Justice Official Apologizes for Remarks on Minorities
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 30, 2007; 11:00 AM
The head of the Justice Department's voting section apologized today for saying that racial minorities are more likely to die before becoming elderly and therefore are not hurt as much as whites by voter identification laws.
In prepared testimony for an appearance in front of a House Judiciary subcommittee this morning, John K. Tanner said his remarks earlier this month at the National Latino Congreso in Los Angeles "do not in any way accurately reflect my career of devotion" to upholding federal voting rights laws.
"I want to apologize for the comments," Tanner said in his testimony. " . . . I understand that my explanation of the data came across in a hurtful way, which I deeply regret."
The apology follows a series of remarks by Tanner this month that have caused a political uproar and led to calls from some Democrats, including presidential hopeful Barack Obama, that Tanner resign or be fired.
Tanner, a 31-year career Justice Department employee, has previously come under fire for his stewardship at the voting section, including his approval of a controversial voter identification law for the state of Georgia and his handling of an investigation into alleged voting irregularities in Ohio during the 2004 elections.
At the Los Angeles conference earlier this month, Tanner said that voter identification laws primarily affect elderly people because they are less likely to have photo IDs, and are less likely to impact minorities who tend to die earlier.
"Our society is such that minorities don't become elderly the way white people do," Tanner said. "They die first . . . And so anything that disproportionately impacts the elderly has the opposite impact on minorities--just the math is such as that."
A few days earlier, Tanner also suggested to the Georgia NAACP that poor people are likely to have photo IDs because check-cashing businesses require them.
Tanner, who is white, also asked the group: "You think you get asked for ID more than I do? I've never heard anyone talk about driving while white."
The remarks prompted widespread criticism from Democrats, who said Tanner's analysis of demographic patterns was flawed and amateurish and indicated a lack of concern for minority rights. In a letter to acting Attorney General Peter D. Keisler, Obama wrote that Tanner "possesses neither the character nor the judgment" to keep his job.
In separate testimony to be delivered later today, a former voting section analyst says that Tanner's remarks about minority voters "are actually a fair example of his approach to truth, facts and the law."
"Broad generalizations, deliberate misuse of statistics, and casual supposition, in my experience, were preferred over the analytical rigor, impartiality and scrupulous attention to detail that had marked the work of the section prior to Tanner taking control in 2005," Toby Moore, a former Justice Department political geographer, said in his prepared testimony.
Today's hearing by the House Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties is an outgrowth of an ongoing investigation by congressional Democrats into the firings of nine U.S. attorneys and allegations that the Bush administration has overtly politicized the Justice Department.
The House session also comes as Democrats in the Senate have delayed a vote on the confirmation of attorney general nominee Michael B. Mukasey, who raised concerns among some lawmakers by refusing to say whether a type of simulated drowning amounts to torture under U.S. laws.
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