Hot Seat

They’re now on a break for lunch, but Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee spent the morning grilling John Tanner, the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights division over voting rights enforcement. Tanner – who acted against his own staff’s recommendation in approving a draconian Georgia voter ID law – refused to answer questions about why he made the decisions in order not to betray the “confidence of our clients,” as Talking Point Memo reports. The afternoon session, featuring testimony from the ACLU and the Leadership Conference for Civil Rights, is being broadcast on the committee’s web site.