On Wednesday, Florida said it is rejecting the Labor Department’s findings, claiming they were politically motivated. As evidence, the state said that an official with the Civil Rights Center has “publicly made or endorsed politically and ideologically charged statements about her role at the Department of Labor.” Specifically, Florida cited a bio for department lawyer Denise Sudell on a website that promotes LGBT comic books and their authors and readers.
The bio says, “In her paying job, she’s an attorney working underground (read: within the system) to keep the evil overseers of the Bush administration from dismantling U.S. federal civil rights laws.” The apparently dated bio was still available online Wednesday via Google’s cache.
“In other words, the USDOL CRC’s Acting Chief of External Enforcement has publicly stated or endorsed the notion that she brings a political and ideological agenda to her civil-rights enforcement role in the federal government,” the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity said in letters to House Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.) and the Labor Department’s independent investigator.
The Florida department also says the federal Civil Rights Center improperly collaborated with the advocacy groups that complained about the state’s unemployment law.
Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor
via Florida Unemployment Agency Disputes Obama Administration’s Claim It Violated Civil Rights.
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