October 23, 2007

ADVANCEMENT PROJECT DEMANDS THAT
TOP VOTING RIGHTS OFFICIAL BE REMOVED

Earlier this month the Department of Justice's (DOJ) top official overseeing voting rights, John Tanner, made comments that are so insensitive to minority voters as to warrant his immediate removal. Speaking on a panel with Advancement Project Senior Attorney Aurora Vasquez at the National Latino Congreso in Los Angeles, Tanner suggested that photo ID requirements for voting do not disadvantage Latinos or other minority voters, but instead hurt whites. Calling it “a shame” that such ID requirements disadvantage the elderly, Tanner nonetheless claimed: "Our society is such that minorities don't become elderly the way white people do; they die first. There are inequities in health care. There are a variety of inequities in this country. And so anything that disproportionately impacts the elderly has the opposite impact on minorities; just the math is such as that."

The Latino Congreso was not the first time that Tanner relied on racial stereotypes to defend photo ID requirements. According to the Associated Press, Tanner made the following comments to African Americans at the NAACP annual conference in Georgia on October 4:

"You think you get asked for ID more than I do?" . . . "I've never heard anyone talk about driving while white."

He further stated: "When someone goes to a check cashing business God help them if they don't have a photo ID." Bob Johnson, Associated Press, Oct. 5, 2007.

Tanner’s statements that minorities “die first,” or are presumed to have photo IDs because they rely on check cashing services, are at best callous and highly insulting. At worst they are expressions of the types of racial stereotypes that continue to permeate the American landscape. Either way, such comments are simply beyond the pale for the top federal official charged with protecting voting rights of Americans

Advancement Project is quite aware of Tanner’s long, and for many years exemplary, career in the DOJ Civil Rights Division. However his actions with regard to photo ID requirements have evidenced such hostility toward minority voters that we have no choice but to call for his immediate removal. Tanner’s comments seem to be an effort to explain his wrongheaded decision approving Georgia’s photo ID law. In clearing the Georgia law, Tanner overruled the recommendation of his staff of DOJ lawyers, who concluded that the Georgia photo ID requirement would disproportionately discriminate against African Americans. The fact “they die first” argument seems plausible to Tanner as a reason to uphold photo ID laws clearly illustrates his poor judgment and is an affront to the work of voting rights advocates all over the country. Obviously, it did not resonate with John Tanner that at the time he overruled his staff that 70% of employed African Americans in Georgia ( Note: persons still very much alive and young enough to still be in the workforce) worked for private employers. Therefore, they would not have the government-issued identification from their place of employment that was an acceptable ID to vote under the Georgia law.

Next week, the House Judiciary Committee will hold an oversight hearing on the Voting Section, whose duty is to implement the nation's voting rights laws. While the firing of several federal prosecutors who did not pursue partisan voter fraud cases has garnered national headlines, the Voting Section's enforcement record has had far less scrutiny. Advancement Project asks voting rights advocates to urge the committee to delve deeper on this issue.