Langbein explains how the Department of Justice enforces the Violence Against Women Act (8:42).
The upcoming change of administrations provides a unique opportunity for reform across all aspects of the executive branch. For the American Constitution Society (ACS), a review of law and justice policies are of special concern.
“The one overarching theme over the past eight has been a view that legal policy doesn’t differ from other sorts of policy, that the Justice Department is no different than any other cabinet agency, and there is no distinction between just law and politics,” said Ronald Klain, former Chief of Staff for Al Gore during a panel discussion on the responsibilities for the next administration.
According to the ACS, the Bush administration has damaged legal policy across a variety of departments.
Former Attorney General John Ashcroft altered the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department’s hiring program to give career members less influence than political appointees in approving applicants. William Yeomans, Chief Counsel to Edward Kennedy, says that this was a clear effort to restructure the ranks of the department.
“Far fewer people coming in had civil rights experience. Far fewer were coming from first tier law schools. Many more had conservative organizations on their resumes and many advertised an association with the Republican party,” said Yeomans.
The Department of Homeland Security faces a number of problems as well. Upon its creation, DHS went for several months without a centralized policy staff and in attempt to make the department revenue neutral, it was severely underfunded.
“To this day the revenue neutrality point is kind of puzzling when you think about it, because these different bureaus were asked to take on a whole bunch of additional missions compared to what they were doing before,” said Stanford Law Professor and Deane F. Johnson Faculty Scholar Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar.
“The Bush administration has appointed people in the top position at agencies that adhere to the conservative credo that distrusts government. That distrusts not only the actual missons of the agencies they have been put in charge of, but the people who are there to do it,” said Former Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget Sally Katzen.
“The consequence is that some very good people have left the government. Take a look at the statistics of senior people who are leaving in droves. So if there is a new administration that has a different attitude, where are the people to do that work?”
Chief Counsel to Edward Kennedy William Yeomans says that to restructure the ranks of the Department of Justice, Former Attorney General John Ashcroft altered the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department’s hiring program to give career members less influence than political appointees in approving applicants (0:44).
Senator Feingold (D-WI), speaking at a hearing of the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights Subcommittee on “Secret Law and the Threat to Democratic and Accountable Government,” says that it is important for the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) to release its legal justifications for executive-branch programs. He says the OLC changes its justifications in response to Congressional legislation, so the Congress needs to know the OLC’s reasoning. (0:31)
John Elwood, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, Department of Justice, testifying at a hearing of the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights Subcommittee on “Secret Law and the Threat to Democratic and Accountable Government,” says that legal justifications for implemented policies are available to Congress, since operative policy is “law.” However, he says there is a confidentiality interest in the legal opinions written by the OLC while they are advising among policy choices. (0:54)
