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S. HRG. 111–1102 

OVERSIGHT OF THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF 

JUSTICE, CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

APRIL 20, 2010 

Serial No. J–111–85 

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 

( 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman 

HERB KOHL, Wisconsin 

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California 

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin 

CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York 

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota 

EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware 

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania 

AL FRANKEN, Minnesota 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah 

CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa 

JON KYL, Arizona 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

JOHN CORNYN, Texas 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

BRUCE A. COHEN, Chief Counsel and Staff Director 

MATTHEW S. MINER, Republican Chief Counsel 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS 

Page 

Cardin, Hon. Benjamin L., a U.S. Senator from the State of Maryland ............. 1 

prepared statement .......................................................................................... 32 

Leahy, Hon. Patrick J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont, prepared 

statement .............................................................................................................. 35 

Sessions, Hon. Jeff, a U.S. Senator from the State of Alabama .......................... 2 

WITNESSES 

Perez, Thomas E., Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, U.S. 

Department of Justice ......................................................................................... 4 

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 

Responses of Thomas E. Perez to questions submitted by Senator Durbin ....... 26 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

Perez, Thomas E., Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, U.S. 

Department of Justice, statement ...................................................................... 36 

(1) 

OVERSIGHT OF THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF 

JUSTICE, CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION 

TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2010 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, Washington, D.C. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in room 

SD–226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin, 

presiding. 

Present: Senators Cardin, Franken, and Sessions. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, A U.S. 

SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MARYLAND 

Senator CARDIN. The Judiciary Committee will come to order. Today’s hearing will be an oversight hearing for the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. I want to thank Chairman 

Leahy for giving me the opportunity to chair today’s hearing. It is 

always a pleasure to have my fellow Marylander with us, Tom 

Perez, who heads up the Civil Rights Division. 

Before we get started, I just want to acknowledge—this hearing 

deals with the Civil Rights Division. It is, I think, appropriate to 

acknowledge the great loss of one of our great civil rights leaders, 

Dorothy Height, who passed away. She was the long-time Chairwoman of the National Council of Negro Women. She was a strong 

fighter for equal justice based on gender and race, and her leadership was critically important during the civil rights movement with 

her insistence for racial justice and gender equality. 

The saying that I think I will always remember about Dorothy 

Height was, ‘‘If times aren’t ripe, you have to ripen the times.’’ And 

I think that her legacy will stick with us as we meet the current 

challenges for equality in America. 

For more than 50 years, the Civil Rights Division has been 

charged with protecting all Americans against discrimination 

throughout our society. The Division is our Nation’s moral compass. As Senator Ted Kennedy said, civil rights is ‘‘the unfinished 

business’’ of the Nation, and there is much work to be done. 

Whether it is in discrimination in employment, education, housing, voting, personal liberties, or hate crimes, the Civil Rights Division must take action and not stand on the sidelines against those 

who violate our laws. 

The Civil Rights Division has a proud tradition of fighting to enforce anti-discrimination laws in the areas of voting rights, civil 

rights, housing, elections, employment, and hate crimes. However, 

during the last administration, the Division had an alarming lack 

2 

of civil rights enforcement and a multitude of politicization, so 

much so that their own Office of Professional Responsibility and 

the Office of Inspector General began independent investigations of 

the political appointees at the Department of Justice. 

Year after year, more evidence of corruption and lack of enforcement came to the surface. Between 2001 and 2006, the Voting Section failed to file any cases on behalf of African-American voters. 

During the same time period, there was one case, just one case, 

filed for minority vote dilution. In 2008, in the height of the economic downturn and housing collapse, the Division played no role 

in holding lenders accountable for discrimination. Disability lawsuits declined almost 50 percent under the last administration. 

Only ten hate crimes were prosecuted, the lowest number of hate 

crime cases brought in more than a decade. And, by the way, there 

is evidence that there was a rise in hate crime activity during that 

same period. 

There is a lot to be done in the Civil Rights Division to restore 

its role in protecting civil rights. When President Obama nominated Tom Perez to be Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, 

I was confident that he would restore the morale in the Division 

because he came from the Division. Tom Perez served for 10 years 

beginning as a trial attorney in the Criminal Section. Through the 

years, he moved up the ladder, first as trial attorney and eventually as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. 

So he knew the importance of setting aside political and ideological affiliations when hiring new attorneys. Tom Perez knew from 

firsthand experience the need to ensure protection and legal recourse for those who have been discriminated against. For all these 

reasons, as well as leadership from Attorney General Holder and 

President Obama, I was confident that in Tom Perez’s hands the 

Division would return to its roots of providing a voice for the voiceless and help to our most vulnerable citizens because he knew 

what civil rights attorneys should do. 

The administration has taken action, and I look forward to hearing about what the Civil Rights Division is doing under your new 

leadership. Specifically, what types and how many cases have been 

initiated, filed, and brought within the Housing and Civil Enforcement Sections, the Fair Housing Section, the Criminal Section, the 

Voting Section, the Employment Section, and the Disability Section. That is the purpose for today’s hearing. We look forward to 

a dialog with the Division chief and carrying out our responsibility 

to oversight the Civil Rights Division. 

With that, let me turn to Senator Sessions. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF SESSIONS, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

THE STATE OF ALABAMA 

Senator SESSIONS. Thank you, Senator Cardin, and thank you for 

recognizing Dorothy Height. I got to know her on a number of occasions, and what a delightful, wonderful lady she was and what a 

history she has in advocating for civil rights in America. 

This Division is important. Properly exercised, it provides tremendous benefit to American citizens, and I think that the Chairman is right to recognize that politics is inappropriate in the DeVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:40 Nov 15, 2011 Jkt 070961 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\70961.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
3 

partment and politics can be evident from both sides of the aisle, 

certainly, and we need to be concerned. 

One of the purposes, I do believe, of this hearing is to make sure 

that the Civil Rights Division is exercising its authority to shield 

and protect individuals from discrimination, but not as a sword to 

assert inappropriate claims that have the effect of promoting political agendas. So I cannot—you know, civil rights principles need to 

be professionally analyzed, and with regard to the housing collapse, 

there is strong evidence to indicate that pressure to make loans to 

individuals in ways that demonstrated clearly that there was no 

housing prejudice could well have resulted in an institution making 

bad loans that they really should not have made, and threats and 

pressures can cause some of that. So I think that was a part of the 

housing collapse. 

On election day in November 2008, members of the New Black 

Panther Party intimidated voters at a precinct in Philadelphia, 

with one member wielding a nightstick. The activity was described 

by prominent civil rights activists as ‘‘the most blatant form of 

voter intimidation’’ that he had seen even during the voting rights 

crisis in Mississippi where he had worked a half-century before. 

Despite this characterization and direct evidence of guilt that appeared on behalf of the New Black Panther Party members, the 

Department of Justice decided not to fully pursue every avenue to 

ensure that guilty parties did not disenfranchise other voters in the 

future. In fact, one of the intimidators recently worked at another 

voting precinct recently. 

So the United States Commission on Civil Rights—the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has many of the same goals as the Civil 

Rights Division—are concerned about this matter, and a majority 

of the Commissioners are not satisfied that the Department of Justice has fully pursued every avenue of behalf of the voters to make 

sure that these actions do not strike again in Philadelphia or elsewhere. 

But instead of coordinating with the Commission, the Justice Department has put up a steel barrier and attempted to thwart every 

effort the Commission has raised about this case. This does not 

bode well for an administration that has promised to be open and 

transparent, it seems to me. So I am concerned that this new culture might be producing some harmful results. 

For the last several months, my office and I am sure others have 

gotten a lot of telephone calls and messages about the abuses of 

ACORN. This is an organization that Congress voted to de-fund because of voting practices that have proven to be corrupt, yet it is 

reported that in March of 2009, this administration discontinued a 

criminal investigation into two voter fraud complaints. In 2008, at 

least two individuals filed complaints against ACORN and produced documents demonstrating that ACORN representatives were 

registering underage individuals and individuals in the country illegally, not eligible to vote. The FBI and the Department of Justice 

opened investigations for fraudulent voter registration card submissions. This administration apparently has let ACORN off the hook, 

saying that no laws were violated even though it was stated by the 

Department ‘‘questionable hiring and training practices’’ occurred. 

Does that mean that they made errors and moved forward with acVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:40 Nov 15, 2011 Jkt 070961 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\70961.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
4 

tivities that were illegal? And shouldn’t more be done about it than 

that? 

In Kinston, North Carolina, the voters there decided they wanted 

to do away with party affiliations in local elections—that is, city 

elections—where many have that. Kinston is a majority AfricanAmerican community. According to an article in the Washington 

Times and other articles, this administration overruled the voters 

in Kinston because partisan elections, you apparently concluded, 

were needed so that African-American voters could elect their ‘‘candidates of choice.’’ 

Well, I agree with the assessment of Abigail Thernstrom, a member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, in regards to 

this case. She said the following: ‘‘The Voting Rights Act is supposed to protect against situations when black voters are locked out 

because of racism. There is no entitlement to elect a candidate they 

prefer on the assumption that all black voters prefer Democratic 

candidates.’’ 

So I know that we have heard a lot of rhetoric about the Division 

being back open for business and the voting booth once again being 

protected, but I am concerned about some of these actions and 

whether or not the administration has any plans to enforce Section 

8 of the motor-voter bill of the Voting Rights Act, which required 

dead and duplicate voters to be removed from the rolls. 

I am concerned about some of the disparate impact cases, especially in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Ricci, which we had 

so much discussion about during the Sotomayor confirmations. 

So, Mr. Chairman, I would note that after this financial crisis, 

lawsuit—the administration is planning, I understand, to file disparate impact lawsuits against financial institutions because of 

practices that do not appear to be discriminatory, but might have 

disproportionate results. The New York Times reported that the 

DOJ ‘‘is beginning a major campaign against banks and mortgage 

brokers suspected of discriminating against minority applicants in 

lending.’’ Some critics have contended that the Government rules 

punishing banks—pushing banks to lend to minority and low-income borrowers contributed to the financial meltdown. The campaign could rekindle that debate. So we will need to understand 

with clarity just how you intend to approach that idea because it 

is one thing to make sure that people are not discriminated 

against. It is another to pressure banks to make loans that are not 

sound. That is not good for the borrowers, and it is not good for 

the country. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator CARDIN. Thank you, Senator Sessions. 

We will now hear from the Assistant Attorney General, the head 

of the Civil Rights Division, Tom Perez. 

STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS E. PEREZ, ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION, U.S. DEPARTMENT 

OF JUSTICE 

Mr. PEREZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is an honor to be here, 

as always, in front of my home Senator and a champion of civil 

rights not only in Maryland but across America. So it is always 

great to be here in front of someone who, parenthetically, has one 

5 

of the remarkable wives in America as well. Please give my regards 

to Myrna. 

Senator CARDIN. I am glad you put that in the record. 

Mr. PEREZ. Yes, absolutely. And, Senator Sessions, I have always 

had great respect for you and appreciate the respect you accorded 

me dating back to 1989, when I was in Mobile, Alabama, prosecuting Danny Miller in a case that you supported 100 percent of 

the way. So it is always a pleasure to be here in front of you as 

well. And I appreciate both of your acknowledging Dr. Height. It 

has been a sad week or so for the civil rights movement in the 

aftermath of Benjamin Hooks and now Dr. Height, who, when the 

Equal Pay Act—today is Equal Pay Day, and when the Equal Pay 

Act was signed in 1963 by President Kennedy, who was standing 

next to him? Dorothy Height, a real civil rights icon. So thank you 

for the opportunity to be here today to testify. 

Senator SESSIONS. Thank you for being in Birmingham. 

Mr. PEREZ. I had three wonderful days in Birmingham, as I told 

Senator Sessions, at the Civil Rights Institute, at the Sixteenth 

Street Church meeting with civil rights leaders. I met an old colleague of mine that I had prosecuted a case with in Alabama in 

1991 when I was a career civil servant under Dick Thornburgh, 

and it was great to reacquaint. And I had one of the best meals 

I have ever had, Senator, in Birmingham that evening. Good 

vittles, as we say in the business. 

Senator SESSIONS. And I would just say how proud I am of Birmingham for its principled and sincere effort to confront its past 

where racial discrimination was far too prevalent, and much of it 

was very, very destructive and damaging to that whole city. But it 

has confronted its past in an honest and forthright way. I think 

other cities can learn from what Birmingham has done. 

Mr. PEREZ. I look forward to bringing my children there, and I 

look forward to bringing my children to the museum in Greensboro 

that I had the privilege of participating in the grand opening of, 

so two remarkable tributes to our Nation’s history. 

It really is a pleasure to be here. The Attorney General has 

called our Division the ‘‘Crown Jewel of the Department of Justice.’’ 

The President singled out the Civil Rights Division in his State of 

the Union. You have been very supportive of our budget requests, 

and we are very, very grateful because that has enabled us to step 

up our enforcement efforts in a number of ways. 

My first priority upon confirmation was to take immediate steps 

to restore trust between career staff and political leadership, to restore public confidence, and to de-politicize decisionmaking. We 

worked quickly to return principled responsibility for hiring experienced career attorneys to the career securities themselves. Our new 

written hiring policies for career personnel are now on our website. 

Our honors hiring process, which had been taken away from career 

people in the prior administration, is now back in the hands of career people, and we hired a bumper crop of 16 new raw graduates 

who will be starting this summer and this fall. 

We have also made it a lot easier for lawyers in the Division to 

do their jobs by eliminating a wide range of needless bureaucratic 

obstacles that were standing in the way of doing their job. We have 

restored communication between career and non-career staff, and 

6 

as a former—I will always consider myself a career attorney because I spent 10 of the best years of my life in that Division. So, 

for instance, before we make decisions on Section 5 cases, I now 

want to hear from all the career attorneys and the analysts what 

their opinions were. The policy was changed in the prior administration so that they were not allowed to offer that viewpoint. We 

may not always agree on the final outcome, but every voice will indeed be heard. 

We are encouraging our lawyers, rather than forbidding them, to 

conduct aggressive outreach to key stakeholders in communities 

across this country. We have stepped up enforcement across the 

board, and we are focusing enforcement not simply on quantity but 

on quality of cases filed and maximizing the number of people that 

we can help. And I have given you a detailed analysis of some of 

the cases, and I wanted to give you a few highlights. 

In the wake of the national housing crisis, the enforcement of 

fair housing and fair lending protections are among our most—our 

top priorities. Working with the President’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, we have established a dedicated Fair Lending Unit and hired a Special Counsel for Fair Lending. We currently have 39 open matters in the Fair Lending Unit. Last month, 

we announced a landmark settlement with two subsidiaries of AIG 

to resolve allegations of discrimination against African-American 

borrowers by brokers with whom these subsidiaries had contracted. 

The borrowers were being subjected—the African-American borrowers were being subjected to excessive fees, and we have sent a 

clear signal in this settlement to lenders that they must take steps 

to ensure that brokers with whom they partner are not engaged in 

discrimination. Twenty-five hundred African-American borrowers 

who were subjected to unnecessarily excessive fees will receive relief in the context of this settlement. 

In the fair housing case in Southern California, we reached the 

largest settlement ever in a case involving rental discrimination. 

Meanwhile, as President Obama said in the State of the Union, 

we are once again working to combat all forms of employment discrimination. We have reinvigorated our pattern and practice enforcement program, and as a result, the Employment Litigation 

Section has more than a dozen active pattern-and-practice investigations. 

In a significant case against the New York Fire Department for 

hiring discrimination, the trial judge granted summary judgment 

to the United States, and this was after the Ricci decision, and he 

explicitly discussed how the Ricci decision did not apply to the particular facts of this case. And, in fact, he found so much evidence 

of difficulty and discrimination historically in the fire department 

that he ruled that the evidence constituted evidence of intentional 

discrimination, not simply disparate impact. 

We have also ramped up our enforcement of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, or USERRA. 

Since the new administration began, we have filed 19 USERRA 

lawsuits compared with 16 that were filed during the previous 3 

years combined. 

In addition, just last week, we closed an investigation of the 

State of Oregon regarding a law dating back to 1923 that banned 

7 

public school teachers from wearing religious clothing, and we 

worked heavily on that case because we felt that it was discriminatory. And the Governor signed a bill repealing the law, and we 

were able to settle the case. 

In the education context, you need look no further than the front 

page of today’s Washington Post to see the work that we are doing 

in that section. And, regrettably, and very troublingly, we continue 

to see a need to combat the resegregation of schools to ensure that 

all students have equal access to quality education. The Walthall, 

Mississippi, school district case is a case that is an outgrowth of 

a 1970 court desegregation order. The district in recent years, 

through a transfer policy, created what many local members of the 

community called a ‘‘white’’ school and a ‘‘black’’ school. And what 

happened was through this transfer policy, the segregation of the 

schools was furthered again. And to make matters worse, in the 

predominantly African-American school, classrooms were then 

being segregated by race so that the remaining non-minority students in the ‘‘black’’ school were being segregated by classroom. 

This was wrong. This was illegal. We attempted to settle the case 

with the school district. They rejected the settlement, and we were 

forced to go to court, and the court ordered the relief that is noted 

in today’s Washington Post. 

I wish I could say that was the only case of this nature. In Monroe County, Louisiana, we had a case involving a school district, 87 

percent African American. They have two high schools. One is 100 

percent African American; one is 57 percent African American, 43 

percent white. In the school district that has 100 percent AfricanAmerican students, there were no AP classes offered and five gifted 

and talented or honors courses. In the other school that was 43 

percent white, there were 70 such courses offered. This is not fair, 

this is not legal, and we reached a settlement to correct this. Regrettably, we continue to see that our education docket is ripe and 

continuing our work. 

In our criminal enforcement, the prosecution of hate crimes remains a top priority, and we are working to implement the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 

2009, training lawyers, law enforcement officers, State and local 

across the country. In the meantime, we have seen an increase in 

the number of hate crime cases that we have brought. Late last 

year, we announced the indictment of five individuals, including 

three police officers, on charges related to the fatal racially motivated beating of a Latino immigrant in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, 

and the subsequent cover-up of the incident by three members of 

the police department. A very, very troubling incident. I have great 

respect for law enforcement officers and the work that they do, but 

when they cross the line, they must be held accountable for their 

actions. 

In addition to Shenandoah, we have a number of cases pending 

involving the New Orleans Police Department. In one case involving police-involved fatal shootings following Hurricane Katrina, 

four officers have pleaded guilty in the investigation into this and 

the other incidence is ongoing. At the most recent plea hearing, the 

district judge said the following, after our attorney read the underlying facts into the record supporting the plea agreement: 

8 

‘‘I do not think you can listen to that account without being 

sickened by the raw brutality of the shooting and the craven lawlessness of the cover-up. We will continue our work in New 

Orleans.’’ 

On the voting front, we are actively preparing for the upcoming 

round of redistricting. The Voting Section has received the largest 

complement of new resources so that we will be prepared for redistricting. We are continuing the critical work of protecting the rights 

of language minorities to access the ballot while stepping up our 

enforcement of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the National 

Voter Registration Act. We are preparing guidance on Section 7 

and Section 8 of motor-voter so that States and others understand 

their obligations in that area. The section has an initiative underway to ensure compliance with critical provisions of motor-voter, 

requiring that eligible voters be able to register at State social 

service agencies. Already under this initiative, we have begun inquiries of six States, and we will expand those inquiries elsewhere. 

In March, we won a favorable ruling, a summary judgment motion, 

in a case against the State of New York to ensure voter registration opportunities required by motor-voter are available at offices 

serving college students with disabilities and State-funded institutions of higher education. 

We also have a robust disability rights practice. We are feverishly working on the ADA regulation as we prepare for the 20th 

anniversary of the ADA. We have dramatically stepped up efforts 

to prevent the unnecessary institutionalization of people with disabilities, including significant cases in Georgia, New York, Arkansas, and elsewhere, and to ensure that the conditions in the facilities are safe. 

My memory banks are seared with the nightmare of a 14-yearold girl with mental health issues who was in an institution in 

Georgia. She did not need to be there, but she was there. She had 

treatment for her condition, and one of the side effects from that 

treatment was constipation. She was in so much pain, but the condition—the people did not treat her. She literally exploded—or I 

should say imploded, and died in that institution. These are real 

people suffering real problems, some of the most vulnerable people 

in our community, and I cannot sleep at night when I think about 

things like that that are happening in institutions across this country. And we will continue to work on those efforts to make sure 

that institutions are safe and that only people who should be there 

are there. 

In short, the Civil Rights Division is again open for business, and 

we are indeed using all of the tools in our law enforcement arsenal, 

including litigation, education, outreach, and numerous forms of 

technical assistance. We have forged new partnerships with State 

and local law enforcement. I met with local law enforcement in Birmingham when I was out there to discuss issues of mutual interest, including our hate crimes enforcement, human trafficking, and 

other issues of church arsons, et cetera. And we have numerous 

partnerships with our Federal partners. We have made a lot of 

progress, but as you correctly point out, Senator, as Senator Kennedy said, civil rights remains ‘‘the unfinished business’’ of America. I wish I could be that Maytag repairman waiting for the phone 

9 

to ring, but, regrettably, we continue to be the Toyota mechanic, 

and I am here to answer any questions you may have, and I look 

forward to your questioning. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Perez appears as a submission 

for the record.] 

Senator CARDIN. Well, thank you for energy and your passion on 

these issues. I share your concern about what we can do to help, 

and it is frustrating that we cannot move faster to provide the opportunities for all the people in this country. 

I also very much acknowledge the great results in recruitment. 

That is a clear sign that the right climate has returned to the Civil 

Rights Division, and we have heard and you have told us about the 

regular meetings between the career attorneys and the political appointments so that you have a seamless system taking the best advice from the career attorneys. And we very much appreciate that, 

and we applaud your efforts in that regard. 

I also appreciate that you started with fair lending because I 

think in these economic times fair lending is an area that we really 

need to put a spotlight on. 

I agree with Senator Sessions that we do not want to put a climate out there that causes institutions to do things that are irresponsible. That is not our intention, and I agree with Senator Sessions. But I think we can learn from history. You go back to before 

World War II, where we had housing programs in this country that 

were administered by FHA, and the color coding was adopted in 

redlining which had at least tried to be justified based upon economic realities, when what it did was hold down a class of people. 

And the net result was that wealth accumulation, which many 

times was based upon the ability to own a home and get the equity 

of that home, was denied to the minority population in our country. 

Statistics showed that by 1980 when the GI bill’s mortgages matured, the net worth of white families was close to $40,000, whereas compared to black households it was a little over $3,000. 

That has its own rippling effect as we look at trying to develop 

businesses. The first source of capital that you look at is the wealth 

that has been accumulated within your own community, and if you 

do not have wealth accumulations, it holds down business growth, 

it holds down our whole economy. And the same type of issues 

could be mentioned in a lot of other areas. 

Predatory lending occurred in this recent crisis. There were black 

families in Maryland that were targeted in minority communities 

that could have gotten traditional loans, but instead were steered 

by brokers into a more expensive type of financing and ultimately 

found themselves in a situation that they could not get out of. So 

I just really want to applaud you for focusing on the lending issue, 

setting up a separate unit, because the lending discrimination in 

this country is having a profound effect not just on the mortgage 

for homes, but also as it relates to businesses and education, et 

cetera. 

So I just really want to encourage you to continue, and I want 

to give you a little bit more time just to talk about what you are 

doing about the predatory lending practices to make sure that all 

communities in our country have equal access to credit. 

10 

Mr. PEREZ. Sure. Thank you for that question, Senator, and 

thank you for your longstanding support of these efforts to curb 

predatory lending. 

As you know, I had the good privilege of serving as Governor 

O’Malley’s point person on foreclosure prevention, and I met with 

many families who were days and in some cases hours away from 

losing their home. I learned a lot about this issue in the course of 

traveling across our great State of Maryland, and first and foremost, I think what I learned most is that consumer protection and 

preserving a sound lending climate go hand in hand. We sometimes 

live in an unnecessarily binary universe where we say you either 

do one or the other. We can and must do both. And when we 

passed the series of reforms in Maryland that were very aggressive, 

we passed them with the absolute support of the mortgage bankers, the mortgage brokers. They actually gave me an award for the 

work that we did. And they understood that when you do not have 

sound consumer protections, then that can undermine the system, 

writ large. 

And so the work that we are doing really builds off that because 

the data is very clear. The foreclosure crisis has touched virtually 

every community in this country, but it disproportionately touches 

communities of color, in particular African-Americans and Latinos. 

Thirty percent of the foreclosure activity in the State of Maryland 

was in Prince George’s County, a predominantly African-American 

suburb in the State of Maryland. 

And so we have seen that, and we have seen in the AIG case that 

the brokers understood that they could take advantage of AfricanAmerican borrowers because—cross burning are the most overt 

form of discrimination and bigotry. Lending discrimination is some 

of the most subtle. It is what I call discrimination with a smile. 

Many people are just happy to be in a home. They do not realize 

that that 8-percent interest rate they were just quoted was far 

worse than the terms that they were otherwise eligible. And so oftentimes we see that discrimination with a smile in the work that 

we do, whether it is the AIG case, whether it is the other work that 

we are doing. 

And so I truly believe that the work that we are doing on the 

President’s Financial Fraud Task Force, the partnerships we have 

underway—I will be with the Attorney General of Illinois tomorrow. I recently met with the Attorney General of Tennessee to talk 

about potential joint efforts. Those sorts of partnerships are critical 

because we have seen, regrettably, that this issue has a very, very 

strong civil rights dimension and calls for us to use the tools in our 

arsenal, notably the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, and that is precisely what we are doing. 

Senator CARDIN. You talk about partnership with the States. I 

want to focus on the implementation of the Matthew Shepard and 

James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act. You noted in your 

opening comments about cases that have been filed by your Division. That bill was passed for two purposes: one, to make it clear 

that the Federal Government would be available to deal with those 

types of activities, but also to enhance the partnership between the 

Federal Government and the local governments. 

11 

Could you just share with us what your Division is doing with 

the local prosecutors to enhance their capacity to deal with this 

issue? 

Mr. PEREZ. That is a great question. I was in Birmingham, as I 

said, the week before last with a number of key stakeholders, and 

we had a very robust 2-hour session with local law enforcement, 

because I do not measure success of the Matthew Shepard Act by 

the number of Federal prosecutions that are brought. I measure 

success by the number of cases that we can bring. I have always 

asked the question in every case I have done, What is in the best 

interest of the case? And many of these cases—church arsons, for 

instance—it was in the best interest of the case, once you solved 

it, to give it to the local authorities because they could prosecute 

it perhaps faster. Some hate crimes cases are easier to give to the 

local authorities. 

Laramie, Wyoming, almost went bankrupt in the prosecution of 

Matthew Shepard because it was a small community. The average 

DA’s office in the United States I believe has something like nine 

employees. They are small. We are now a resource for local law enforcement, and that is why I am traveling the country to deliver 

that message and to work with colleagues, Federal law enforcement, local law enforcement, nonprofit partners, to train. Because 

people ask me, what are your first impressions on the job, Mr. 

Chairman, and one of my first impressions is the more things 

change, the more they stay the same. 

Today in South Carolina, there is going to be a sentencing in a 

hate crimes case, father and son team. An African-American goes 

into a store to use the facilities. They are appalled by the fact that 

an African-American is going into the store. They assault him. 

They pull out a chain saw from their car, and they ignite the chain 

saw and attack him with a chain saw. Yes, a chain saw, I kid you 

not. Two white people come to the defense of this person. They attack that person as well. And we were able to secure a plea the 

day after the jury was empaneled. 

And so we see this cancer of the soul, which I thought was behind us, continues to rear its ugly head, and, frankly, as you correctly pointed out, Senator, in your opening statement, hate crimes 

are on the rise. And that is why this bill is a critical tool in our 

law enforcement arsenal, and we look forward to empowering both 

Federal and local law enforcement to do the work that needs to be 

done to combat hate crimes. 

Senator CARDIN. Senator Sessions mentioned during his opening 

statement concerns about intimidation at the polling places, and I 

agree with him. Any type of intimidation should be dealt with. 

A couple years ago, some of my Republican colleagues raised the 

issue of access to voting by our military, and, quite frankly, I 

agreed with their concerns, and we took action jointly to make sure 

that our military gets adequate time in order to be able to participate in local elections. 

I mention that specifically because there could be a problem with 

those States that have late primaries as to how we can comply with 

those time limits. And we need to figure out how we can make sure 

that our military are fully empowered, all voters are fully empowered during the 2010 elections. 

12 

I want to, of course, remind the Committee about the type of innovative deception that seems to come about every election, how we 

will see mysterious letters appear in minority communities telling 

them that the election day will be Wednesday rather than Tuesday 

or that if you have outstanding parking tickets, you better not 

show up at the polling place because you will be arrested and 

things like that; aimed at a segment of voters who are likely to be 

intimidated by that type of material. 

I think we all condemn that, and we have taken steps to try to 

prevent that at the State level. But to me, this should be a national 

priority, to make sure that it is clear that we have the capacity of 

the Federal Government to support our States to make it abundantly obvious that if people participate in these types of activities, 

they will be held accountable and that it should have no place in 

American elections. 

What are you doing in preparation for the 2010 elections? 

Mr. PEREZ. I completely agree with everything you have said, 

and we are working hard to make sure that we implement the 

MOVE Act, that we ensure that overseas military voters can vote 

in the upcoming primary, so that is a front-burner item simply because we have to get—we have primaries, as you have said, coming 

up. 

I share your concern about voter intimidation in any way, shape, 

or form. I still have a copy of the literature from Prince George’s 

County in 2006 that I suspect you also have in a file somewhere, 

and that was—— 

Senator CARDIN. I keep it closer by than in a file. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator CARDIN. A constant reminder. 

Mr. PEREZ. Yes. So I have seen those things, and we will continue to be very vigilant in the prosecution of all forms of voter intimidation. 

As you know, we share that responsibility with the Criminal Division, and we coordinate very closely with the Criminal Division. 

We have jurisdiction over intimidation that has a civil rights dimension, and they have jurisdiction over actually a broader array 

of statutes relating to intimidation. But we communicate very well 

together, and we will continue to ensure that that is a top priority. 

Senator CARDIN. My request is that if you believe you need 

stronger tools, please let us know. As you know, when President 

Obama was in the Senate, he authored a bill that I cosponsored 

that dealt with this subject, and the Committee approved it. If you 

believe that you do not have adequate or broad enough powers, 

please let us know. 

Mr. PEREZ. I certainly will. 

Senator CARDIN. Senator Sessions. 

Mr. PEREZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Good morning, sir. 

Senator SESSIONS. Mr. Perez, I like your enthusiasm, I like your 

experience, and I like the idea that I think I hear you say, that you 

worked closely with your prosecutors and are involved in the cases 

yourself, and that, therefore, you are responsible to answer and 

make decisions that set good policy for the Department. 

13 

You know, I am a strong believer that many people are discriminated against and are unfairly handled with regard to big items 

like homes and end up paying a lot more interest, and they may 

not have realized, as you said, just how significant that is, how 

every month they may be paying another $50, $60, $100 that they 

do not have, really, that could be avoided. 

So I think these are good, and I have spent a lot of time having 

meetings over my State with housing people to make sure our African-American community particularly took advantage of the housing opportunities the Federal Government had provided, the HOPE 

bill and other things, and I believe strongly in that. But I was— 

I guess I could be criticized for being unaware that perhaps they 

were making loans to some people who could not afford them or 

that the backgrounds were not being done sufficiently to make good 

loans. It does not help a poor person to encourage them to make 

a loan that they cannot reasonably be expected to pay back. 

So it is a difficult issue, but I certainly appreciate your work 

against the redlining and things that were clearly discriminatory, 

and some of those things still remain discriminatory today. 

You have been a critic of politicizing the Department, and I think 

you should take care to make sure that you do not. It was reported 

in the media that a political appointee in your Division assembled 

an entire Voting Section for a brown-bag lunch in November of 

2009 and announced that the Obama administration had ‘‘no interest’’ in enforcing Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act 

or the motor-voter law. Section 8 vests the Attorney General with 

power to ensure that States are complying with Section 8 and removing dead and duplicate voters from the rolls. If you have an excessive number of names on the rolls that are of people who are 

deceased or who have moved away, it is much easier to slip in and 

have someone vote in that person’s name. It creates a risk. 

The political appointee reportedly said Section 8 ‘‘has nothing to 

do with increasing turnout of minority voters,’’ says ‘‘so there is no 

interest in enforcing that law.’’ Have you heard that? 

Mr. PEREZ. I have not, actually, Senator, and what is interesting 

about that is we are actually right in the middle of preparing guidance because we cannot simply—I am a firm believer that the way 

to ensure full enforcement of our laws is through some litigation 

activity but technical assistance and other guidance. And so we are 

actually in the middle of preparing guidance on Section 7 of motorvoter, Section 8, Section 5, because we want to make sure that—— 

Senator SESSIONS. Well, I am talking about Section 8. 

Mr. PEREZ. Right, and—— 

Senator SESSIONS. Section 8—— 

Mr. PEREZ. Absolutely. 

Senator SESSIONS. Did this employee make such a statement and 

somebody reported it in the media? 

Mr. PEREZ. I am unaware of that, Senator. I am unaware of that. 

Senator SESSIONS. Would you check and see? 

Mr. PEREZ. I certainly will, and I—— 

Senator SESSIONS. That is against your view, is that correct? 

Mr. PEREZ. I will share with you our Section 8 guidance when 

it is released, and I anticipate it will be released in the near future, 

14 

because as I have said many times, our job is to enforce the law, 

all of the laws, and we will indeed enforce Section 7—— 

Senator SESSIONS. Well, let me ask you—— 

Mr. PEREZ [continuing].—And Section 8. 

Senator SESSIONS [continuing].—A lot here. I just want to ask a 

question. 

Mr. PEREZ. Sure. 

Senator SESSIONS. Do you think that it is inappropriate if this 

individual—I believe it is supposed to be Julie Fernandez—had 

said that the Obama administration ‘‘had no interest in enforcing 

Section 8? ’’ 

Mr. PEREZ. I am quite confident, Senator, that given the conversations I have had with Julie, because she is preparing the 

guidance and helping to prepare the guidance, I am quite confident 

that you are going to see an aggressive statement of what States 

can do and what States should not do in the voter-purging context 

of Section 8. So I think our actions will speak for themselves. 

Senator SESSIONS. Has your administration brought any lawsuits 

to ensure that these rolls remove the dead and duplicate voters? 

Mr. PEREZ. The guidance that we are trying to bring right now 

is intended to prevent problems from occurring, because we have 

heard situations where there have been improper purging of voter 

rolls so that people who can—— 

Senator SESSIONS. Oh, so you are concerned about improper 

purging. I have seen that happen from the Department of Justice 

quite a lot. Why would you—do you have any proof that these people have actually removed people improperly or with—— 

Mr. PEREZ. No, sir. The way I have approached this is, whether 

it is Section 4, Section 5, Section 7, Section 8, we need to have 

transparent guidance for State authorities to make sure that they 

know what the rules of engagement are. So we are treating Section 

8 enforcement exactly how we are treating every other section, 

which is to make sure we have transparent guidance, that we get 

feedback from States when we put the guidance out so that they 

will understand what the rules of engagement are. And, again, I 

will be glad to share with you that guidance when it comes in— 

when it is released. 

Senator SESSIONS. If you are finished—— 

Mr. PEREZ. Yes, sir. 

Senator SESSIONS [continuing].—I would like to follow up and 

just—— 

Mr. PEREZ. Sure. 

Senator SESSIONS [continuing].—Remind you that this Congress 

as part of the legislation insisted that rolls be cleaned up. I know 

the Civil—you understand that? 

Mr. PEREZ. Yes, sir, and we are committed to the enforcement of 

that. 

Senator SESSIONS. I am aware, having been familiar with the Department of Justice for the last 20 years, that the Department of 

Justice has had more emphasis on trying to block efforts to remove 

from the roll dead and duplicate names, it seems to me, than they 

have in enforcing this section. So my question to you is: Will you 

take action to ensure that communities who have large numbers of 

15 

people on the rolls that should not be there remove those from the 

rolls? 

Mr. PEREZ. We will make sure it is done properly, yes, sir. 

Senator SESSIONS. And you will enforce Section 8? 

Mr. PEREZ. Yes, sir. 

Senator SESSIONS. You have repeatedly given speeches proclaiming the Civil Rights Division is back open for business or that 

the voting booth is once again being protected. Yet in the 15 

months since the Inauguration, the Voting Rights Section, according to information I have, has brought only four cases in that time 

period and dismissed another—and that is against the Black Panther Party—for voter intimidation, that infamous case. Three of 

those four cases were initiated during the Bush administration: in 

Texas, a Spanish language ballot Section 203 enforcement; Lake 

Park, Florida, vote dilution; Riverside, California, Spanish language ballots enforcement. 

Now, I do not think it is fair to say the previous administration 

shut down civil rights enforcement, and I reject that. I believe that 

is an overstatement, and I believe it is in danger of politicizing 

your office, frankly. 

Now, what about the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee 

Voting Act cases? The Civil Rights Division I guess now will be implementing the new provisions of the recently passed MOVE Act, 

which was intended to secure voting for over 25 percent of military 

overseas voters who were unable to cast a ballot in 2008. Certainly, 

we should take every effort to make sure that those who are serving us abroad have an opportunity to vote and do not lose their 

vote because they have been deployed. 

So, first, does your Voting Section have any attorneys with military experience and are their experiences being used in the implementation of the MOVE Act? And I understand that the Voting 

Section has only four attorneys that are participating in monitoring 

this and in compliance with it. And as you noted, I understand you 

will be hiring a lot of attorneys on redistricting in the future, but 

do you have enough attorneys in this section to enforce these laws? 

Mr. PEREZ. Absolutely. I am very confident in our complement of 

people working on the MOVE Act, working to enforce that. We 

have just got a very good verdict—I think it was in Virginia—in an 

UOCAVA case. We have aggressively enforced that, and we will 

continue to do so. And I appreciate the leadership of Senator Schumer and others in the passage of the MOVE Act. As you know, that 

was a bipartisan bill, and we will fully and aggressively enforce it, 

and I look forward to doing so. 

Senator SESSIONS. Well, an election is coming up in November—— 

Mr. PEREZ. Absolutely. 

Senator SESSIONS [continuing].—And we do not want to have another election with 25 percent of our military—— 

Mr. PEREZ. I agree with you, Senator. 

Senator SESSIONS [continuing].—Folks are not able to vote. 

On this new Black Panther Party case dismissal, you told the 

House Judiciary Committee when you testified that the maximum 

penalty was sought in that case. But the question was: Was it obtained? Could you compare the remedy sought in the original comVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:40 Nov 15, 2011 Jkt 070961 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\HEARINGS\70961.TXT SJUD1 PsN: CMORC
16 

plaint with the remedy actually obtained in the injunction? Isn’t it 

true that the complaint sought a permanent injunction against all 

four defendants and the ultimate injunction was only for a few 

years and against just one defendant? What is your—— 

Mr. PEREZ. Sure. 

Senator SESSIONS [continuing].—Analysis of that? 

Mr. PEREZ. I would like to start out—you indicated in your opening statement that we had erected a steel barrier, and I simply 

want to point out for the record, Senator, that we have provided 

over 4,000 pages of documents to the Civil Rights Commission in 

response to their requests. In addition, I have offered to come to 

the Commission, and I will, in fact, be coming over there in a few 

weeks to testify on that. So with all due respect, Senator, I would 

not call that a steel barrier. 

With respect to your question about—— 

Senator SESSIONS. What about the people who make the decisions in the case—— 

Mr. PEREZ. Well, Senator, as—— 

Senator SESSIONS [continuing].—Who were involved in it and had 

discussions with other members of the Department and political 

appointees above them who did not agree with the dismissal of the 

case in this fashion? Are you going to allow them to testify? 

Mr. PEREZ. Actually, the two career people who were in the front 

office and made the decision, people with over 60 years of experience, actually came to the Hill and briefed Congressman Wolf at 

his request, and so they did come to the Hill. 

As you know in connection with your service as U.S. Attorney, 

there is a longstanding Department position that was applied in 

Republican and Democratic administrations that front-line trial attorneys are not brought before committees because we want to 

make sure that they have the ability to make their decisions and 

not be looking over their shoulder wondering whether they will be 

called to testify. So—— 

Senator SESSIONS. Well, it may be unusual—it may be something 

I am not fully comfortable with, the powers we give to quasi-independent agencies. But the Civil Rights Commission has the right 

to issue subpoenas, and they have issued a subpoena to the Department of Justice to have employees testify about this case. To my 

knowledge, you have either not responded or are not—or have 

not—or maybe opposed it. What is your view—— 

Mr. PEREZ. We did respond, Senator, and, in fact, the 2(e) regulations that have been in place I think since the mid-1950s apply in 

this situation as well. And as part of our response, again, we have 

offered and submitted over 4,000 pages of documents. 

I will note parenthetically that you are getting those as well, and 

in the application of the 2(e) regulations, we have directed—and 

the Civil Division handles all these requests of this nature, and 

they inform people that the front-line trial attorneys are not going 

to be produced because they are—— 

Senator SESSIONS. Are you asserting that—you are asserting that 

you do not have to comply with subpoenas from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights? 

Mr. PEREZ. We are applying the 2(e) regulations in a way—— 

Senator SESSIONS. What is the 2(e) regulation? 

17 

Mr. PEREZ. The 2(e) regulation pertains to a Supreme Court case 

that involves—when front-line trial attorneys are subpoenaed to 

talk about case-related decisions that they made, there is a certain 

process that must be followed, and to the extent that there are 

questions that a body—whether it is this Committee or a Civil 

Rights Commission—is seeking to ask about the deliberative process, there is a privilege that has been asserted by Democratic and 

Republican administrations for decades, and that is the privilege 

that is being asserted again here. And that is why I have offered 

to come up, and they have accepted that offer. 

Senator SESSIONS. You had certain attorneys come and provide 

information to the Congress, but not certain attorneys, my understanding is, that were involved in the handling of this case. Am I 

right about that? 

Mr. PEREZ. The Acting Assistant Attorney General for Civil 

Rights and the Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil 

Rights came up. The front-line trial attorneys did not, as is the 

case in Republican and Democratic administrations for decades. I 

know when I served in the Thornburgh Department of Justice, that 

was the policy then, and it has been pretty consistent in my experience. 

Senator SESSIONS. Well, I think that is a good policy, generally, 

but the question is: What about the United States Commission on 

Civil Rights? They are set up to ensure that civil rights are enforced, and they have been given subpoena powers, and apparently 

they would like to talk to the people who actually tried the case. 

And I understand your testimony to be that the Department of Justice is resisting allowing those people to respond to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. 

Mr. PEREZ. The authority of the Civil Rights Commission, as I 

understand it, does not exceed the authority of the U.S. Senate. 

And so we have spent considerable time attempting to work with 

the Commission. That is why we have provided the 4,000 pages of 

documents. That is why I have offered to come up. 

I have great respect for the institution of the Civil Rights Commission, and that is one reason why I am more than willing to 

come up and explain why we reached the decision that we reached. 

But as you know, Senator, that is why we have political leadership 

in place, to come up and explain those things, and we are treating 

the Civil Rights Commission with great respect. We applied the 

same 2(e) principles to them that we would apply to any request 

that we would get from this Commission. 

Senator SESSIONS. But there still remain concerns about how 

that case was handled, and I do not think they are going to be resolved unless the people actually involved in it are allowed to testify or to give evidence, and that is just the way it is going to be, 

I suppose. 

When we dealt with the hate crimes legislation, I think the FBI 

statistics showed actually a slight decline in hate crime cases. Have 

they gone up in recent months? Or what numbers are you basing—— 

Mr. PEREZ. Well, if you look at the—hate crimes against Latinos, 

for instance, have gone up I think 4 years in a row. We now have 

18 

seen a significant—we have a threats case that we have indicted 

in New Jersey. 

Senator SESSIONS. Where do you get the numbers—— 

Mr. PEREZ. The hate crime—the FBI data, and then also the 

Southern Poverty Law Center has data targeting and tracking hate 

crimes. And as you know, we all acknowledge that the hate—— 

Senator SESSIONS. Does the FBI data show that there has been 

an increase? 

Mr. PEREZ. I know in the context of Latino—— 

Senator SESSIONS. Well, I am asking overall. 

Mr. PEREZ. Let me—I will get the precise figures, and I will—— 

Senator SESSIONS. My understanding of your testimony, Mr. 

Perez, was that hate crimes are up. I think you should be accurate 

if they are not up. One category could be up and needs attention, 

but—— 

Mr. PEREZ. Here is what I will do, Senator. I will get you all the 

data sources we have—the FBI, the Southern Poverty Law Center, 

the Anti-Defamation League, all of the sources that collect that 

data. I will also get you the data on the hate crimes prosecutions 

that we have done, and what you will see in the cases that have 

been brought is that there has been indeed a significant rise in the 

number of cases. 

When I was a deputy chief in the Criminal Section in 1996, we 

handled somewhere in the vicinity of about 50 cases. A decade 

later, there were about a dozen cases that were prosecuted. So 

we—— 

Senator SESSIONS. Well, I believe—— 

Mr. PEREZ [continuing].—Will get you those. 

Senator SESSIONS [continuing].—Both the police and the Federal 

Government is doing a more aggressive job of prosecuting and identifying these cases. I would hope and pray that the amount of hate 

crimes is down and not up. My understanding is that the FBI numbers do not show that. I assume they are the most authoritative, 

but I could be wrong, and I will look at that. Thank you very much, 

and I appreciate this. 

Mr. Chairman, I do have a very important Armed Services Committee meeting. I will have to slip out. 

Senator CARDIN. We certainly understand. That is why we allowed you as much time—— 

Senator SESSIONS. You allowed me to go over. 

Senator CARDIN [continuing].—As you needed. 

Senator SESSIONS. I appreciate it. 

Mr. PEREZ. Thank you, Senator, for coming, and when I get you 

the data on Section 8, I will also get you the information on the 

current Section 8 case that we actually have going on, and I will 

make sure you know about that. 

Senator SESSIONS. Thank you. 

Mr. PEREZ. Thank you for your time. 

Senator CARDIN. I just would point out that the Southern Poverty Law Center has supplied information to this Committee that 

shows an increase in hate crime activities. We would also point out 

that many local jurisdictions do not provide the FBI with information. 

19 

I have tried to work with members of the Judiciary Committee 

to increase the information made available to the FBI so that we 

have more reliable information on hate crime activities and have 

met resistance from my Republican colleagues on this Committee 

to get that information to the FBI. 

And let me also point out that in conversations that I have had 

with local law enforcement officials and with local advocacy groups, 

there is no question that there has been an alarming increase in 

hate crime activities in this country, something that I think has 

been not only well documented but acknowledged as far as the 

problems being confronted by law enforcement around this country. 

Senator Franken. 

Senator FRANKEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize. I was 

in the HELP Committee hearing, so I just got here when the Ranking Member was—I assume I have 16 minutes? 

[Laughter.] 

Senator FRANKEN. No. I am joking. I know he had to leave. 

Mr. Perez, last month your Division settled a case called J.L. v. 

Mohawk Central School District. You mentioned the case in your 

written testimony and probably in your oral testimony. It involved 

a 14-year-old student from upstate New York. The student, J.L., is 

gay. Because he was gay, his classmates destroyed his clothes, his 

phone, his music player. One student knocked J.L. down a flight 

of stairs. Another brought a knife to school and threatened to kill 

him. When J.L. and his parents complained to school officials, the 

school principal just told him that, ‘‘Boys will be boys.’’ You supported J.L.’s lawsuit against his school and helped broker a settlement. 

Unfortunately, this case is hardly unique. A similar case came up 

in my State. The fact is discrimination and harassment are a fact 

of life for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students across 

the country, yet there is no explicit protection in Federal law that 

bars discrimination and harassment against LGBT students in 

public schools. 

What do you think of this? Do we need an explicit ban against 

discrimination in public schools based on sexual orientation or gender identity? 

Mr. PEREZ. Thank you for your question, Senator. I was in Seattle about 3 weeks ago, and I went to a middle school as part of 

an anti-bullying campaign, and I told the students the following: 

Today’s bullies are tomorrow’s civil rights defendants all too frequently, and I know that because I have prosecuted high school 

students for horrific acts of hate crimes. And so I am a firm believer that we need to start earlier on in our prevention efforts, and 

I am very proud of the work we did in the Mohawk County case 

because until we intervened in that case, the case was languishing. 

And the Federal Government can make a difference. 

I have a 13-, an 11-, and a 7-year-old, and when they go to 

school, I have every right to know and believe that they are going 

to be safe in school. And we used Title IX theory—it is a theory 

of gender nonconformity—and we were able to bring the case under 

Title IX. It is not the first time we have brought a case involving 

similar circumstances using a Title IX theory. We did another one 

when I was in my first tour of duty in the Clinton administration 

20 

working with the Education Section, and we will continue to monitor those. 

I would be happy to work with you on the underlying issue of 

ensuring that everybody going to school can have the reality of a 

learning environment that is nurturing, non-discriminatory, and 

non-threatening. 

Senator FRANKEN. Don’t we have explicit laws against bullying 

people on race and on—— 

Mr. PEREZ. Well, depending on the facts—— 

Senator FRANKEN [continuing].—Religion and—— 

Mr. PEREZ. I mean, depending on the facts and circumstances of 

the case, there may be local or State laws or potentially our Federal civil rights laws. And, again, we have had cases before involving racially motivated violence committed by school-aged kids. Oftentimes, it has been arsons of schools, arsons of churches, pretty 

significant assaults. 

Senator FRANKEN. I am talking about bullying. Right now Title 

IX covers sex discrimination. 

Mr. PEREZ. Correct. 

Senator FRANKEN. But while some circuits have interpreted that 

to include discrimination on the basis of sex stereotypes—— 

Mr. PEREZ. Correct. 

Senator FRANKEN [continuing].—Not one circuit has found that 

to include discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. 

Mr. PEREZ. That is correct. Our theory was a theory of gender 

nonconformity, which is a form of sex discrimination. It was not a 

theory of discrimination based on the fact that somebody is gay. 

Senator FRANKEN. OK. Well, I would like to work with you on 

this and—— 

Mr. PEREZ. I would be happy to. 

Senator FRANKEN [continuing].—Explicit protections for folks on 

lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender for kids who are—it is a 

very real thing that there is this bullying in school. 

Let us turn to a couple other matters. As you know, the U.S. 

Commission on Civil Rights was founded by President Eisenhower 

to promote civil rights. That may sound self-evident, but let me list 

some of the recent actions by the Commission and Commission 

members. They include: one, testifying against the reauthorization 

of the Voting Rights Act; two, opposing by a majority the Matthew 

Shepard Hate Crimes Act; and, three, issuing a report questioning 

the academic and social benefits of school diversity. That is the 

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights doing that. 

I know you do not have the authority or jurisdiction over the 

Commission, but as the Nation’s chief law enforcement officer for 

civil rights, can you tell me, you know, what is happening here? I 

would also love to hear you talk about the Voting Rights Act as reauthorized and the Hate Crimes Act. Are those pieces of legislation 

central to your mission? 

Mr. PEREZ. Absolutely central to our mission, and we have—in 

the voting context, we are feverishly preparing for redistricting. 

Senator Sessions mentioned some voting cases, but I look forward 

to giving him the full panoply of voting cases that we are working 

on, including a Section 8 case, a Section 2 case in Euclid, Ohio; a 

victory recently in a New York State NVRA case; another case in 

21 

Shannon County, South Dakota, which is Indian country, making 

sure that people with limited English proficiency in Indian country 

can access the ballot. So I am very proud of the work we have done, 

and I look forward to ensuring that Senator Sessions has a full list 

of the cases that we are actually working on in the Obama administration. 

I also have great respect for the Civil Rights Commission. I had 

the privilege during the transition, Senator, of overseeing the 

Obama transition of all the agencies that have a robust civil rights 

presence, large agencies such as Department of Justice, HHS, 

HUD; smaller agencies, the EEOC and the Civil Rights Commission. And I actually got a history lesson on the history of the Civil 

Rights Commission and the creation. Civil rights has always been 

bipartisan in our country. I learned that from Senator Kennedy. 

And you look at all the major pieces of civil rights legislation, and 

they have been a function of bipartisan work. I look forward to the 

20th anniversary of the ADA this summer, a bill signed by George 

Herbert Walker Bush. 

And so I have profound respect for the tradition and the history 

of the Civil Rights Commission, and that is why when they asked 

me to come over recently to talk about the work on the New Black 

Panther Party case, I said, ‘‘Of course I will come over.’’ And I will 

be over there in a few weeks to discuss our actions there, and I 

hope that we can reach a point where we can return to our bipartisan roots, because really civil rights is about bipartisan coalition 

building. That is what I have learned from the movement, and as 

I study the history of the movement, that is what it is, and that 

is what I hope it will return to. 

Senator FRANKEN. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator CARDIN. I would just remind the Senator he went 16 seconds over his allotted time. 

Senator FRANKEN. I guess I am not the Ranking Member. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. PEREZ. That was my fault, Senator. 

Senator CARDIN. Well, let me first say to Mr. Perez that you are 

being very diplomatic on the Civil Rights Commission, and I understand your position as testifying before us. I think Senator Franken 

is absolutely correct in the manner in which he has presented that. 

I understand the tradition of the Civil Rights Commission, but it 

is an important institution, and it is one that should be in the forefront of advocacy for the civil rights of all Americans. And looking 

at its recent actions, it calls into question whether it is carrying out 

its intended responsibility. 

Now, that is our responsibility as the Congress to oversee that 

Commission, and it is an issue of great concern to me and I know 

this Committee, and I thank Senator Franken for the manner in 

which he presented his question. I just underscore the point that 

in the New Black Panther Party case, it was career attorneys that 

made those judgments, as it should have been. And I applaud you 

for trying to, again, keep this out of the political arena, and I wish 

you well in your appearance before the Commission. 

Mr. PEREZ. Thank you. 

Senator CARDIN. We will be watching that carefully. 

22 

I want to go back to Senator Sessions’ points on the enforcement 

of Section 8. Let me just make an observation, if I might. I certainly agree with Senator Sessions. Anyone who should be taken 

off the rolls—someone who has died should be off the rolls. If someone has moved, they should be taken off. The rolls should be accurate. I certainly agree with that. But I can tell you, after every 

election I get more complaints about people who were eligible to 

vote and who were inappropriately taken off of a roll and showed 

up and had to file either a provisional ballot or the election officials 

did not know how to handle a provisional ballot, or whatever, or 

they were harassed to such a point that they just left because of 

the time problems that they have in voting. 

I do check with our local law enforcement to see how many matters—because after every election there are always these accusations that people fraudulently voted. And then we take a look at 

it, and we do not find it. And there have been a lot of studies done, 

and the number of people who are fraudulently voting is minuscule 

compared to those who are eligible to vote, who try to vote, who 

either cannot vote or their votes do not get counted properly. 

Now, I am for Senator Sessions’ point. I want all of our laws enforced. Do not get me wrong. But I would hope that we would try 

to be empowering people to vote who are eligible to vote and spending our resources to do that and not try to spend a lot of effort with 

a problem that really does not exist or exists in such a minor way 

that we should be very surgical as to how we go about it. I think 

I share—there are many who share my view on that, and I did not 

want Senator Sessions’ comments to go without being responded to. 

Mr. PEREZ. Senator, when you asked me a fair lending question, 

I said that, you know, consumer protection and preserving a sound 

lending climate go hand in hand. There is a tendency to create this 

unhealthy binary world where you either do one or the other when 

you should be doing both. 

Similarly, we can combat voter fraud and we can ensure access, 

full access to the ballot. Those are not mutually exclusive propositions, and that is exactly what we are doing. There is a right way 

and a wrong way to enforce Section 8 of motor-voter, and we are 

preparing guidance so that States do it the right way. Similarly, we 

are preparing guidance so that States enforce Section 7 because, 

frankly, we have received numerous reports about motor vehicle 

agencies, social service agencies that are not doing their job of providing those materials. And so we need to be vigilant across the 

board. 

Senator CARDIN. Well, thank you. I certainly support that. I want 

to ask one additional question. Then Senator Franken would like 

a second round, and we have time for it. 

I want to deal with the Olmstead case in dealing with people 

with disabilities. It was an expansion by the Supreme Court of the 

interpretation of Title II of the ADA, and it appears that we are 

making, I think, some significant progress on behalf of people with 

disabilities. Georgia’s Department of Human Resources could not 

segregate two women with mental disabilities in the State psychiatric hospital long after the agency’s own treatment professionals had recommended their transfer to community care. 

23 

Can you just share with us what the priority in your Department 

is in regards to the expansion of the rights of people with disabilities? 

Mr. PEREZ. We have an active docket of cases, and this is a situation that occurs in almost every State in the United States. And 

the old paradigm of looking at people who were in institutions was: 

Is the institution safe? Are the conditions constitutional? That is an 

important question. But that is the second question that should be 

asked. The first question that should be asked is: Are there people 

in this institution who should not be there, who can and want to 

live in the communities with the appropriate supports? 

So in every case we are now doing, we are asking the two questions, and I get some pushback from time to time from States saying it is too expensive. Well, with all due respect, it is too expensive 

to warehouse people in institutions. The average cost oftentimes is 

over $200,000 per person when you could live humanely and far 

more inexpensively in community-based settings. 

So we have a case in New York where we intervened, a major 

case where we got a very good ruling from the court. We have the 

Georgia case itself where I personally went down and sat with the 

Governor. I did that because 10 years after the Olmstead case, 

there was scant evidence of progress, and so we had to file another 

lawsuit in order to move forward there. 

The good news is that we have been negotiating in good faith 

with the State, and we are also doing similar negotiations elsewhere, and I am confident that we can build a new paradigm so 

that people with disabilities who want to live in community-based 

settings can do so, because just as the segregation of people by race 

in the schools is unconstitutional and immoral, the segregation of 

people—the unnecessary segregation of people with disabilities in 

institutions is equally illegal and must be stemmed. 

Senator CARDIN. Thank you. 

Senator Franken. 

Senator FRANKEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Perez, part of your job is enforcing the Freedom of Access to 

Clinic Entrances Act, which prohibits—I am sorry, which protects 

Americans’ access to reproductive service providers. I know that 

Attorney General Holder asked the U.S. Marshals Service to help 

safeguard reproductive health providers and facilities around the 

country after Dr. George Tiller’s murder last year. 

How are you working with the U.S. Marshals Service to ensure 

ongoing protection for these providers? And are you and Attorney 

General Holder still recommending increased protection, or do you 

believe that the need was temporary? 

Mr. PEREZ. I do not believe—we conduct regular threat assessments. We are actively—we have an active docket. The last thing 

I worked on before I left the Clinton administration was the murder of Dr. Slepian in Buffalo, New York, 3 miles from where I grew 

up. The first thing I got briefed on when I arrived back 11 years 

later as AAG for Civil Rights was a briefing on the murder in Kansas. So the more things change, the more they stay the same. And 

this threat is an ongoing threat, and we take those seriously. We 

are constantly assessing, reassessing, working not only with our 

partners at the Marshals Service but with other law enforcement 

24 

partners. We were actively monitoring the Kansas prosecution. I 

cannot comment in any detail, but that investigation remains ongoing. 

We will continue to fully exercise our civil authority as well. We 

had a case last year in New Mexico involving an arson of a clinic 

that came to a successful prosecution. These cases are among our 

highest priorities. 

Senator FRANKEN. Thank you. I know that the Department of 

Justice has helped enforce the Help America Vote Act and has 

worked with polling places to ensure accessibility for individuals 

with disabilities. But although most polling places now have accessible voting machines, the GAO recently found that half of ‘‘accessible voting machines’’ may pose problems to many with disabilities, such as those who are in wheelchairs. 

Mr. PEREZ. Right. 

Senator FRANKEN. What actions has the Civil Rights Division 

taken to address this problem? 

Mr. PEREZ. I am familiar with that report, and we are actively 

working jurisdiction by jurisdiction. Because of the volume of precincts—and I know in my own State of Maryland, we had a number 

of precincts that had accessibility issues, and so we are feverishly 

working to make sure not simply that the facilities are physically 

accessible, but then working issues involving some people with vision impairments. We have read more about that or heard more 

about that recently. But that is certainly a broad part of our overall 

agenda of ensuring that everybody who is eligible to vote can do 

so. 

Senator FRANKEN. Thank you. I think that is so important, and 

thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I had known I had had two rounds, 

I would not have come down so hard on the Ranking Member, who 

had an important Armed Services Chairman hearing. And I apologize for that. That was uncalled for. 

Mr. PEREZ. Mr. Chairman, if I could, I just wanted—my staff 

handed me something that I just wanted to make sure was in the 

record relating to the FBI hate crimes reports. According to the information I received, the most recent FBI hate crimes report documents the highest level of hate crimes since 2001. So the number 

reported in 2008 was 7,783, which was up from 7,624 in 2007, and 

so that is the highest level since 2001. And I will be certain to 

share this information with Senator Sessions, but I just wanted to 

make sure the record was complete regarding what the data shows. 

I can tell you from our own enforcement experience, as I said at 

the outset, the phone is ringing off the hook, and the cases are 

more and more brutal, and we have got a lot of father-son teams— 

one in Indiana, one in South Carolina. They are passing down their 

hatred to their children, and it really is remarkable. We just sentenced a person for threatening the President last week in Arkansas. We have a case pending involving threats against the heads 

of the National Council of La Raza, MALDEF, and others. And 

when this person was pending trial, he threatened the pre-trial 

services officer in his case, and he has now been detained. 

So there are a lot of dangerous people out there who want to divide this country along racial, ethnic, and other lines. 

25 

Senator CARDIN. Well, that is unfortunately consistent with the 

information that I think each of us has observed in our own communities, and it is clearly a circumstance that we need to take aggressive action, and we thank you for the manner in which you are 

proceeding in this regard. 

I do really send an open invitation to all my colleagues on this 

Committee. If we can get more reliable information to the FBI from 

local officials on these types of activities, I think it would be useful. 

And I did author legislation to deal with the homeless to try to get 

the information so we can act on what is a significant problem, violence against people who are homeless. And I did that not to initiate new policy, but to find out what the facts are so that we can 

try to develop the right policies to protect all people in our community. And it was not received in a way that we could proceed in this 

Committee. And if there is an interest by the Republicans to try 

to have the FBI have more reliable information in this area, I can 

assure you that I am very happy to work with any of my Republican colleagues so that we can have effective information to work 

on. 

Absent that, we do have the FBI information that shows a rise 

in hate crime activities. We do have the local information from our 

local law enforcement, and we also have the Southern Law Poverty 

Center, which has produced a great deal of information in this regard—all confirming that there has been an alarming increase in 

hate crime-type activities in this country. We thank you for moving 

forward aggressively in this area, and I appreciate very much your 

testimony. 

Mr. PEREZ. Thank you for your time, and thank you for your interest. 

Senator CARDIN. If there is nothing further, the Committee will 

stand adjourned. The record will stay open for 7 days. 

[Whereupon, at 11:30 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

[Questions and answers and submissions for the record follow.] 

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