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Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
May 22, 2002, Wednesday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section A; Page 25; Column 5; National Desk
LENGTH: 845 words
HEADLINE:
Justice Dept. to File 5 Suits On Voting Problems in 2000
BYLINE:
By LYNETTE CLEMETSON
DATELINE: WASHINGTON, May 21
BODY:
The Bush administration today announced plans to file five lawsuits saying
there had been voting rights violations in the 2000 presidential elections.
Three of the lawsuits will be filed against counties in Florida, center of the
bitter dispute that ultimately secured the Bush presidency.
Accusations in the cases include discriminatory treatment of minority voters,
purging of voter rolls, failure to provide access to disabled voters and
failure to provide assistance to voters with limited English proficiency, said
Ralph Boyd, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's civil
rights division.
The two other suits involve cities in Missouri and Tennessee.
The lawsuits will not seek to overturn the results of the 2000 election but are
intended to induce the counties and cities involved to ensure that minority
voters are not disenfranchised in the 2002 elections. Still, the lawsuits would
place the Bush administration in agreement with complaints of civil rights
leaders like the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who contended that minority voters in
Florida were discriminated against in the 2000 presidential balloting.
The cases will be filed "well in advance of the primaries for the
2002 elections," Mr. Boyd testified in a combative hearing before the Senate
Judiciary Committee. Pressed for a more specific timeline, Mr. Boyd said
it was "likely and probable that the cases will be filed in the next 30
to 60 days."
Members of groups who contested the election results said they were eager to
hear specifics.
"We are certainly glad that they are finally engaged, but the devil is in the
details," said Hilary O. Shelton, Washington director of the N.A.A.C.P.
"We will be looking very closely at the specifics in their cases, and what
remedies they are seeking."
Among the details raising concern is why the administration's action is focused
on counties and cities rather than state-level agencies. Some of the
accusations by civil rights groups, for example, erroneous purging of voters,
were violations said to be conducted by state offices, like the secretary of
state. Remedies to those problems, critics charge, can be addressed only at the
state level.
Mr. Boyd refused to identify the counties and cities named in the suits or give
details. But Murray Greenberg, first assistant county attorney for Miami-Dade
County, said he received a call 10 days ago from the Justice Department stating
that the administration intended to file suit against the county for its
failure to provide language assistance to Creole-speaking voters.
"We're not saying anything specific about the jurisdictions at this point and we
have no further guidance on the charges involved until the suits have been
filed," a spokesman for the Justice Department said after the hearings.
One reason the Justice Department has refused to discuss the cases is that it
is discussing settlements with the Florida counties and cities involved.
"My hope, my aspiration and my expectation is that in each of those we'll reach
an enforceable agreement prior to the filing of the lawsuit," Mr. Boyd told committee members today.
Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who spent most of the
hearing confronting Mr. Boyd on what they deemed slow and regressive tactics of
the Bush administration on a number of civil rights issues, were surprised by
the announcement. They were quick to criticize the timeliness of the action.
"I question why these investigations have taken 18 months and why,
with the primary season only a few months away, the Department of Justice
has not mobilized a plan to make sure these voting rights abuses do not
occur again," said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts,
in a statement after the proceedings.
"There are civil rights organizations that have moved much more quickly than
this with much fewer resources," said Senator John Edwards, Democrat of North Carolina, who initially raised
the question of the status of voting rights lawsuits to Mr. Boyd during the
hearing.
The Justice Department says it was delayed in taking action because of the
volume of complaints it received. By January 2001, the civil rights division
had received 11,000 complaints involving voting rights violations, Mr. Boyd
testified. By Inauguration Day it had narrowed its investigation to 20 cases
nationwide, including 12 in Florida. Two more investigations involving Florida
were soon added. Justice officials refused to specify when and how they revised
their list down to the five cases they announced today.
A coalition of civil rights organizations including the N.A.A.C.P., People for
the American Way Foundation, the Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights and the
A.C.L.U. had filed suit against Florida state and county officials, including
Katherine Harris, Florida's secretary of state, in January 2001.
Settlements have already been reached with two counties: Leon, which includes
the area in and around Tallahassee; and Broward, which includes Ft. Lauderdale.
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LOAD-DATE: May 22, 2002