Don’t look now, but there’s no independent Inspector General at the Federal Housing Finance Agency — which is responsible for overseeing federally-run finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As reported in the Huffington Post of all places, the former Inspector General, Ed Kelley was relieved of his duties in September. Officials at the housing agency had challenged his authority, arguing that he was never properly appointed to the position. The matter was referred to the Department of Justice, which agreed. Although Kelley had been IG for the agency’s precedessor, DOJ concluded he needed to be formally re-appointed when the FHFA was created in 2008.
President Obama, of course, can always appoint a new IG. But so far none has been named, and a selection looks to be some time away.
The net result is that the office is now empty. Kelley now serves as an internal auditor at the FHFA, but enjoys no independence. Kelley had been working on several matters with the overall TARP inspector general, Neil Barofsky, when his tenure was cut short. “It’s a serious gap in oversight,” Barofsky was quoted as saying. “It does impact what we do. Ed was a member of our TARP IG council and a partner in our investigative work.”
Meanwhile, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continue to burn through taxpayer money. Between them, they’ve already received over $100 billion in taxpayer money. And its not over yet: Fannie Mae for an additional $15 billion earlier this month. It’s a bad time and place to have no watchdog on duty.
The Washington Time’s lead story today is about the Justice Department’s objection to a change of elections in Kinston, North Carolina. Why is this an important story? Because it is another worrisome sign of how the Holder Civil Rights Division is using the Voting Rights Act to benefit a political party instead of to protect voters. Kinston is a majority black town, and in November of 2008 its citizens voted 2 to 1 to change their city council elections from partisan to nonpartisan. It is also a one party town – all elected members of the city council and the mayor are Democrats. Yet despite its overwhelming support by the voters of the town, the Civil Rights Division objected to the change to nonpartisan elections under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act because it would potentially hurt Democratic candidates.
I wrote about this in September at National Review, but the Times story today is a must-read for newly-discovered details. Particularly relevant is the admission by a black member of the city council that “nothing is stopping black voters in Kinston from going to the polls” other than apathy. In other words, there are absolutely no barriers of any kind preventing blacks from voting, which is what the Voting Rights Act is intended to achieve. Even the head of the local NAACP expresses skepticism about DOJ’s involvement. The DOJ is improperly using the Voting Rights Act to guarantee that Democratic candidates win elections, rather than using it as intended to ensure that minority voters have the same opportunity as other voters to get to the polls and elect their candidate of choice.