Hans von Spakovsky, writing in Pajamas Media, reports that President Obama's nominee for the Labor Department's wage and hour administrator was most recently employed by the Justice Department as chief of staff to the head of the Civil Rights Division. In that capacity, Mr. von Spakovsky tells us that Leon Rodriguez facilitated the cover up of racial bias in voting rights enforcement.

Those who have followed the wrongful dismissal of the New Black Panther Party voter-intimidation case are well aware of the political machinations behind the handling of this case and the unprecedented stonewalling of subpoenas and requests for information from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and Congress. The Civil Rights Division's misdeeds are outlined in the Interim Report recently released by the Commission on Civil Rights, which investigated this matter for more than 18 months. The biggest hallmark of that investigation was the Commission's discovery of a deep-seated hostility in the Division to race-neutral enforcement of the Voting Rights Act and the implementation by political appointees of a policy strongly discouraging (if not outright prohibiting) the enforcement of voting rights laws against minority defendants, no matter how egregious the violation.

But the Commission's investigation was also frustrated by the unlawful refusal of the Civil Rights Division to turn over information and documentation to the Commission. This despite the Division's statutory obligation to "cooperate fully" in the investigation, as well as its lawless refusal to comply with subpoenas issued by the Commission. The Commission's Report castigates the Division for its actions, including its assertion of vague, unjustified and non-existent privileges. Given the months of exchanges between the Division and the Commission and the national attention that generated front-page new stories in the Washington Times and belatedly the Washington Post, it is difficult to imagine that the Assistant Attorney General's chief of staff, Leon Rodriguez, had no involvement in directing the Division's unprofessional, unethical and illegal refusal to comply with the Commission's attempt to investigate this matter.

Being rewarded for unethical behavior that covers up the transgressions of your political superiors appears to be the path to promotion in Obama's White House.