Justice Department More Likely to Investigate Dems then Repubs

Part of the purpose of the US Department of Justice is to investigate elected officials suspected of participating in illegal actions like election fraud and bribery. As such it is an indispensable component of the federal government, since an impartial and effective Justice Department means that any elected representative considering wrongdoing knows that there is a reasonable chance of being caught and potentially jailed. It keeps politicians honest. Well, provided they're Democrats. Republicans' notorious hatred of government oversight apparently also includes scrutiny of themselves.

A study of reported federal investigations of elected officials and candidates shows that the Bush administration’s Justice Department pursues Democrats far more than Republicans. 79 percent of elected officials and candidates who’ve faced a federal investigation (a total of 379) between 2001 and 2006 were Democrats, the study found – only 18 percent were Republicans. During that period, Democrats made up 50 percent of elected officeholders and office seekers during the time period, and 41 percent were Republicans during that period, according to the study.

"The chance of such a heavy Democratic-Republican imbalance occurring at random is 1 in 10,000," according to the study's authors.

The vast disparity came not from the more high-profile investigations of state-wide or federal officeholders (the disparity there was 55-44 Democratic), but from the far more numerous investigations of local officials. The study found that 85 percent of the 309 local officials and candidates who faced investigation were Democrats.

The study, based on press reports of federal investigations, was conducted by two retired professors, Dr. Donald C. Shields, Professor Emeritus from the Department of Communication, University of Missouri-St. Louis, and Dr. John F. Cragan, Professor Emeritus from the Department of Communication, Illinois State University, who have been collecting the data over the past several years. An earlier version of the study was presented to the National Communication Association in 2005. The latest summary of their data (through the end of 2006) was provided to us by Dr. Shields.
It is telling that the difference is with rank-and-file representatives rather than more high profile targets. Certainly more visible cases of fraud like William Jefferson (D-LA) are likely to garner a disproportionate amount of investigating, regardless of party affiliation simply due to the greater potential for embarrassment by the government. But outside of columns in local papers, these small-time investigations and subsequent convictions are unlikely to garner much press coverage, and it is therefore even more important to keep investigative pressure from the DoJ on lower ranking officials as nonpartisan as possible, so that lower ranking officials don't begin to believe that they are above the law simply because their party is in power. Unless of course, that is true, which is the unfortunate direction at which the study points.

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