Edwin Meese: The Crusading Attorney General

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Meese further outraged the civil rights establishment with indictments in Alabama against eight political activists for voter fraud in primary elections last fall, charging that the accused used the names of incapacitated and illiterate nursing- home patients on absentee ballots. Although three of the defendants have already been acquitted, the black mayor of Union, Ala., went on trial last week in Birmingham. The anger in Alabama's black belt is palpable. Randall Williams, a director of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, contends that whites who commit voter fraud go unprosecuted. Says he: "This is clearly a one-sided investigation."

% The Justice Department was rebuked for its civil rights policies in June when the Senate Judiciary Committee blocked the appointment of William Bradford Reynolds, head of the Civil Rights Division, to Associate Attorney General. Five other top-echelon Justice Department appointments requiring Senate confirmation remain unfilled. Says American Enterprise Institute Analyst Bruce Fein of the vacancies: "If there's been a blemish on Meese's stewardship, it is that he has not been able to get his horses in place."

A former prosecutor in Alameda County, Calif., Meese prides himself on being tough on crime. But two widely publicized cases have led to criticism that he is soft on well-connected criminals. In May the Justice Department accepted a settlement allowing the E.F. Hutton brokerage company to plead guilty to a massive check- kiting scheme, but declined to seek indictments of any of the firm's officers, although Hutton was fined $2 million. Meese has also had to defend the Justice Department's protection of Jackie Presser, the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the only major union boss who supported Ronald Reagan's 1980 and 1984 presidential bids. In July the Justice Department decided not to prosecute Presser on charges of paying $274,000 to nonworking "ghost employees" at a Teamsters local in Cleveland. Presser's uncle Allen Friedman went to federal prison for allegedly receiving such illegal payments. Federal District Court Judge Sam Bell granted Friedman a new trial last week on the grounds that U.S. prosecutors failed to disclose Presser's role in the case as an FBI informant. Bell also ordered an investigation of whether FBI and Justice Department officials violated the law by failing to turn over crucial evidence about Presser.

The Attorney General's most pressing long-term concern is the federal judiciary. President Reagan has 95 new or vacant judgeships to fill, and nominations are expected to flood Capitol Hill this autumn. Meese is bound to have a say in appointing judges who subscribe to the Administration's social philosophy. If he succeeds in packing the benches with conservative ideologues, Ed Meese may see the Reagan Revolution endure in America's courts through the end of this century.