Goodling Dismisses Voter Supression Tactic Of ‘Caging’ As Just ‘A Direct-Mail Term’
Goodling Dismisses Voter Supression Tactic Of ‘Caging’ As Just ‘A Direct-Mail Term’
As research director at the Republican National Committee, U.S. attorney Tim Griffin was involved in a plan to suppress Florida votes — primarily those of African-American servicemembers — in the 2004 election. From the LA Times, 10/28/04:
The Bush campaign is planning an election day effort to disrupt ballot casting by African Americans by challenging voters whose names are on a “caging list,” according to a British news report.
Citing an internal GOP e-mail with the subject line “caging,” the BBC reported Tuesday that Florida Republicans had a list of 1,886 names and addresses of voters in largely black and traditionally Democratic areas of Jacksonville. …
But African American leaders Wednesday called the list another “shameful” Republican effort to keep blacks from voting.
In her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee today, Monica Goodling — the Justice Department’s former White House liaison — tried to dismiss the voter suppression allegations against Griffin, a protege of Karl Rove, by calling caging just “a direct-mail term.” Watch it:
Caging is not just a “direct mail term.” Suppressing votes on the basis of race is illegal under the federal Voting Rights Act.
Congressional sources told ThinkProgress that the White House decided to not put Griffin before the Senate Judiciary Committee for approval because it would bring up questions about the 2004 caging scheme.
Transcript:
GOODLING: Ok, and the last thing was the voter — the caging issue, which was a reference to Tim Griffin.
SANCHEZ: Can you explain what “caging” is? I’m not familiar with that term.
GOODLING: My understanding — and I don’t actually know a lot about it — is that it’s a direct-mail term, that people who do direct mail, when they separate addresses that may be good versus addresses that may be bad. That’s the best information that I have, is that it’s a direct mail term used by vendors in that circumstance.
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So, democracy has come down to mailing lists? Pathetic.
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:46 pmI work in for a direct mail company, and I don’t know what “caging” means, course I just started here.
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:47 pmBurn her at the stake.
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:47 pmThis committee has a Monica problem…..
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:48 pmFor the latest news, document dumps, email archives, hearing transcripts and other essential materials in the firings of U.S. attorneys, see:
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:49 pm“The U.S. Attorney Scandal Resource Center.”
I know what “caging” is, and it’s not a “direct-mail term”.
Read more about it here.
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:52 pmDelahunt is making the case that Monica’s inexperience was an intentional consideration by her bosses in hiring her; to use her as a fall guy if it all was publicly revealed later.
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:52 pmMy understanding is that caging is a form of mail fraud. Mass mailings are sent out and if there is no reply then the addressee is considered to have agreed to purchase something or to be stricken from the voting rolls.
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:52 pmThis is just a “show trial”.
Monica serves at the pleasure of the President.
Clinton did it too.
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:53 pmSo why is Tim Griffin STILL serving as attorney general?
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:54 pmMike Pence is up, trying to make the case that there was no illegality. “The ciminalization of politics” — he’s intentionally mistating the facts, by talking about political appointees– sidestepping the fact the it’s been revealed to have happened with non-political positions at Justice as well.
Monica’s now being asked about her Regent background, and if she hired on a Christian basis – and she admitted that many of the hires were made by using “the president’s values” as a critereon – tacitly admitting that non-christians were much less likely to be hired.
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:00 pmThis would be absolutely hilarious if it weren’t so damned horrifying.
Karl Rove directed one of his underlings to target suppressing the votes of African American students, homeless men, and soldiers, successfully removing tens of thousands of legal voters from the voter rolls, saying that they had “suspect addresses”. This is what “caging” is.
And who was that underling? Why, he’s Tim Griffin, now the “perpetual interim” U.S. Attorney for Arkansas.
If you don’t think our nation is being stolen from under us, you need to open your eyes.
If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:02 pmNothing less than gangsters, street thugs mistakenly placed into high office.
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:03 pmRoboTroll JOJO, you changed your name! So now it’s RT BOOO? RT ZOOO? RT SOOO-eeee!? RT FOOOL?
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:05 pmAnyhOOO, you’re right, it is a show trial. We’re going to show the world what sleazy, not-so-bright operators Bushie hires. I’ve got my popcorn!
Monica could use a good humpin’ till she’s out of her mind. Oh, that’s already happened. Nevermind.
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:10 pmWhat we are watching is a blunt admission that the Bush Administration stole the 2004 election, and rewarded the thieves with jobs in the DoJ by pushing out existing attorneys who were not favorable to corruption.
I think that qualifies as a high crime or misdemeanor.
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:13 pmCan someone explain to NoOneYouKnow exactly how RoboTroll 3000 functions around here? He doesn’t seem to catch on very quickly.
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:14 pmThe “Big Tent” Republican Party strikes again — trying to prevent black, U.S. citizens from voting. RACISTpublicans.
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:27 pmCan someone explain to NoOneYouKnow exactly how RoboTroll 3000 functions around here? He doesn’t seem to catch on very quickly.
Comment by KRank — May 23, 2007 @ 1:14 pm
I’m sorry, but if they don’t get it, I really don’t think they will……
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:31 pmMy fellow left wing Americans,
Don’t you guys just love it when we Democratic party members cry over voter fraud. We always point the finger at Republicans, but we never talk about us stealing the Washington State governorship, were after a third count 2,000 mysterious new votes for Democrats appeared. We never talk about cities like Chicago, LA, San Fran, etc were we Democratic party members are so loyal that we vote from our grave.
We also don’t talk about places like Wisconsin where the son of a prominent Wisconsin Democrat went around slashing the tires of individuals he knew were Republicans so they couldn’t go vote.
We never talk about groups like ACORN, Code Pink, etc paying junkies to vote Democrat.
yes, we must keep all this under wraps and blame the Republican party.
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:35 pmYou know, they train them to look sincere. Emphasis on look.
NPR did a segment a few years ago about training sessions for young Rethugs–and when one guy got up to present his speech, he was reprimanded for not doing it right. The guy was asked to tell what he had done wrong, but didn’t have the right answer.
What he had not done is look sufficiently “sincere.” And that, the class was told, was the most important thing.
She seems to have the “I”m soooooo sincere” look down pat. Did the mask ever drop?
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:43 pmActually, “caging” is a standard direct mail fundraising term, in widespread use for decades. I know this from working both in the direct mail business and Democratic campaigns. It’s more recent use in reference to voter suppression is more recent.
The “cage” in “caging” refers to cash cages, the rooms in a casino that handle the counting and securing of cash, including selling chips for table games and handling the cash boxes from gaming machines.
In direct mail fundraising, the handling of responses, especially the money from those responses, is caging. It is a function that is often contracted out to enhance security and auditability — the contractor can invest in more stringent controls and surveillance as they are handling responses from any number of campaigns. As with other campaign service companies, they often specialize in either liberal or conservative organizations, but not always.
A “caging list” would originally have been a list of your party’s contributors, organized by precinct. In other words, likely voters you want to make sure get to the polls, and vote unchallenged. The problem is that in recent years there have been charges (that seem to be well documented) that have twisted this to supress voting. A mailing is sent out to all the addresses in a precinct (often available in easy to use digital form from your local registrar of voters or a service firm), often for some legitimate fundraising. But a list is prepared of the address of each piece of mail that got bounced back as undeliverable. This list can be used to challenge the validity of voter registration, by asserting that the person does not live at that address.
The problem is, it can also mean that mail service to that area, say an inner city neighborhood, is crappy, or the mailbox was unreachable or unusable due to vandalism, etc. Problems that you don’t see in the suburbs.
Double Tounged Dictionary entry for “caging”.
Wikipedia entry for “caging list”
A discussion from a fundraiser largely working with liberal causes.
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:46 pmMaybe President Clinton at #20 can actually prove any of the claims he makes.
Washington state gov. race was investigated and nothing found.
The case against ACORN in Missouri was stunningly weak, and most of the charges were thrown out of court.
Chicago has been corrupt not because of any political party, but because it’s Chicago.
Other than that, the rest is garbage with no basis in reality.
Nice try, though.
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:52 pmCaging explained- and the e-mails that prove it-
http://www.gregpalast.com
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:52 pm#20
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:53 pmInteresting anecdotal list. If you can provide evidence that all those accusations have been proven in a court of law I’ll agree that they were bad things to do.
Waterboard the c*nt in the afternoon session, ask the same questions and compare answers.
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:53 pmPresident Clinton let me explain a minor point to you.
When politicians, from both sides of the aisle, suppress votes and steal elections it’s wrong.
However, when the Justice Department starts doing it, we then are undermining the roots of our government.
Bigger question now.
It has been admitted now that the Justice Department has numerous attorneys that are now in career slots, not political appointee slots. How do we identify these folks and get true non-partisan folks in the Department?
Tell the DOJ that they can only hire liberal, Democrats for the next two years?
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:59 pmIs it just the picture or does she look exactly like Rep. Michele “Bush-groper” Bachmann with a blonde wig?
Must’ve come from the same batch of bible-thumping Stepford dipshits.
May 23rd, 2007 at 2:03 pmWaterboard the c*nt in the afternoon session, ask the same questions and compare answers.
Comment by nanlichi
Abu Gonzales would say it’s not torture….
May 23rd, 2007 at 2:08 pmAnyone here who hasn’t read The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Armed Madhouse by Greg Palast run to the library. Those two books are a primer for understanding how the Republicans stole the 2000 & 2004 elections. Greg Palast says the Republicans have already stolen millions of votes for the 2008 election.
May 23rd, 2007 at 2:11 pmTim Griffins “Caging†lists: spreadsheets with 70,000 names of voters marked for challenge. Overwhelmingly, these were Black and Hispanic voters from Democratic precincts.
The RNC sent first-class letters to new voters in minority precincts marked, “Do not forward.†Several sheets contained nothing but soldiers, other sheets, homeless shelters. Targets included the Jacksonville Naval Air Station in Florida and that city’s State Street Rescue Mission. Another target, Edward Waters College, a school for African-Americans.
If these voters were not currently at their home voting address, they were tagged as “suspect†and their registration wiped out or their ballot challenged and not counted. Of course, these ‘cages’ captured thousands of students, the homeless and those in the military though they are legitimate voters.
May 23rd, 2007 at 2:11 pmThe tire-slashing in #20 is true.
Milwaukee County Case Number 2005CF000502 : The defendant was found guilty of the following charge(s) in this case. : * Criminal Damage to Property, a class A misdemeanor, Wisconsin Statutes 943.01(1)
Stupid kids, doing criminal stuff, on their own. They suck. They did more damage to Kerry than Bush.
May 23rd, 2007 at 2:18 pmCcriminal investigations responding to allegations of voter fraud ended (Dec 2005) in Colorado, Wisconsin, Florida, and Ohio after finding no evidence of wrongdoing by ACORN or any pervasive voter fraud.
In Wisconsin, U.S. Attorney Steve Biskupic, a Republican appointed by President Bush in 2004, concluded, “We don’t see a massive conspiracy to alter the election in Milwaukee, one way or another.â€
In Ohio, a year-long federal, state, and local investigation ended with no federal indictments. “Our investigation is closed. No one was charged…the federal investigation is closed,†said Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Edwards in Cleveland.
May 23rd, 2007 at 2:23 pmIn late 2005, three highly publicized legal challenges brought against ACORN staff were dismissed or withdrawn for lack of evidence.
In Ohio, a lawsuit funded by the conservative Free Enterprise Coalition and litigated by the law firm of Shumaker, Loop and Kendrick collapsed on October 28, 2005.
Two Florida lawsuits, based solely on claims by convicted felon and ex-ACORN employee Mac Start and litigated by Rothstein, Rosenfeldt, Adler of Fort Lauderdale, were dismissed with prejudice. Stuart admitted to making false statements against ACORN.
May 23rd, 2007 at 2:25 pmGreat, so what did we fight the civil war for?
May 23rd, 2007 at 2:34 pmManufactured myth of American “voter fraud”
by Lorraine C. Minnite, Ph.D., assistant professor of Political Science, Barnard College, Columbia University.
Key Findings: Click here for full report
May 23rd, 2007 at 2:35 pm* Actual Voter fraud is extremely rare.
* Most voter fraud allegations turn out to be something other than fraud.
* There is a long history in America of elites using voter fraud allegations to restrict and shape the electorate.
* The historically disenfranchised are often the target of voter fraud allegations
“Congressional sources told ThinkProgress that the White House decided to not put Griffin before the Senate Judiciary Committee for approval because it would bring up questions about the 2004 caging scheme.”
Then the congress should send Mr. Griffin an invitation to come talk to them and if he refuses, subpoena his ass.
Do the Bushies really think that they are going to be able to squirm out of this one?
May 23rd, 2007 at 2:39 pmOver in New Mexico, in the late summer of 2004, a group of Republicans marched into the county clerk’s office and asked if there were any “problem†registrations associated with the voter registration drives. The clerk said “yes†and told them that there were some 6,000 defectively completed registration forms (missing ss#’s, po box addresses, no signature, that sort of thing).
The problem for the Republicans, however, was that these didn’t represent fraud, they were just typical and expected screw-ups by the registrants or the people registering them.
The Republicans nevertheless held a press conference, and grabbed headlines, announcing how terribly shocked they were to report that there were over 6000 “fraudulent registrations†submitted by these nefarious voter registration groups, and New Mexico’s voter rolls were being grossly corrupted. This had the predictable effect on the public, whose response was that they could now understand why a strict voter i.d. law would be a good idea.
It was this evidence – if it can be called evidence – that the Republicans presented to David Iglesias when they demanded that he appoint a federal task force to get to the bottom of the “serious voter fraud problem†facing New Mexico. Iglesias understandably blew it off. What the Republicans wanted from him, of course, was not convictions (there was no evidence of any crimes, other than a teenager’s prank), but HEADLINES!
The Republicans’ theory, probably correct, is that if they can get enough headlines about voter fraud, they will be able to sell their disenfranchising voter i.d. laws to the public. Iglesias, understandably, had better things to do with his time and with our money.
May 23rd, 2007 at 2:43 pmAnd he paid the price for that.
If you want to watch the original BBC “caging” report from 2004:
May 23rd, 2007 at 2:52 pmhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkvWkwv7UVo
BBC Reporter Has Rove Office Emails -
Goodling/Sampson Obstruction of Justice evidence?
Edit Link Published May 23rd, 2007 in Articles
For immediate release
Wednesday 23 May
BBC Television’s Newsnight has 500 “missing†Rove office emails including a series of self-incriminating notes which provide “the keys to the kingdom†behind the prosecutor firings.
Just released… go to http://www.gregpalast.com for the rest-
May 23rd, 2007 at 3:24 pm#20, #30
May 23rd, 2007 at 3:43 pmOK, as promised: It was wrong for a kid to slash those tires.
She thinks that “caging” is a direct mail term. What in the heck did they teach her at that third tier law school?
Why does she think those lists were created. Why does she think that something was mailed to that address. Did she think it was simply advertising? She doesn’t know that if the letter is returned, that is grounds for taking that person off the voter rolls – even if they mistyped the address in the first place (which was the case in several of the caging operations), or it was returned because the person who lived there is now in the military (which was the case in many other caging operations). I find it scary that this bimbo held a position of power in the Bush Administration. It makes one wonder how many other incompetent and corrupt Republic operatives there are out there in our government making large salaries for corrupting our system of government.
May 23rd, 2007 at 4:04 pmI have worked in direct mail for 10 years doing very large multi-cell mailings – I have never heard this term.
May 23rd, 2007 at 4:09 pmThis lying little fascist bitch!
“Caging is a “direct mail term”? Someone please check to see her law degree, because if she’s got an illegal as Hell “caging” scam with “direct mail” she’s not qualified to be an attorney.
But all of this is just a dog & pony show anyway. If this hearing were serious and they wanted to get to the bottom of what would be one of the biggest crimes committed by any administration they’d call Greg Palast before the hearing. Not only could Palast and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. give them an explanation of what “caging” is, but they have direct evidence of who did it.
But that of course won’t happen. Accountability, justice and truth, like Elvis, has long ago left the building.
May 23rd, 2007 at 4:18 pmi support “caging”, the kind where we throw monica goodling and karl rove in a cage, and let real americans poke at them with flaming sticks
May 23rd, 2007 at 4:24 pmRove’s early strength comes from direct mailing and that was one of his “powers” in shaping victories. Voter suppression in inimical to representative Democracy. Make voter suppression a capital crime–with no pardons!
May 23rd, 2007 at 4:49 pm#30 — Regarding the shenanigans on Election Day 2004 in Milwaukee, the men who were charged with the tire slashing were not “stupid kids.” They were all young men in their late 20s who should have known better. Unfortunately, at least two of them were also the sons of Milwaukee Democratic party members — one was Marvin Pratt’s son and the other was the son of Representative Gwen Moore.
I was living in Milwaukee at the time and was horrified when all of this broke in the news.
BTW, for the record, I am a registered political non-partisan. The bottom line is what they did was wrong.
May 23rd, 2007 at 4:56 pmHere is a link to Greg Palast’s website, which displays an e-mail from Tim Griffin clearly showing that his caging lists included soldiers on active duty and homeless people. (Link: http://www.gregpalast.com/bushs-new-us-attorney-a-criminal/) I wonder why the House committee did not have this e-mail on hand while they were questioning the “good witch of the North� Clearly the attorney purge was part of a wide-ranging plan to rig the vote, subvert democracy, and institute a neo-Stalinist one-party rule. I hadn’t realized that democracy was a zero sum game in which creating “democracy†in Iraq was founded upon destroying it domestically.
May 23rd, 2007 at 5:01 pmFor all those whose knickers are in twist about the kids slashing tires in Milwaukee, please think carefully about how that individual action compares with systematic voter tampering to alter the outcomes of an election.
In 1973 the Watergate hearings unearthes – gasp! – horrible behavior from the Democrats! They brought the campaign manager from the West Hollywood McGovern office to tell about how they let a guy use the mimeo to produce 500 flyers that said (of I can’t believe the horror of it all) that Nixon was not kosher.
And that, my friends, was that. One President steals democracy. One office manager lets some bozo with lousy taste print 500 flyers. Fortunately a lot of people in the hearing room had the good sense to LAUGH.
If anyone honestly can think these are equivalent – that 2 kids in Milwaukee committing a single act of vandalism have exactly the same power and significance as the presidential campaign apparatus does in disenfranchising voters – you need a SERIOUS reality check. Your democracy is being stolen and you should CARE even if it’s not YOUR vote.
May 23rd, 2007 at 5:48 pm#20 Come on, Bill, you know those allegations don’t compare with the thousands of mostly (Democrat-leaning) black people without felony records I got purged from the Florida voters rolls and, thereby, helped George W. Bush (whose campaign I gladly participated in, though the Florida Secretary of State is supposed to act in a non-partisan way) win the state by 537 votes, and, thus, the presidency. Below is how wikipedia describes my days of glory:
“In addition, by Harris’ decree, ChoicePoint – a private firm – was hired prior to the (2000) election to identify and remove thousands of names from the state voters list on the condition that these people were convicted felons. Many of these would-be voters were turned away at the polls or even prior to reaching the polling places. It would later be discovered that approximately 97% of the people removed from the list – and thus denied the right to vote in the election – were not felons at all. The majority of these voters were African-American, and as African-Americans predominantly vote Democratic, the situation suggested foul play.[13] In any case, the thousands of votes affected by Choicepoint’s error were far in excess of the number of votes (537) by which George W. Bush won the state.”
You can see more about this and me (after all I’m now out of a job) in the documentary “Unprecedented.”) In addition, there are my Republican friends in New Hampshire who were convicted for jamming Dem phone lines and my buddies in Ohio also convicted for voter fraud.
May 23rd, 2007 at 7:16 pmShe thinks that “caging†is a direct mail term. What in the heck did they teach her at that third tier law school?
Comment by Katie
Correction: FOURTH Tier
May 23rd, 2007 at 7:25 pmfrom Wikipedia
“Regent Law was ranked in Tier 4 by U.S. News, the lowest ranking and essentially a tie for 136th place out of 170 schools surveyed.”
Goodling is about to see a cage herself…a prison.
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:57 pmThe question is.. how do they go about determining which addresses, “Might” be bad in the first place? What possible list would include black servicemembers on it that would correlate to “Bad addresses” by some ‘vender’?
May 24th, 2007 at 2:15 pmWill someone please prosecute all these scumbags. I want justice and I want white collar criminals in public service to go to jail for their crimes against the people and the constitution.
Thanks for posting this. (I would be posting on the NOW board, but the PBS site seems to be in debugging mode. When I heard this come up in Ms. Goodling’s preliminary statement, my hair stood on end – I really thought she was going to ‘come clean’ and lay it all out there. She goes about setting aside the Griffin case, and I expected there would be immediate followup about this matter since cageing is such a hot button issue and goes directly to the entire focus of exactly why all these shenanigans in the Justice Department were taking place. Yet, the Committee entirely avoided the subject, except for that one query from a supposedly ignorant congresslady. My guess is that the entire hearing was pre-choreographed, and that was how they planned to address the issue. (”Who among us can be believed as to not knowing what caging is about? ” Not the chairman, obviously – he did a lot about voting fraud when it was possible to do a lot without really rocking the boat. And not the men on the committee – sort of a black mark on their intelligence, so let’s push it to the weaker sex.)
Call me jaded. This was an Orwellian doublespeak moment from the getgo. Otherwise, why the heck didn’t they follow up on it???
May 24th, 2007 at 2:30 pmI am completely flabbergasted–no, make that frustrated–that the AP wire story on Monica Goodling’s testimony omits any mention of the criminal conspiracy which she let slip in her reference to caging. This was by far the biggest news of her testimony.
Guys, it’s not just about politicizing the Justice Department, it’s about who stole the last three elections in Florida, Georgia and Ohio, among others.
Who is left to bring RICO charges? Like Diogenes, I’m looking for an honest man or woman to presecute the Rove/Bush/Cheny crime family.
May 24th, 2007 at 6:31 pmI wonder if neo-cons can smell their own (bull) shit every time they kneel down to pray to what ever god ( Cheney/oil/IAPAC) directs them. I can surley smell it from where I’m standing.
May 24th, 2007 at 6:51 pmYou can delete this comment again if you want but nobody is going to get impeached, nobody is going to jail and you can spout all your unsubstantiated conspiracy theories until you’re blue in the face.
May 25th, 2007 at 11:12 am“The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal – that you can gather votes like box tops – is, I think, the ultimate indignity to the democratic process.”
— Adlai Stevenson, Democratic Presidential candidate in 1952 and 1956 (vs. Dwight David Eisenhower)
May 26th, 2007 at 7:08 amThis so-called “caging” term one huge GOP hoax. I have worked with mailing lists and dealt with list brokers on and off for two decades. Never once have I ever heard them use the term “caging” to describe any element of the mailing list business or the list maintenance process.
The correct term is “purging.” If a company – or political party – or any other group, has a list and they want to avoid sending direct mail to people on the list who have died or moved, they send the list file to be “purged” to a companies that specialize in this work. This is done by matching the list to the Social Security Administration’s death index, the Postal Service’s Change of Address database, and other 3rd party service providers who have databases to which the existing list can be matched to identify names who should be removed based upon the company’s desired criteria.
Think about this. These GOP operatives actually engaged in an effort to “purge” the voters lists of as many minority voters as possible. When you understand this simple reality you’ll know why they had to invent all this “caging” baloney. It’s a lame attempt to hide from the real term that describes what they were doing. They were engaged in an effort to “ethnically cleanse” voter lists by purging (not “cagaing”) minority names from the list.
May 26th, 2007 at 10:00 am