Editorial: Voting rights for all

America has struggled long to secure voting rights for all, regardless of race. Thus, it was puzzling that the Obama administration failed to fully enforce the Voting Rights Act against members of the New Black Panthers who gathered outside a Philadelphia polling place in November 2008 in military garb with clubs and were heard saying racially intimidating things to voters. One witness, John McCain supporter Bartle Bull, a former Robert Kennedy campaign staffer and civil-rights lawyer who had worked in the South to secure full voting rights for African-Americans, called it “the most blatant form of voter intimidation” he ever saw. Some captured the scene on their cell phones.

The administration’s response to the Panthers case seemed so strange that it led eventually to an investigation by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, which has taken some shocking sworn testimony from career lawyers in the Justice Department’s Voting Section.

On Sept. 24, Christopher Coates, a Clinton appointee and former lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, testified that the Obama Justice Department pursued a policy of refusing to prosecute minorities — or protect the rights of non-minorities — in voting-rights cases. In doing so, he backed the testimony of Christian Adams, a conservative lawyer in the Voting Section who resigned over what he called corruption in the department, and said that President Obama’s political appointees “over and over and over” showed “hostility” to attempts to prosecute cases involving “black defendants and white victims.”

Mr. Coates confirmed Mr. Adams’s testimony that Julie Fernandes, a deputy assistant general in the Civil Rights Division, told Voting Section leaders that the administration would not file election-rights cases against minority defendants.

Mr. Coates also testified that he had come forward despite Obama administration orders against complying with the commission’s subpoenas. He claimed whistle-blower protection in testifying.

Under the Constitution, justice must be enforced impartially — without exceptions for race. For a long time, in some jurisdictions, the laws favored members of the white majority — and many still argue that minorities (and the poor) get a bum rap in the courts. But the remedy for that is a firm commitment to strive for equal justice for all.

In America, no one should be permitted to post armed thugs at the polls to intimidate voters.

This testimony argues strongly for remedies: Congress should fulfill its oversight role, and investigate this matter in hearings (with testimony under oath). Meanwhile, President Obama should order the Justice Department to pursue justice impartially, and to cooperate with independent investigations. If it can be determined that these two lawyers are telling the truth, those responsible must pay the price for violating the rights of Americans under the Constitution.