Trump DOJ Attacks 'Fundamental Fabric' of Democracy by Gutting Voting Rights Unit
"The upheaval and loss of experience will leave the division unable to enforce the nation's civil rights laws," said one voting rights advocate.
U.S. President Donald Trump's Justice Department has reportedly gutted the leadership of the agency's voting rights unit and ordered attorneys to drop all active cases, the latest signal that the administration is hellbent on undercutting civil rights protections and abandoning federal enforcement of key election laws.
The Guardianreported Monday that Trump appointees at the Department of Justice "have removed all of the senior civil servants working as managers in the department's Voting Section," reassigning most of them to a DOJ office that handles employee complaints.
"Political appointees have also instructed career employees to dismiss all of their active cases without meeting with them and offering a rationale—a significant break with the department's practices and norms," The Guardian added.
Angelina Clapp, campaign advocacy manager for election protection at Issue One, said in a statement Monday that "our democracy must be accessible for all eligible voters to participate in and make their voices heard, but these recent moves by President Trump's appointees at the Justice Department take us further away from those goals."
"This decision to dismiss all active cases threatens to erode public trust in the very department tasked with protecting Americans' freedom to vote and sends the message that the rule of law is not being upheld," said Clapp. "These actions are part of a broader trend of the second Trump administration dismantling and interfering with federal agencies dedicated to protecting our elections and democracy."
"In the end," Clapp added, "all Americans will suffer as a result of decisions like these because taken together, they undermine the fundamental fabric of our democracy—the idea that the government should be by, of, and for the people."
"If regular Americans think that this administration is going to protect their rights, they're just wrong."
The DOJ's Voting Section is housed within the department's Civil Rights Division, which is now led by Harmeet Dhillon, a lawyer who aided Trump's unsuccessful bid to overturn his 2020 election loss. Dhillon, who is not a civil rights attorney, was confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate in a largely party-line vote earlier this month.
Since her confirmation, she has moved quickly to do Trump's bidding at the department, prompting a mass exodus of lawyers from the Civil Rights Division. CNNreported Monday that roughly 70% of division staffers are "expected to accept a second offer to federal workers that allows them to resign from their positions and be paid through September."
Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, wrote Monday that "when the career people, the experts at civil and criminal enforcement in this area, are removed from their positions, there is no one there to protect us."
"And as we've learned from Trump's deportations to El Salvador, when due process is denied to one person, we are all at risk," Vance added. "The news from the Justice Department tonight, on the eve of Trump's 100th day in office, is deeply disturbing."
The departures come after Dhillon issued a series of internal memos indicating, as NBC News put it, "a 180-degree shift in the direction of the department from its original mission: enforcing laws that prohibit discrimination in hiring, housing, and voting rights."
One unnamed Civil Rights Division lawyer who recently left their DOJ toldNBC News that "if regular Americans think that this administration is going to protect their rights, they're just wrong."
The progressive advocacy group Common Cause noted Tuesday that the DOJ's Voting Section "enforces the federal laws protecting the right to vote, including the Voting Rights Act, the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act, and the Civil Rights Act."
Omar Noureldin, Common Cause's senior vice president for policy and litigation, said Monday that "the Trump administration’s gutting of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division is doing profound and lasting damage to the protection of voting rights in the United States."
"The removal and reassignment of the section's leadership and the dismissal of cases are themselves attacks on the voting rights of every American," said Noureldin. "Attorney General Pam Bondi's systematic removal of career attorneys and staff is not confined to the voting section—it extends to the entire Civil Rights Division. The upheaval and loss of experience will leave the division unable to enforce the nation's civil rights laws."
This story has been updated to correct Angelina Clapp's title.
