Bush's civil rights appointees
On the heels of Bush’s address to the NAACP last week, Charlie Savage wrote for the Boston Globe about new hiring practices at the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. The Bush administration is “filling the permanent ranks with lawyers who have strong conservative credentials but little experience in civil rights:
The documents show that only 42 percent of the lawyers hired since 2003, after the administration changed the rules to give political appointees more influence in the hiring process, have civil rights experience. In the two years before the change, 77 percent of those who were hired had civil rights backgrounds.[…]
in the fall of 2002, then-attorney general John Ashcroft changed the procedures. The Civil Rights Division disbanded the hiring committees made up of veteran career lawyers. […] Hing is closely overseen by Bush administration political appointees to Justice, effectively turning hundreds of career jobs into politically appointed positions.
Thanks to MyDD for the tip.)