It seems that the story about the Justice Department dismissal of the case involving the New Black Panther Party and violations of voting rights in Philadelphia just won't go away.

Jennifer Rubin of Commentary reports on a letter sent by the US Commission on Civil Rights sent a letter to the civil rights division of the Justice Department demanding an explanation:

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has now taken up the issue and sent a letter to Loretta King, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights Division, demanding an explanation. By a vote of 4-0 (with one member abstaining for reasons not yet clear), the Commission members voted to send the letter seeking to get to the bottom of this. After setting out the facts which gave rise to the original Justice Department complaint, the Commissioners explain:

Though it had basically won the case and could have submitted a motion for default judgment against the Party and its members for failing to respond to the Division's complaint, the Division took the unusual move of voluntarily dismissing the charges against all but the defendant who waived [sic] the nightstick. Yet even as to that remaining defendant, the only relief the Division requested was weak - an injunction prohibiting him from displaying the weapon within 100 feet of any polling place in Philadelphia. It has since been revealed that one of the defendants had been carrying credentials as a member of, and poll watcher for, the local Democratic committee.

The Commissioners write that the previously announced efforts by the Justice Department to play an aggressive role in enforcing voting rights "ring hollow if they are not accompanied by swift, decisive action to prosecute obvious violators."