Bradley Schlozman

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Bradley Schlozman
Bradley Schlozman

Bradley J. Schlozman (born February 6, 1971) was the head of the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice, under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, until he served a year as interim US Attorney for the Western District of Missouri. He was appointed by Alberto Gonzales and assumed office on March 23, 2006,[1] the first interim U.S. Attorney to be appointed under a new controversial provision in the revised U.S. Patriot Act (which allowed for an indefinite appointment without Senate confirmation). He replaced Todd P. Graves, who announced his resignation two weeks earlier.[2] Recently Schlozman and his office has come under review by US Congressional and Senate investigators looking at the Dismissal of U.S. Attorneys controversy, and "the role [that] voter fraud may have played in the Administration’s decisions to retain or remove certain U.S. Attorneys."[3] In April 2007 he left the U.S. Attorney position to work at the Executive Office for United States Attorneys. Schlozman resigned from the Department of Justice on August 17, 2007.[4][5] Shortly after resigning from the Justice Department, Scholzman accepted a position with the Hinkle Elkouri Law Firm in Wichita, Kan.

Contents

[edit] Education, Early Career, and Family

A native of Overland Park, Kansas, Mr. Schlozman served a two-year federal judicial clerkship with Chief U.S. District Judge G. Thomas VanBebber of the District of Kansas. He then spent a year clerking for U.S. Circuit Judge Mary Beck Briscoe of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. In 1999, Mr. Schlozman moved to Washington, where he joined the Supreme Court and Appellate Litigation Practice at Howrey, Simon, Arnold & White, before moving on to the Department of Justice in November 2001.

Brad graduated from Shawnee Mission West High School in Overland Park, Kansas before he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and graduated magna cum laude with special distinction from The University of Pennsylvania. He obtained his Juris Doctor from The George Washington University Law School graduating with honors. While at law school, Mr. Schlozman served as a legal intern in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri.

Mr. Schlozman began service in the Bush Administration as Counsel to then-Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson. He then moved to the Department of Justice to serve in various roles including Deputy Assistant Attorney General directly supervising the Criminal, Voting, Employment, and Special Litigation Sections of the Civil Rights Division, five months as Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights Division, and Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the United States Department of Justice.[6]

Schlozman had no experience as a prosecutor prior to his appointment as US Attorney. [7]

[edit] Controversies

[edit] Georgia Voter I.D. law

In 2005, Georgia passed a controversial voter I.D. law which required that all voters to show photo identification at the polls, and eliminated previously accepted forms of voter identification, including social security cards, birth certificates or utility bills. As required by the Voting Rights Act, "Georgia and other states with a history of voter discrimination" (mostly southern states) are required to show that law changes will not have a discriminatory impact on minority voters, and to get approval by the Department of Justice under 1965 Voting Rights Act[8] All of the staff of the Civil Rights division of DOJ, save one[9], recommended against the new law's approval, but Schlozman and other political appointees overruled the staff and approved it.[10]

The law was initially held unconstitutional as against the Georgia state constitution, but that ruling was reversed by a unanimous decision of the Georgia Supreme Court. [11][12]. Similarly, in federal court, U.S. District Judge Harold L. Murphy issued an injunction against the law, holding that it was constitutionally suspect but declining to consider whether it offended the Voting Rights Act.[11] Subsequent to the federal court decision, Schlozman wrote an op-ed Atlanta Journal-Constitution supporting the bill[13][14] However, to date, a point critics and the media rarely acknowledge, neither the Georgia State nor Federal District courts have held that the Georgia ID law runs specifically afoul of the Voting Rights Act, the only statutory provision considered by the Schlozman and DOJ in granting approval of the state law.

[edit] Texas redistricting

In 2003, Tom DeLay spearheaded an ambitious redisticting plan for the state of Texas. Justice Department lawyers wrote a memo opposing the plan, concluding that the it violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The memo was "unanimously endorsed by six lawyers and two analysts in the department's voting section."[15]. Nevertheless, political appointees overruled them and approved the plan. Schlozman was alleged to have been one of those officials who overruled the plan.[16]. The Supreme Court of the United States, in a complex 100-plus page ruling, overturned part of the plan for failing to protect minority voting rights, but held that other parts of the Textas redistricting plan satisfied the requirements of the Voting Rights Act. [17].

[edit] Lawsuits against Missouri

In 2005, Schlozman and DOJ were pressing for a lawsuit against Missouri accusing the state of failing to make a "reasonable effort" to eliminate ineligible people from voter rolls. The then US Attorney for Missouri, Todd Graves, who Schlozman later succeeded after Graves' forced resignation, refused to sign off on the lawsuit, which was subsequently authorized by Schlozman himself.[18][19] The suit named the newly elected Missouri secretary of state, Democrat Robin Carnahan - the daughter of the late governor Mel Carnahan, and failed Senate candidate Jean Carnahan (who was narrowly defeated by Jim Talent) - as the defendant. [20]

On April 13, 2007 a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit, asserting that the Secretary of State couldn't police local registration rolls and noting, further, that the government had produced no evidence of fraud.[20]. The Justice Department has appealed that ruling and the case remains pending.

[edit] Dismissal of U.S. Attorneys controversy

Dismissal of U.S. Attorneys Controversy ( v • d • e )
Articles
Administration Officials Involved
Involved Administration Officials that Resigned
U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary
U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary
Main article: Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy

The forced resignation of U.S. Attorney Todd Graves and subsequent appointment of Schlozman is part of the Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy, which concerns the replacement of a number of U.S. Attorneys by the George W. Bush administration in its second term.[18] The appointment of Schlozman, and his actions regarding alleged voter fraud and voter registration prosecutions appears to be consistent with a pattern relating voting and elections to the dismissed U.S. Attorneys.[21]

[edit] ACORN voter registration prosecutions

In addition to the complaints regarding the lawsuit against the State of Missouri, described above, attention has focused on his lawsuit against several former employees of the activist group ACORN.

In the summer of 2006, ACORN "paid workers $8 an hour to sign up new voters in poor neighborhoods around the country. Later, ACORN's Kansas City chapter discovered that several workers filled out registration forms fraudulently instead of finding real people to sign up. ACORN fired the workers and alerted law enforcement."[22]Just five days before the 2006 election, Schlozman announced the indictments of four of the former ACORN workers, who all ultimately pleaded guilty to the voter registration charges. The election featured an extremely close Senate race between the incumbent Jim Talent and eventual winner Claire McCaskill. Critics, including former U.S. Attorneys Todd Graves[23] and David Iglesias,[24] claimed the indictments before the election violated longstanding Department of Justice policy.

Joseph D. Rich, a 35-year veteran of the Department of Justice, and chief of its voting section from 1999 to 2005, wrote, in a Los Angeles Times op-ed, "Missouri had one of the closest Senate races in the country last November, and a week before the election, Schlozman brought four voter fraud indictments against members of an organization representing poor and minority people. This blatantly contradicted the department's long-standing policy to wait until after an election to bring such indictments because a federal criminal investigation might affect the outcome of the vote. The timing of the Missouri indictments could not have made the administration's aims more transparent."[25]

Schlozman testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 5, 2007. Responding to questions about possible political motivation for pushing forward with prosecution immediately before the 2006 election, Schlozman stated in his testimony ten times that he had been directed by Craig Donsanto, who heads the Justice Department's Elections Crimes Branch, to bring the indictments in advance of the election and testified that he had received specific approval to bring the indictments at any time, regardless of the timing with respect to the election. On June 11, 2007, he sent a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, clarifying his testimony while the record for the hearing remained open. In his letter, he stated that he had not been "directed" to indict for voter fraud, days before the November 2006 election in question, but that Schlozman himself made the decision to indict. Schlozman clarified that his staff had consulted with the Washington DOJ Election Crimes Branch and was advised that the DOJ policies concerning investigations of election crimes were not implicated in the ACORN case where no individual voters were to be interviewed or indicted. In May, 2008, The Kansas City Star obtained through a FOIA request e-mail messages between Schlozman and Donsato discussing the indictments just two days after they were announced, four days before the election, and months before the Judiciary Committee expressed any interest in the matter. Schlozman forwarded Donsanto a Wall Street Journal editorial praising the indictments. Donsanto replied within an hour, stating that it was "nice" that the DOJs work on the indictment was "accurately reflected" by the newspaper. In his reply and on the eve of the election, Donsanto, a career DOJ lawyer who was the author of the DOJ's handbook setting guidelines for the timing of election fraud indictments, did not criticize or otherwise suggest that there was anything improprer concerning the timing of the ACORN prosecution. The DOJ continues to maintain that the timing of Schlozman's indictments did not violate any policy. [26][27] Schlozman also testified that he did not believe this prosecution would have any effect on the election.[28]

[edit] Mark D. Siljander

Schlozman was instrumental in developing the Mark D. Siljander (ex-Congressman) indictments in 2008.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ USDOJ Biography of Bradley Schlozman
  2. ^ USDOJ Press Release, March 10, 2006
  3. ^ Letter from Sen. Patrick Leahy to Bradley Schlozman, May 7, 2007
  4. ^ Gordon, Greg. "Justice Department lawyer accused of partisanship resig", McClatchy Washington Bureau, McClatchy Newspapers, August 22, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-08-28. 
  5. ^ Totenberg, Nina. "Schlozman Leaves Justice Dept. Amid Questions", Morning Edition, National Public Radio, August 24, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-08-28. 
  6. ^ "JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ANNOUNCES APPOINTMENT OF BRADLEY J. SCHLOZMAN AS U.S. ATTORNEY", United States Attorney, March 23, 2006. 
  7. ^ Amy Goldstein; Dan Eggen. "Prosecutor Posts Go To Bush Insiders: Less Preference Shown for Locals, Senators' Choices", Washington Post, April 1, 2007, p. A01. 
  8. ^ Christopher Tate. "Georgia voter ID law receives DOJ approval", Jurist, August 27, 2005. 
  9. ^ Greg Gordon; Margaret Talev. "Congress considers broadening Justice Department inquiry", McClatchy Newspapers, May 06, 2007. 
  10. ^ Greg Gordon; Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor. "New U.S. attorneys seem to have partisan records", McClatchy Newspapers, March 23, 2007. 
  11. ^ a b Lake v Perdue, September 19, 2006
  12. ^ Darryl Fears; Jonathan Weisman. "Georgia Law Requiring Voters to Show Photo ID Is Thrown Out: Judge Says Some Would Be Disenfranchised; State Plans Appeal", Washington Post, September 20, 2006, p. A06. 
  13. ^ Bradley Schlozman. Voter ID Bill Not An Obstacle for Minorities. US Dept of Justice.
  14. ^ Mark Follman; Alex Koppelman and Jonathan Vanian. "How U.S. attorneys were used to spread voter-fraud fears", March 21, 2007.  However, to date, neither the State nor Federal courts have held that the Georgia ID law runs specifically afoul of the Voting Rights Act, the only statutory provision considered by the DOJ in issuing its approval of the law.
  15. ^ Dan Eggen. "Justice Staff Saw Texas Districting As Illegal: Voting Rights Finding On Map Pushed by DeLay Was Overruled", Washington Post date=December 2, 2005, p. A01. 
  16. ^ R.G. Ratcliffe; Michael Hedges. "Political appointees had the final say on Texas redistricting", The Houston Chronicle, December 4, 2005. 
  17. ^ "Justices Back Most G.O.P. Changes to Texas Districts", AP. 
  18. ^ a b Amy Goldstein. "Number of Fired Prosecutors Grows: Dismissals Began Earlier Than Justice Dept. Has Said", Washington Post, May 10, 2007, p. A01. 
  19. ^ Greg Gordon. "GOP sought to suppress votes in Missouri, critics say: Missouri is among states where alleged efforts to dampen Democratic turnout were focused", McClatchy Newspapers, May 4, 2007. 
  20. ^ a b Greg Gordon. "2006 Missouri's election was ground zero for GOP", McClatchy Newspapers, May 02, 2007. 
  21. ^ Eggen, Dan; Amy Goldstein. "Voter-Fraud Complaints by GOP Drove Dismissals", The Washington Post, May 14, 2007. 
  22. ^ Charlie Savage. "Missouri attorney a focus in firings: Senate bypassed in appointment of Schlozman", Boston Globe, May 6, 2007. 
  23. ^ Philip Dine. "Political storm brews over testimony", St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 6, 2007. Retrieved on 08-06-2007. 
  24. ^ Greg Gordon. "Politics may have played a role in voter fraud allegations in Missouri", McClatchy Newspapers, June 8, 2007. Retrieved on 08-06-2007. 
  25. ^ Joseph D. Rich. "Bush's long history of tilting Justice: The administration began skewing federal law enforcement before the current U.S. attorney scandal, says a former Department of Justice lawyer", Los Angeles Times, March 29, 2007. 
  26. ^ Bradley J., Schlozman. "Schlozman clarifies his testimony", Talking Points Memo, TPM Media, June 12, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-06-12. 
    Letter from Bradley J. Schlozman addressed to Senator Patrick J. Laehey, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, dated June 11, 2007.
  27. ^ Gordon, Greg. "Questions arise over voter fraud case", Miami Herald, June 9, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-06-10. 
  28. ^ Eggen, Dan. "Ex-Prosecutor Says He Didn't Think Charges Would Affect Election", Washington Post, June 6, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-06-08. 

[edit] External links