Voting rights director quits after allegations

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department’s voting rights chief stepped down Friday amid allegations that he’d used the position to aid a Republican strategy to suppress black votes.

John Tanner became the latest of about a dozen senior department officials, including former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who’ve resigned in recent months in a scandal over the politicization of the Justice Department. Tanner has been enmeshed for months in congressional investigations over his stewardship of the Voting Rights Section, a unit of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division that was established to protect minority-voting rights.

He drew increased focus this fall after he told a Latino group: “African-Americans don’t become elderly the way white people do. They die.”

In addition, the Justice Department opened an internal investigation into allegations that Tanner unfairly had deprived two veteran black staffers of bonuses and that he and a deputy had misused tax dollars on official trips.

Department spokesman Peter Carr said in a statement that Tanner, of his own accord, “made the decision to pursue (an) opportunity” to work in the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices. But his transfer to a lower-profile job appeared to continue a quiet housecleaning that began after retired judge Michael Mukasey took over as attorney general early last month with a vow to rid the agency of partisanship.

Chris Coates, a veteran lawyer in the Voting Rights Section, was named the acting chief.

The change drew a hopeful reaction from congressional Democrats.

Michigan Rep. John Con-yers, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, assailed the department for “a remarkably poor record of protecting voting rights” and expressed hope that Tanner’s successor “will mark a departure from efforts to limit the participation of elderly and minority voters.”