Weigel

Let’s Reach Out to Swing Voters by Resurrecting the New Black Panther Case

U.S. Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) in 2011.

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

The nomination of Tom Perez to run the Department of Labor is functioning, so far, as a highly sophisticated bit of trolling. Louisiana Sen. David Vitter is the first to get trolled.

“Thomas Perez’s record should be met with great suspicion by my colleagues for his spotty work related to the New Black Panther case, but Louisianians most certainly should have cause for concern about this nomination,” Vitter said in a statement. 

The senator went on to cite a separate incident in which the Justice Department filed suit against Louisiana over its voter registration efforts.

The latter case, from 2011, concerns a DOJ investigation of whether Louisiana was fulfilling an obligation to offer voter registration to people showing up at welfare offices. (They’re supposed to.) Vitter had two complaints: The sting wasn’t happening in other states, and DOJ wasn’t simultaneously doing enough to enforce voter ID laws. Fair enough. Perez was running the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division at the time. But he wasn’t there during the New Black Panther case and its aftermath. The rap against him is based on his failure to say that political appointees were aware of the decision to drop the case, though non-political appointees were the ones who dropped it.

UPDATE: And comes now Rush Limbaugh:

This guy, Tom Perez, is a Hugo Chavezite who may be “the most radical left-wing cabinet member in history.” Now, J. Christian Adams’ book is Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department. He described this guy, Perez, in it. But the New Black Panther case is just one case that this guy was involved in.

He wasn’t involved with the case! This is going to take a while.