How Much Tax Money did DOJ Waste in SC Voter ID Beatdown?

Now that South Carolina has won the voter ID case against the Holder Justice Department, how big is the butcher’s bill? How many federal tax dollars did the Voting Section waste defending the unobjectionable law? This is especially tragic given the fact that the career lawyers inside the Voting Section produced a preclearance memo. This memo recommended that the law be approved administratively.

Despite the professional career recommendation, “Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez and Deputy Assistant Attorney General Matthew Colangelo then overruled the career staff and ordered that the Department of Justice object to South Carolina’s voter ID.” (Full story at PJ Media).

In other words, had Perez listened to his careeer lawyers, Justice would not have spent a king’s ransom attacking the perfectly appropriate law.

AAG Tom Perez

But spending your money allowed Perez and Eric Holder to energize the President’s base ahead of the election.  The court decision today revealed it all as political theatre at your expense.

One source tells me that civil rights groups and the DOJ paid experts at least $50,000 in their failed efforts to oppose South Carolina Voter ID. Another source estimates that the DOJ lawyers spent thousands of man hours, tens of thousands of out of pocket expenses and enormous political capital attacking the law.

Now that the DOJ case is lost, the public has a right to know how much money Perez and Colangelo wasted to push a political and ideological agenda that didn’t square with the law. Expect the FOIA requests to follow asking for ICM records, bills, travel, etc.