GAO looks at Bush civil rights enforcement

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- A report on civil rights during the George W. Bush administration indicates the U.S. Justice Department sometimes rejected complaints without taking action.

The Government Accountability Office audit of the department's Civil Rights Division from 2001-2007 was to be released Thursday as the House of Representatives begins its first hearing on the division under the Obama administration, The New York Times reported.

The report indicated there was a significant drop in enforcement of several anti-discrimination and voting rights laws between the Clinton administration and subsequent Bush administration, reported the Times, which obtained a copy of the report. For example, actions brought by the division to enforce laws prohibiting race or sex discrimination in employment fell from about 11 a year under Clinton to about six a year under Bush.

The 180-page report also examined matters that were closed without further action. Several cases, including an accusation of officials in an unnamed state intimidating black voters, indicated supervisors rejected the recommendations of career lawyers to proceed, the report said.

Joseph Rich, a civil rights lawyer invited by Democrats to testify, said the report's data offered proof that the division was politicized in the Bush years. Rich spent 37 years in the Civil Rights Division and led its voting rights section.

Republicans, however, said they will use the hearing to charge the Obama administration politicized the division as well, the Times said. Their focus is on a decision to downgrade voter-intimidation charges arising from a 2008 election incident when two New Black Panther Party members stood outside a Philadelphia precinct in militia uniforms.