How President Obama governs on civil rights

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Obama met Holder when he was first elected to the Senate in 2004, and the future attorney general and Obama became close friends, as did their wives. (Sharon Malone, Holder’s wife, recently flew to Hawaii to attend one of the celebrations for Michelle Obama’s 50^th birthday.)

Holder was in some ways a perfect fit for Obama’s circle. While the president has a diverse group of friends that includes childhood buddies from Hawaii and people he met through Chicago politics, like strategist David Axelrod, many of those personally closest to him are like Obama: African-Americans with prestigious jobs. White House aides say the president’s best friend is Marty Nesbitt, a hoops-loving Chicago black business executive who until recently ran an airport parking company worth millions. Obama spends each August in Martha’s Vineyard hanging out with friends like Holder, adviser Valerie Jarrett, lobbyist and 2012 Obama campaign adviser Broderick Johnson, and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

“We see things in the same way, we’ve experienced many of the same things as black men in the United States,” Holder said in a recent interview in his office.

But for much of the first term, being personally close with the president didn’t seem like it would be enough for Holder. He was a lightening rod, criticized by both Democrats and Republicans. Inside the administration, top White House aides, other than Jarrett, with whom he is close, considered Holder gaffe prone. And a number of controversial administration policies, from the “Fast and Furious” gun trafficking program to the administration’s unsuccessful attempt to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, were officially in his purview. There was regular buzz around Washington as to when, not if, Holder would step down.

But Holder, with Obama’s support, has never left, even after House Republicans censured him two years ago. Instead, he has been tasked with implementing a series of measures whose impact disproportionately affects blacks.

In August, Holder announced new guidance to federal prosecutors that indictments should omit the amount of drugs possessed by non-violent offenders, a way to avoid triggering mandatory-minimum sentences. Obama, who in 2010 had signed a bill reducing the disparity in sentences between crack and powder cocaine users, in December commuted, with the advice of the Justice Department, the sentences of a group of people who were being detained under lengthy, mandatory-minimum sentences for crack convictions.

Obama has “put into motion a set of criminal justice reforms that will have their greatest effect on communities of color and most notably the African-American community,” said Wade Henderson, president and chief executive of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “I consider that a major, major step forward.”

The sentencing reform push is part of a series of measures from the Obama administration in his second term that, while not promoted as such, illustrate the shrinking gap between the agenda of civil rights leaders and that of the president.  Indeed, on some issues it has become non-existent.

The administration is strongly defending race-based affirmative action programs in cases before the Supreme Court, even as a growing number of liberals and Democrats say college admission programs should either stop any kind of preferences or use class, not race.

The Justice Department has filed suits to block a redistricting plan and voter ID law in Texas and a series of voting changes in North Carolina, including limits on the number of days of early voting, arguing all would disadvantage minority voters. DOJ has not only opposed the laws, but has argued that Texas and North Carolina should be forced to have all their new voting laws reviewed by the federal government, as was mandated by Section 4 prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Earlier this year, in another move civil rights leaders have urged, the administration, in an announcement by Holder and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, called on school districts across the country to adopt a series of policy ideas written by the administration that Obama aides say will reduce the number of students who are either suspended or kicked out of schools. One of the chief aims of these guidelines, as Duncan said in announcing the policy, is to address the disproportionate number of black students who face expulsions.

The administration has created “promise zones” that target federal support for low-income areas and recently hosted an education event at the White House in which some colleges and states agreed to a series of steps to increase the recruitment and retention of low-income students, while also making it cheaper and easier for these students to apply to colleges. Both these policies, while not explicitly racial in nature, are designed to benefit low-income people  from rural areas, who tend to be white, but also poor minorities in urban areas.

Obama’s approach on these issues has left some confusion. It is Holder, not the president, who announces the policy and speaks often on voting rights, drug sentencing and other civil rights issues. Holder has decried some of the Republican-backed voter laws as “poll taxes,” while Hillary Clinton gave a long speech after North Carolina passed its voting laws calling the set of provisions akin to the “greatest hits of voter suppression.”