It appears new Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions will be spending the majority of his time in the Justice Department ensuring his office doesn't do anything that might be construed as protecting civil rights. First he announced that his office would be abandoning the suit against Texas' discriminatory new voting laws; now he's promising to pull back from enforcing civil rights claims against police departments.
Donald Trump's attorney general said Tuesday the Justice Department will limit its use of a tactic employed aggressively under President Obama — suing police departments for violating the civil rights of minorities.
"We need, so far as we can, to help police departments get better, not diminish their effectiveness. And I'm afraid we've done some of that," said Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
It turns out that electing a man with a history of racism to enforce this nation's civil rights laws results in exactly the sort of “enforcement” you would expect. But this is what Republicans wanted. The party leapt into action to impose new obstacles to voting the very moment the Supreme Court allowed them to do it, and the Republicans swiftly approved Jeff Sessions for his new day job despite the same charged history of racist statements and acts that doomed his previous bid for a federal judgeship 30 years ago.
But that was 30 years ago, and the Republican Party of 30 years ago was less racist than today's version. You could actually get in trouble for civil rights violations back then. Now the new attorney general is giving speeches assuring states he'll be looking the other way.