At Senate Judiciary Hearings this Tuesday, Justice Department official Brad Schlozman was being grilled by Senator Charles Schumer about the former’s recruitment policies when he was acting head of the Civil Rights Division. (See my NRO column earlier this week.) Mr. Schlozman had apparently admitted that–horrors!–the Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society were sometimes good sources of applicants. But, he added, the Division also reached out to groups on the left. Senator Schumer then demanded to know which groups. [Transcript is from a liberal website.]
SCHUMER: Like, give me a name of a liberal organization. You just said that you – you were very definitive.
SCHLOZMAN: Yes.
SCHUMER: Name a liberal organization you reached out to.
SCHLOZMAN: I believe he [that is, the head of the Voting Rights Section] reached – my understanding is, is that he reached out to MALDEF [Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund], to NAPABA [National Asian Pacific American Bar Association] – I mean, I don’t have the exact list of people who he reached. I mean, I said, “Reach out to organizations with whom you work.”
SCHUMER: Yes, but MALDEF is not the equivalent of the Heritage – the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society have an ideological hue to them. These others are Native American organizations, Hispanic American organizations. Those are different.
So, the Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society are ideological, but MALDEF is not? That Senator Schumer–what a jokester!