other words, the fired prosecutors came from states where Republicans have a strong interest in bringing voter fraud prosecutions for partisan political ends.

That's how badly Karl Rove and the Republican party leadership want to win elections.

(See N.Y.Times Editorial published March 16, arguing that "the pursuit of voter fraud is code for suppressing the votes of minorities and poor people," and that the eight U.S. Attorneys were fired for not using "their offices to help Republicans win elections.")