And some folks are troubled that a race-neutral guarantee is being enforced in a race-neutral way.

Over the years, Ike Brown has earned a reputation in rural Noxubee County as a wily political boss, and his election triumphs have time and again aroused suspicions of impropriety. But talk of his tactics never carried much farther than this small community of sawmills and catfish ponds.

Today, though, Brown, who is African American, is scheduled to go on trial in federal court in Jackson, where he will face charges from the Justice Department that he violated the political rights of Noxubee's white minority. It is the first time that the 1965 Voting Rights Act has been used to ensure white rights.

About two-thirds of the 8,700 adults in Noxubee County are black, and Brown, the local Democratic committee chief, has been criticized for urging people to "vote black" while engaging in an array of electoral shenanigans.

At issue is whether Brown, 52, has directed "relentless voting-related racial discrimination" against white voters and white candidates through fraudulent election tactics, as federal lawyers say, or whether he was merely operating aggressive political campaigns in a milieu that has long been split along racial lines.

What are some of the actions that Brown is accused of?

In a 1999 Democratic primary for sheriff, for example, the margin of victory for Brown's preferred candidate was only five votes. A judge ruled that a new election should be held because 52 ballots, most of them from absentees, were found to be invalid.

Brown, as chairman of the Democratic Executive Committee in the county, did not fulfill the judge's order, telling the local paper, the Macon Beacon, that someone would have to file a lawsuit to compel him to do so. No one did.

In 2003, Brown recruited a black lawyer to run against the incumbent white county prosecutor, according to the government's court filings, even though the white lawyer is a Democrat and the black lawyer was ineligible to run in Noxubee because he lived in Jackson. Brown refused to hear the complaints of the prosecutor and dropped the campaign only after a judge ruled against him.

The same year, Brown delivered to the Macon Beacon a list of 170 or so white Republican voters whom he said he would challenge if they tried to vote in the Democratic primary. Critics say he singled out white voters, but Brown indicated that he was only trying to keep Republicans from voting.

Now tell me that any fair minded individual would have a single objection to prosecuting such actions under the VRA if this man were white and his victims black. Clearly the same standard needs to apply here -- if this country is truly about applying equal protection of the laws in voting rights cases, without regards for the race of the perpetrator of the violations or the victims.

And wonder -- is there a single liberal out there willing to make a denunciation of the "vote black" rhetoric as they would about a GOP official urging folks to "vote white"?

Posted by: Greg at 11:09 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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