Obama Justice Department Demands Political labels for Racial Purposes.

Via Glenn Reynolds "Instapundit" ...

HMM: “Voters in this small city decided overwhelmingly last year to do away with the party affiliation of candidates in local elections, but the Obama administration recently overruled the electorate and decided that equal rights for black voters cannot be achieved without the Democratic Party. The Justice Department’s ruling, which affects races for City Council and mayor, went so far as to say partisan elections are needed so that black voters can elect their ‘candidates of choice’ – identified by the department as those who are Democrats and almost exclusively black.” If this is an accurate report, it will only strengthen claims that the Department of Justice has been politicized under Eric Holder, particularly as the decision was “made by the same Justice official who ordered the dismissal of a voting rights case against members of the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia.”

From the Washington Times:

KINSTON, N.C. Voters in this small city decided overwhelmingly last year to do away with the party affiliation of candidates in local elections, but the Obama administration recently overruled the electorate and decided that equal rights for black voters cannot be achieved without the Democratic Party.

The Justice Department's ruling, which affects races for City Council and mayor, went so far as to say partisan elections are needed so that black voters can elect their "candidates of choice" - identified by the department as those who are Democrats and almost exclusively black.

The department ruled that white voters in Kinston will vote for blacks only if they are Democrats and that therefore the city cannot get rid of party affiliations for local elections because that would violate black voters' right to elect the candidates they want.

What????? That reasoning is so mind numbingly convoluted it makes my hair hurt.

Stephen LaRoque, a former Republican state lawmaker who led the drive to end partisan local elections, called the Justice Department's decision "racial as well as partisan."

"On top of that, you have an unelected bureaucrat in Washington, D.C., overturning a valid election," he said. "That is un-American."

The decision, made by the same Justice official who ordered the dismissal of a voting rights case against members of the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia, has irritated other locals as well. They bristle at federal interference in this city of nearly 23,000 people, two-thirds of whom are black.

Obama Justice says that in a small town of 23,000 people, two thirds of whom are black, they need party labels so that black voters will know which Democrat to vote for.