Airing Gonzales' Dirty Laundry

Since Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' inept stonewalling before the Senate Judiciary Committee shed no light on the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, let's dig into one of the real reasons -- the Republican effort to stop voter registration campaigns in poor neighborhoods.

The assault is an early battle of the 2008 presidential campaign. Republicans are trying to limit registration of African-Americans and Latinos in a number of states that Democrats have a chance of carrying. It's not the only reason that attorneys were fired, but it is the most reprehensible.

U.S. attorneys are political appointees. When a new president and his party take power, the old are swept out for the new. But once in office, the attorneys usually work with local law enforcement and lawyers and are not often micro-managed from Washington. There have been exceptions to this. The power of local segregationists sent Kennedy administration lawyers into action to take over some law enforcement in the South during the civil rights movement.

This operation is different. The Kennedys wanted to give African-Americans rights guaranteed by the Constitution. The Bush crowd is trying to exclude African-Americans and Latinos.

One of the fired attorneys is David Iglesias of New Mexico, who was dismissed after state Republican officials complained that he wouldn't prosecute registration fraud allegations.

(The state produced another, unrelated, example of Republicans using the Justice Department to win elections. Republican Sen. Peter Domenici complained that Iglesias was too slow in prosecuting a political corruption case that would have helped the campaign of Rep. Heather Wilson, a Republican who eventually won a tight race.)

In 2004, President Bush beat Sen. John Kerry in New Mexico by just a single percentage point, 50 percent to 49 percent. In 2008, the state's five electoral votes are within Democratic grasp. Although that's not a lot of votes, the Democrats' near success in 2004 reflects the party's hopes of big gains throughout the Southwest and Rockies next year.

Another U.S. attorney firing was linked to efforts to stop a Democratic registration drive in Washington state. Kerry carried it in 2004, but a Republican came within 129 votes of the Democratic winner in last year's election for governor. U.S. Attorney John McKay, who was appointed by Bush, was dumped by Gonzales after Republican officials complained he would not investigate supposed registration fraud.

The Republicans' main target in New Mexico, Washington and other states is a progressive grass-roots group, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, ACORN. It has chapters in more than 100 cities engaged in organizing the poor for a living wage, improved housing, jobs, healthcare, better schools and child care.

What angers the Republicans are ACORN's voter registration efforts, mostly in poor African-American and Latino neighborhoods. In the last few years, it has registered about 500,000 voters in poor communities.

ACORN members tend to be tough and focused. They organize poor families ignored by the politicians, the big contributors and the reporters and pundits who dominate today's political dialogue. While political writers report on the so-called money primary -- the contribution competition among the top contenders -- ACORN is signing up voters in neighborhoods where the major candidates and journalists seldom venture.

It's the hardest kind of political organizing. The organizers -- invariably low paid -- must convince the overworked and poor to give up a portion of their limited time to activities such as staging marches, visiting city halls and state capitols and organizing registration drives.

Professor Peter Dreier, director of the Urban and Environmental Policy Program at Occidental College in Los Angeles, told me that "of all the organizations in the country that represent the poor, except for the labor unions, ACORN is the most effective." With a good political research operation and a grasp of local, state and national politics, ACORN targets its work in swing districts, "registering voters who are likely to be Democrats," Dreier said.