Maneuver gave Bush a conservative rights panel

Source: Boston Globe

WASHINGTON - The US Commission on Civil Rights, the nation's 50-year-old watchdog for racism and discrimination, has become a critic of school desegregation efforts and affirmative action ever since the Bush administration used a controversial maneuver to put the agency under conservative control.

Democrats say the move to create a conservative majority on the eight-member panel violated the spirit of a law requiring that no more than half the commission be of one party. Critics say Bush in effect installed a fifth and sixth Republican on the panel in December 2004, after two commissioners, both Republicans when appointed, reregistered as independents.

"I don't believe that (the law) was meant to be evaded by conveniently switching your voter registration," said Commissioner Michael Yaki, one of the two remaining Democrats.

The administration insists that Bush's appointments were consistent with the law because the two commissioners who reregistered as independents no longer counted as Republicans. The day before Bush made the appointments, the Department of Justice approved the move in a memo to White House counsel Alberto Gonzales's office.

Other presidents have been able to create a majority of like-minded commissioners, but no president has done it this way. The unusual circumstances surrounding the appointments attracted little attention at the time. But they have had a sweeping effect, shifting the commission's emphasis from investigating claims of civil rights violations to questioning programs designed to offset the historic effects of discrimination.


Read more: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/11/06/maneuver_gave_bush_a_conservative_rights_panel/

Not very surprising,is it?

Just wish that we had a party to counteract their devious tricks.

Shrub and his neocon asshole cabal have been very successful at filling slots with partisan idiots from the halls of regent univeristy and other brainwashing grounds. A lot of them are going to be in hiding pretending that they are fucking everything up from within throughout the next administration.