Sep 28, 2007 -- Legal Center Urges Sen. Nelson to Oppose von Spakovsky Nomination

September 28, 2007

The Honorable Ben Nelson

720 Hart Senate Office Building

Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Nelson:

The Campaign Legal Center strongly urges you to oppose the confirmation of Hans von Spakovsky to serve on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) when it comes to the Senate floor. We are deeply concerned by reports that you were prepared to vote to send Mr. von Spakovsky's nomination forward to the full Senate. However reporting out a nomination from the Rules Committee is a far cry from giving your support to Mr. von Spakovsky when his nomination reaches the full Senate for final and formal approval.

On your website, you tout the fact that even President Bush has said you can be counted on "to put partisanship aside to focus on what's right for America." You also state that you "grew up in small, rural McCook in Southwest Nebraska" and that you've taken your "common sense upbringing and put it to work in the U.S. Senate." We urge you now, Senator Nelson, to apply that small town Nebraska common sense upbringing and do everything in your power to ensure that this nominee does not occupy a high level appointment in our national government - particularly one overseeing our nation's election laws. Anyone genuinely interested in putting partisanship aside should vote against Mr. von Spakovsky. The record compiled in the Senate Rules Committee is overwhelming, substantiating time and again how the nominee injected inappropriate partisanship into law enforcement decisions while at the Department of Justice.

It is also particularly telling that career prosecutors who worked with Mr. von Spakovsky at the Justice Department took the extraordinary step of writing a letter to the Senate Rules Committee detailing his record of racial insensitivity, poor management, and raw partisanship. Moreover, a number of civil rights organizations that have never previously weighed in on an FEC nominee wrote to the Senate condemning Mr. von Spakovsky's nomination.

Supporting the confirmation of a person who used his Government position to advance partisan causes and to undermine the rights of those he was supposed to protect, as Mr. von Spakovsky has done, runs contrary to our national ideals of democratic representation and equal justice.

The Campaign Legal Center strongly urges you to oppose this nomination when it reaches the Senate floor.

Sincerely,

J. Gerald Hebert

Executive Director