Power

Obama Administration Names Key Civil Rights Nominee, But Still No Replacement for Holder

Vanita Gupta, who will lead the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, has been widely praised for her civil rights record. But progress on civil rights will also depend on who replaces Attorney General Eric Holder.

Vanita Gupta, who will lead the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, has been widely praised for her civil rights record. But progress on civil rights will also depend on who replaces Attorney General Eric Holder. Visions of America / Shutterstock.com

Read more of our articles on Attorney General Eric Holder’s potential successor here.

The Obama administration has announced a nominee for a key empty post in the Department of Justice, but it still won’t name a nominee to replace the department’s head, outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder.

Holder said Wednesday that Vanita Gupta, currently the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) Center for Justice, will lead the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

The division oversees voting rights, as well as civil rights investigations like the one Holder recently opened into the Ferguson Police Department over one of its officers shooting unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown.

Gupta has been praised across the political spectrum for her work on criminal and racial justice, including by conservative leaders like Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform and David Keene of the National Rifle Association.

“Vanita Gupta’s impressive advocacy of racial justice and criminal justice has had tangible results, positively changing the lives of many Americans,” ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero said in a statement. Romero called Gupta an “outstanding attorney” and a “proven and well-respected leader.”

Caroline Fredrickson, president of the American Constitution Society and a former colleague of Gupta’s, told Rewire that, in a personal capacity, she thinks Gupta would be a “terrific” choice for the Justice Department post.

“She has done so much on racial justice issues, and I think it’s a moment now where that’s such an important focus for the Justice Department,” Fredrickson said.

Much of that focus is due to Holder’s legacy, Frederickson said; he’s been a leader in highlighting America’s problems with racial injustice, overly harsh sentencing, and the excessive war on drugs.

Holder’s work with indigent defendants, she said, has “defied the normal role” of the attorney general: “He has really raised up the issue of how the role of the Department of Justice is to seek justice, rather than to seek prosecution.”

Despite the short period of time left to confirm Holder’s replacement before Democrats potentially lose control of the Senate, the Obama administration confirmed Tuesday that the president will not name a new nominee before the midterm elections.

White House officials said the decision came at the request of Senate Democrats, who pressed Obama to wait so that the nomination wouldn’t get bogged down in campaign politics. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) had urged the president to act quickly.

A senior Democratic leadership aide told Rewire that some on the Hill have been frustrated with how the administration has handled the rollout, and that Obama should have named a nominee much sooner.

“They waited so long that it became detrimental to our candidates if they rolled someone out in the last few days before the election,” the aide said.

Obama has also faced criticism for delaying action on immigration reform until after the election to avoid making political waves.

If the nomination takes place during the lame duck session, where Democrats could push it through with a simple majority, time will be of the essence since Republicans could delay the process by up to four weeks using procedural tactics. The lame duck session only lasts until the end of the year.

It will already be a packed session with numerous competing priorities, including the long-delayed nomination of Vivek Murthy as surgeon general during an Ebola crisis. The position has been vacant for more than a year, and Murthy’s nomination has been stalled because of the National Rifle Association’s strident opposition to his support for modest gun safety measures.

The delay in nominating a candidate for attorney general is a major shift from a Friday report by the New York Times that the administration would probably make a decision before the election, and that current Secretary of Labor Tom Perez was the frontrunner.

Now reports are highlighting former White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler and Solicitor General Donald Verrilli as frontrunners, though Perez is still a possibility.

A former staffer for the mayor of Seattle told Rewire that Perez, who used to run the department Gupta will take over, would be an excellent choice from the standpoint of civil rights and police accountability.

When the Department of Justice investigated the Seattle Police Department for use of excessive force, the staffer said, Perez was an attentive, professional partner who helped get stalled negotiations moved again. Once that happened, “they came to a very speedy resolution, and put together a very good consent decree that pretty much everyone agrees will provide lasting reform for the police department in Seattle.”

Some Republicans think the delay is a signal that Perez, who faced a contentious confirmation hearing for Secretary of Labor and whose record on civil rights could work against him with the GOP, will in fact be the nominee.

Ruemmler was one of several female candidates whose name was floated, and a longtime friend of Holder’s suggested that the nominee would be a woman. She is rumored to be a favorite of Obama’s but could face tough questioning over her probe into the Secret Service’s 2012 prostitution scandal.

Ruemmler was also named specifically by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) as someone he would support, although Cornyn, like many Republicans, has pushed to stall the nomination process until the new Congress is in session.

Verrilli famously argued in favor of the Affordable Care Act before the Supreme Court, which upheld the individual mandate and most of the rest of the law as constitutional.

All three potential nominees, Fredrickson said, are “very accomplished lawyers who seem like they would be able to credibly be able to step into Eric Holder’s shoes and carry on the important work that he has done.”