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Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez is accepting "full responsibility" for mischaracterizations in recent years that he graduated from the University of California, Berkeley. The Los Angeles Democrat's Assembly Web site says he "attended" UC Berkeley but does not indicate whether he got a degree. In a written statement, he said he regrets not doing enough to correct accounts that he graduated. "I take full responsibility for this mistake, and I regret it," Pérez said. Robin Swanson, Perez's spokeswoman, said today that he left UC Berkeley for financial and family reasons after attending for about four years.

HARTFORD, Conn. -- Convicted former Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez is seeking more than $130,000 in unused sick and vacation time. Bart Halloran, Perez's attorney, has sent to Hartford's director of human resources asking the former mayor be paid for 1,200 hours of unused vacation and 768 of unused sick time. Perez was convicted of using a city contractor to have free work done at his home and could be going to prison. The former mayor's criminal conviction doesn't change the fact he was a city employee, said Saundra Kee Borges with the city's Corporation Counsel.

SACRAMENTO -- Assembly Speaker John Perez insisted Tuesday that closing the state's remaining $15 billion deficit with spending cuts is out of the question, and vowed to step up pressure on Republicans to relax their anti-tax stance. "Talking about an all-cuts approach is in essence an exercise in futility," the Los Angeles Democrat said at a Capitol press briefing. Perez said he will be seeking new revenues through a two-thirds vote that could be ratified by voters later -- a departure from Gov. Jerry Brown's vow to take any tax proposal to the people for a vote. "I'm not the...

The Civil Rights Division has blocked a much-needed reform of a local school board in S.C., once again showing it has no interest in protecting minority voters if they are white. The Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department has done it again. Under the supervision of scandal-plagued Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes, the Division has blocked a much-needed reform of a local school board in Fairfield County, S.C. It’s the latest example of what happens when you put a civil rights enforcement unit under a political appointee who opposes race-neutral enforcement of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). Aided...

The Department of Justice has launched a new website to rehabilitate its damaged reputation among uniformed servicemembers. Good luck, because servicemembers have figured out that this administration is not their friend, particularly in protecting their right to vote. It is an effort to put more “lipstick on the military voting pig.” If you serve in the military, don’t waste your time looking for help through the website. The DOJ doesn’t want to hear from you. The website is www.servicemembers.gov. “The Department of Justice, in partnership with other federal agencies, is committed to enforcing the federal laws that protect the...

Today, two very different stories will be heard at a hearing before Congress. Eric Eversole and Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez will both testify about the plight of military voters in the 2010 election and whether or not the Justice Department did all it could to protect them. Perez will exaggerate DOJ efforts to protect military voters, and Eric Eversole will testify truthfully about where DOJ dropped the ball in 2010.In 2010, the Department of Justice was suggesting that states mail overseas ballots to servicemembers that listed federal elections but intentionally omitted state contests. With the approach of the electoral...

WASHINGTON — As the effect of a new law protecting the rights of overseas U.S. voters is felt, those voters are reporting an easier time in requesting and receiving ballots. But a very substantial number of their ballots still went uncounted in the 2010 midterm elections, according to a private foundation. “There was definitely an indication from the voters themselves that there was improvement,” Claire M. Smith, research director for the Overseas Vote Foundation, said Thursday in explaining the group’s findings. “One voter said, ‘For the first time in 34 years, I got my ballot on time.”’ Improved procedures received...

The Holder Justice Department declares open season on big city police departments In 2000, a deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration slapped the Los Angeles Police Department with federal oversight. A 1994 law gives the Justice Department the authority to seek control of police agencies that have engaged in a “pattern or practice” of constitutional violations. Justice’s attorneys never uncovered any systemic constitutional abuses in the LAPD as required by the 1994 law, despite having commandeered hundreds of thousands of documents (and having lost 10 boxes of sensitive records). Nevertheless, for the next decade the LAPD would operate under...

MIAMI (AP) — Former Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez, whose popularity soared with his country's oil-based economy but who later faced riots, a severe economic downturn and impeachment in his homeland, has died in Miami, his family said Saturday. The 88-year-old Perez's daughter, Maria Francia Perez, said her father had died in a Miami area hospital.

The New Black Panther Party voter-intimidation case, which has rocked the Justice Department, will reach an important endpoint on November 19. At its regular business meeting tomorrow, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights will consider a draft report on its investigation of the Department’s scandalously politicized handling of the case. This case was unique in one vital aspect almost from its beginning — the existence of a visual recording of the New Black Panthers in their paramilitary, fascist-style uniforms, one holding a night stick, blocking the entrance to a polling place. That kind of direct evidence is very unusual...

Facing a federal lawsuit accusing "America's toughest sheriff" of failing to cooperate in a Justice Department investigation into allegations of discrimination in his arrest of illegal immigrants, Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Wednesday unveiled a new armed "Immigration Posse" to combat illegal immigration in Arizona.   Sheriff Arpaio, who heads the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office in Phoenix, said the new armed posse ---
which includes Hollywood actors Steven Seagal, Lou Ferrigno and Peter Lupus ---
could help his deputies enforce immigration laws in the state. But, more importantly, he said the new posse "would provide a means by which citizens could...

The Justice Department still hasn't explained its decision to drop most of its voter-intimidation case against violent Black Panthers 18 months ago. If the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights finally adopts its report on the controversy, the great lengths Justice officials have taken to avoid scrutiny will be exposed.As the draft comes up for a vote on Friday, new findings from a Judicial Watch lawsuit will further eviscerate the lame excuses Justice has offered. Even in heavily redacted form, department e-mails unearthed last week show top political appointees not just vaguely reviewing and approving the decision to drop most...

The Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) cannot shake the New Black Panther Party scandal. Every week new revelations emerge about the racism and political favoritism that are corrupting our nation’s top law enforcement agency.This week, we released to the public brand new documents from the Obama DOJ that provide further evidence that top political appointees at the DOJ were intimately involved in the decision to dismiss the voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party. And just like previous documents we’ve uncovered, this new evidence directly contradicts sworn testimony by Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil...

The Justice Department on Wednesday vowed to thwart any efforts to intimidate voters at the polls on Tuesday and to ensure that the ballots of military voters are counted, as activists on both sides of the political aisle reignite their regular election-time tango over the dangers of voter fraud versus voter suppression. Facing separate investigations in its handling of a voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party and questions over the failure of absentee ballots to be sent to military personnel and their families by the legally required date, the Justice Department moved to assure voters that they will...

Complete title: Top DOJ Official Describes Recent Controversy As "He Said, She Said," Insists Actions Speak Louder Than WordsThe head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division on Wednesday strongly disputed accusations by a department colleague that the Obama administration avoids prosecuting minorities in civil rights cases, saying it all amounts to a "'he said, she said' thing" and that he "tends to judge people by their actions," not their words. It's the first time Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez has weighed in since Justice Department lawyer Christopher Coates accused Perez's office of being "hostile" toward "race-neutral enforcement" of voting...

Full article here.  Some parts (Washington Post portions indented): As to the administration’s mindset: Civil rights officials from the Bush administration have said that enforcement should be race-neutral. But some officials from the Obama administration, which took office vowing to reinvigorate civil rights enforcement, thought the agency should focus primarily on cases filed on behalf of minorities.“The Voting Rights Act was passed because people like Bull Connor were hitting people like John Lewis, not the other way around,” said one Justice Department official not authorized to speak publicly, referring to the white Alabama police commissioner who cracked down on civil...

Poor James Cole.  At least he won't have to take a pay cut anytime soon.  Cole doesn't get his DAG job, but what of the people responsible for it? The whirlwind cometh to DOJ regarding the failure to protect military voters in 2010.  The soon to be Chairmen strike. Letter from Congress. One of many zingers:  "What we find most troubling about this situation is that the Department of Justice, which has the sole and exclusive authority to enforce UOCAVA, not only failed to ensure compliance but apparently was not even aware when widespread noncompliance occurred." The letter also states a private...

When George W. Bush appointees at the Justice Department used political considerations in hiring career employees, official Washington exploded in outrage. Yet we hear barely a peep of protest now as the Obama Justice Department does the same thing for liberal ends.On Friday, Thomas E. Perez, chief of the Civil Rights Division at Justice, announced 16 hires and promotions for "career" - as opposed to "political" - slots. An apolitical hiring process would have included a few random attorneys somewhere to the right of the late Ted Kennedy - but not here.Among the new hires are: Sharyn Tejani comes...

Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez has an obligation to clean house at the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. That's clear after explosive new whistle-blower testimony under oath Friday in the New Black Panther Party voter-intimidation case, which triggers a pledge Mr. Perez made under oath on May 14. Failure to fire some officials and to radically revamp practices in the Civil Rights Division would represent clear dereliction of duty by Mr. Perez.Friday's testimony to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights came from much-decorated Justice Department veteran Christopher Coates, a hero of the civil rights legal community when he...

Click here or on the image below to read Mr. Coates’ testimony: