WHAT REALLY Do they mean ...The Republican case against Tom Perez's nomination to run Labor can't rest on the New Black Panther story alone. Those equipped with Google (or Bing!) can hear about the case, look it up, and learn that the whole shebang preceded Perez's move to DOJ.
And that's why we're hearing more about Magner v. Gallagher. It was a simple case that started a complicated game of chicken, explained well here by Lyle Denniston. Steve Magner, supervisor of St. Paul’s Department of Neighborhood Housing and Property Improvement, brought a suit against developers, based on a "disparate-impact analysis" of racial bias. Under "disparate impact," an outgrowth of the 1968 Fair Housing Act, statistical evidence can prove that bias -- there's no need to prove intent to discriminate. If the case got to the Roberts Court, most people expected "disparate impact" to be struck down, just as people now expect Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act to be struck down.
The Obama administration didn't want that to happen. Egged on by local liberals, they -- meaning Perez -- got the case dropped. That drew the attention of Rep. Darrell Issa's oversight committee, which scoured the DOJ for documents about the decision. It found no real controversy about Magner, but it did find this.
In early October, 2011, career attorneys from the Department’s Civil Fraud Section recommended that the United States join a lawsuit called Newell, brought by a private whistleblower charging that St. Paul violated the Federal FCA. The suit alleged that the City falsely certified it was using federal funds to create jobs for low income workers of all races, when in fact it was only focused on employing minorities. The memo authored by career Department attorneys characterized the City’s behavior as a “particularly egregious example” of false certifications. On October 7, 2011, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) concurred in the recommendation as did the U.S. Attorney’s office in Minnesota. ../-
WHAT REALLY Do they mean ...The Republican case against Tom Perez's nomination to run Labor can't rest on the New Black Panther story alone. Those equipped with Google (or Bing!) can hear about the case, look it up, and learn that the whole shebang preceded Perez's move to DOJ.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's why we're hearing more about Magner v. Gallagher. It was a simple case that started a complicated game of chicken, explained well here by Lyle Denniston. Steve Magner, supervisor of St. Paul’s Department of Neighborhood Housing and Property Improvement, brought a suit against developers, based on a "disparate-impact analysis" of racial bias. Under "disparate impact," an outgrowth of the 1968 Fair Housing Act, statistical evidence can prove that bias -- there's no need to prove intent to discriminate. If the case got to the Roberts Court, most people expected "disparate impact" to be struck down, just as people now expect Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act to be struck down.
The Obama administration didn't want that to happen. Egged on by local liberals, they -- meaning Perez -- got the case dropped. That drew the attention of Rep. Darrell Issa's oversight committee, which scoured the DOJ for documents about the decision. It found no real controversy about Magner, but it did find this.
In early October, 2011, career attorneys from the Department’s Civil Fraud Section recommended that the United States join a lawsuit called Newell, brought by a private whistleblower charging that St. Paul violated the Federal FCA. The suit alleged that the City falsely certified it was using federal funds to create jobs for low income workers of all races, when in fact it was only focused on employing minorities. The memo authored by career Department attorneys characterized the City’s behavior as a “particularly egregious example” of false certifications. On October 7, 2011, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) concurred in the recommendation as did the U.S. Attorney’s office in Minnesota.
../-