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MISMANAGEMENT AT THE CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION 

OF THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

APRIL 16, 2013 

Serial No. 113–10 

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia, Chairman 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TED POE, Texas 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

MARK AMODEI, Nevada 

RAUL LABRADOR, Idaho 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

RON DeSANTIS, Florida 

KEITH ROTHFUS, Pennsylvania 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

ROBERT C. ‘‘BOBBY’’ SCOTT, Virginia 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., 

Georgia 

PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico 

JUDY CHU, California 

TED DEUTCH, Florida 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

KAREN BASS, California 

CEDRIC RICHMOND, Louisiana 

SUZAN DELBENE, Washington 

JOE GARCIA, Florida 

HAKEEM JEFFRIES, New York 

SHELLEY HUSBAND, Chief of Staff & General Counsel 

PERRY APELBAUM, Minority Staff Director & Chief Counsel 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

APRIL 16, 2013 

Page 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

The Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Virginia, and Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary ................................. 1 

The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary ......... 3 

The Honorable Trent Franks, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Arizona, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary ........................... 14 

The Honorable Jerrold Nadler, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of New York, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary ................................. 15 

WITNESSES 

Hans A. von Spakovsky, Senior Legal Fellow and Manager, Civil Justice 

Reform, The Heritage Foundation 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 19 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 22 

Horatio G. Mihet, Senior Litigation Counsel, Liberty Counsel 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 32 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 35 

Samuel R. Bagenstos, Professor of Law, The University of Michigan Law 

School 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 99 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 102 

J. Christian Adams, Founder, Election Law Center 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 109 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 111 

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Material submitted by the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative 

in Congress from the State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee 

on the Judiciary ................................................................................................... 4 

Prepared Statement of the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative 

in Congress from the State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee 

on the Judiciary ................................................................................................... 12 

Material submitted by the Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a Representative in 

Congress from the State of Virginia, and Chairman, Committee on the 

Judiciary ............................................................................................................... 131 

Material submitted by the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative 

in Congress from the State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee 

on the Judiciary ................................................................................................... 200 

Additional Material submitted by the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, 

Committee on the Judiciary ................................................................................ 244 

Material submitted by the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative 

in Congress from the State of Texas, and Member, Committee on the 

Judiciary ............................................................................................................... 259 
Page

IV 

APPENDIX 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

Response to Questions for the Record from Samuel R. Bagenstos, Professor 

of Law, The University of Michigan Law School ............................................... 274 
(1) 

MISMANAGEMENT AT THE CIVIL RIGHTS 

DIVISION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE 

TUESDAY, APRIL 16, 2013 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:08 a.m., in room 

2141, Rayburn Office Building, the Honorable Bob Goodlatte 

(Chairman of the Committee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Goodlatte, Coble, Chabot, Issa, King, 

Franks, Gohmert, Jordan, Poe, Marino, Gowdy, Labrador, Farenthold, Conyers, Nadler, Watt, Lofgren, Jackson Lee, Chu, Gutierrez, 

Bass, Richmond, DelBene, and Garcia. 

Staff present: (Majority) Shelley Husband, Chief of Staff & General Counsel; Branden Ritchie, Deputy Chief of Staff and Chief 

Counsel; Allison Halataei, Parliamentarian & General Counsel; 

John Coleman, Counsel; Kelsey Deterding, Clerk; (Minority) Perry 

Apelbaum, Staff Director & Chief Counsel; Danielle Brown, Parliamentarian; and Aaron Hiller, Counsel. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Good morning. The Judiciary Committee will 

come to order, and without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recesses of the Committee at any time. 

We welcome everyone to today’s hearing on ‘‘Mismanagement of 

the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.’’ I will recognize myself for an opening statement, and then the Ranking 

Member. 

Today the Judiciary Committee examines a report released on 

March 12 by the Inspector General regarding the politicization, polarization, and mismanagement occurring at the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, specifically, the Division’s Voting 

Section. 

The findings of this report include evidence of inappropriate conduct by political appointees, harassment of employees because of 

their political views, selective enforcement of voting laws, and misleading testimony by the Division head, Assistant Attorney General 

Thomas Perez. These findings point to a deep ideological polarization giving rise to internal disputes and mistrust, which has 

harmed the efficacy of this Division. 

The Inspector General’s report in part concludes, ‘‘The cycles of 

actions and reactions that resulted from this mistrust were in 

many instances incompatible with the proper functioning of a component of the Department.’’ 
2 

The Division is entrusted with the authority to protect the civil 

and constitutional rights of all Americans and to enforce laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, disability, 

religion, familial status, and national origin. The report, however, 

describes a division tainted by partisanship in unfairly favoring one 

group over another, both in its enforcement of the laws and in its 

workplace culture. 

As the Inspector General’s report states, ‘‘The high partisan 

stakes associated with some of the statutes that the Voting Section 

enforces have contributed to polarization and mistrust within the 

Section.’’ The report, however, makes clear that other components 

within the Department with enforcement authority over equally 

controversial subject matter do not appear to suffer from the same 

degree of polarization and internecine conflict. ‘‘The difference, according to the report, is a function of leadership and culture.’’ 

The report covers the time period between 2001 and the end of 

2012. It is clear, however, that little has changed since then at the 

Division. For example, just a few months ago we found this 

Facebook post. It may be a little hard to read over there, but this 

is a Facebook by Dan Freeman, a lawyer in the Voting Section of 

the Department of Justice, who proudly announced that he ‘‘started 

the crowd booing when Paul Ryan came out at the presidential inauguration in January.’’ His actions suggest that a climate of open 

and unabashed partisanship still prevails at the Division. To our 

knowledge, Mr. Freeman has not been disciplined in any way. 

Other examples of this kind of unacceptable conduct include blatantly partisan political commentary found in emails sent by the 

Voting Section employees on Department computers, Section employees posting comments on widely-read Websites concerning Voting Section work and personnel, and in one instance, an employee 

writing a comment to an article concerning an internal Department 

investigation of potential misconduct by a Section manager that 

read, ‘‘Geez, reading this just makes me want to go out and choke 

somebody. At this point, I’d seriously consider going in tomorrow 

and hanging a noose in someone’s office to get myself fired, but 

they’d probably applaud the gesture and give me a promotion for 

doing it.’’ 

One overarching question leaps from this report: with this sort 

of palpable dysfunction at the Division, what, if anything, has Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez done to remedy it? With this 

nomination by President Obama to be the next Secretary of Labor, 

the American people deserve to know whether Mr. Perez is capable 

of properly managing a government agency. 

The perception alone of partisan or racial bias undermines the 

core goals of this Division. I agree with the Inspector General’s 

statement that, ‘‘Division leadership seems to promote impartiality, 

continuity, and professionalism as critical values in the Voting Section,’’ and that, ‘‘Leadership and career staff alike must embrace a 

culture where ideological diversity is viewed as beneficial.’’ 

These and other incidents we will hear about today are a disservice to the American people who rely on the Civil Rights Division to protect them by enforcing our Nation’s anti-discrimination 

laws in a professional and unbiased manner. The IG report we will 

discuss today is simply another example of the questionable man-
3 

agement practices of Thomas Perez, who has now been nominated 

by President Obama to be the next Secretary of Labor. 

Just 2 days ago, Chairman Issa, Ranking Member Grassley, and 

I released a joint report on Thomas Perez’s involvement in a secret 

deal with the City of St. Paul that ultimately cost the taxpayers 

as much as $200 million. We intend to continue our investigation 

into this troubling matter. 

I look forward to hearing from all of our witnesses today. 

And it is now my pleasure to recognize the Ranking Member of 

the Committee, the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Conyers. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, Chairman. Our hearts go out to the 

people of the City of Boston and to the families and loved ones of 

all those who were injured in yesterday’s attacks. This tragedy is 

a sobering reminder of the need to set aside partisan politics and 

to work together in the common cause for the good of the Nation. 

I find it necessary to point out that the title of this hearing, 

‘‘Mismanagement at the Civil Rights Division of the Department of 

Justice,’’ is unnecessarily provocative and demeans the seriousness 

of the work we do on the Committee. Our job is to uncover the facts 

and then draw conclusions, not the other way around. In this case, 

the misleading title also is designed to obscure the facts rather 

than to make them clear to the public. It is intended to harm the 

reputation of a champion for civil rights and a decent public service. 

Two days from now, of course, we know that the Assistant Attorney General, Tom Perez, will sit before the Senate as the President’s nominee to lead the Department of Labor. His tenure as the 

head of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice has 

been successful by any measure. To suggest otherwise to me is both 

inaccurate and unfair. 

Let us look at the record. The recent report of the Office of the 

Inspector General entitled, ‘‘A Review of the Operations of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division’’ suggests mismanagement, 

but the mismanagement did not occur under today’s leadership. 

Under the Bush administration, the Civil Rights Division was an 

agency in crisis. Political appointees marginalized the voices of career attorneys. Those attorneys abandoned the Voting Section at an 

alarming rate. 

The perception in the civil rights community and often within 

the Division was that the political preferences of the Administration had taken precedence over the impartial enforcement of civil 

rights law. That suspicion was confirmed in 2008 in a series of 

three reports issued jointly by the Office of the Inspector General 

and the Office of Professional Responsibility. And those reports 

concluded that the political leadership of the Division had violated 

Federal law by politicizing the hiring process and other personnel 

decisions. 

The recent Inspector General’s report paints a similar picture of 

that time, from 2003 to 2007. The report notes ‘‘polarization and 

suspicion in the Voting Section became particularly acute as Bush 

appointees illegally recruited new attorneys into the Voting Section 

and other parts of the Division based on their conservative affiliations.’’ That is a quote. And I will be putting parts of this into the 

record. 
4 

[The information referred to follows:] 
5 
6 
7 
8 
9 
10 
11 

Mr. CONYERS. The report also finds that the Division leadership 

acted at times inappropriately or unfairly with career attorneys. 

Changes to longstanding Division policy that appeared to be designed to shield conservative attorneys from criticism only further 

undermined morale. That is true mismanagement, marginalizing 
12 

the career experts, politicizing the decision making process, and ultimately breaking the law. 

If the purpose of this hearing was to look back at the conditions 

of the Division between 2001 and 2008, then today’s title would be 

more appropriate. But the timing and title of this hearing are no 

coincidence. They are intended to disparage the reputation of the 

Associate Attorney General as he stands for confirmation. 

Fortunately, his record can withstand this partisan attack. Although he inherited a division in disarray, Mr. Perez has righted 

the ship. In fact, to the extent the Inspector General’s report mentions Perez only once, and it is to clear him of wrongdoing and 

credits him for his management processes. Under his leadership, the Division obtained $660 million in lending settlements, including the three largest lending discrimination 

settlements in the Department’s history, $128 million. The Division 

obtained the largest recovery rewarded in an employment discrimination case. The Division secured $16 million as part of a settlement to enforce the Americans with Disabilities Act in more than 

10,000 banks and other financial offices across the country. And in 

last year alone, the Division has opened 43 new voting rights cases, 

more than twice the number in any previous year, and filed 13 additional objections to discriminatory voting practices under Section 

5 of the Voting Rights Act. 

Mr. Perez has accomplished these tasks, and he has restored confidence and effectiveness of his career staff. There may be some 

who disagree with his policy objectives, but even critics should be 

impressed by his achievements. And I have, over the course of the 

past 2 years, made several requests for hearings in this Committee 

on matters including the wave of changes in State voting laws, various Voting Rights Act pre-clearance cases, and the Division’s enforcement of the National Voter Registration Act. And to date, we 

have not held a single substantive hearing on any of these topics. 

My colleagues and I have held forums on these issues across the 

country. The public’s interest in these matters is overwhelming. 

And unfortunately, I suspect that much of today’s discussion will 

cover long discredited accusations. Instead of attacking Perez, we 

ought to get back to the work of strengthening civil rights and voting rights laws in this country. 

I submit the rest of my statement and thank the Chairman for 

the additional time that I was granted. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Conyers follows:] 

Prepared Statement of the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative 

in Congress from the State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary 

Mr. Chairman, once again, I must object to the title of this hearing: ‘‘Mismanagement at the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.’’ 

Unnecessarily provocative language demeans the seriousness of the work we do 

in this Committee. Our job is to uncover the facts, and then draw conclusions—not 

the other way around. 

In this case, the title is also misleading. It is designed to obscure the facts, rather 

than to make them clear to the public. And it is intended to harm the reputation 

of a champion for civil rights and a decent public servant. 

Two days from now, Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez will sit before the 

Senate as the President’s nominee to lead the Department of Labor. His tenure as 

head of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice has been successful 

by any measure. To suggest otherwise is both inaccurate and unfair. 
13 

Let us look carefully at the record. 

The recent report of the Office of the Inspector General, titled ‘‘A Review of the 

Operations of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division,’’ does, in fact, suggest 

that there has been mismanagement at the Civil Rights Division. 

But that mismanagement did not occur under today’s leadership. 

Under the Bush Administration, the Civil Rights Division was an agency in crisis. 

Political appointees marginalized the voices of career attorneys. Those attorneys 

abandoned the Voting Section at an alarming rate. The perception in the civil rights 

community, and often within the Division, was that the political preferences of the 

Administration had taken precedent over the impartial enforcement of civil rights 

law. 

That suspicion was confirmed in 2008 in a series of three reports issued jointly 

by the Office of the Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility. 

Those reports concluded that the political leadership of the Division had violated 

federal law by politicizing the hiring process and other personnel decisions. 

The recent Inspector General’s report paints a similar picture of that time. From 

2003 to 2007, the report notes, ‘‘polarization and suspicion’’ in the Voting Section 

became ‘‘particularly acute’’ as Bush appointees ‘‘illegally recruited new attorneys 

into the Voting Section and other parts of the Division, based on their conservative 

affiliations.’’ 

The report also finds that Division leadership ‘‘acted at times inappropriate or unfairly’’ with career attorneys. Changes to longstanding Division policy that appeared 

designed to shield conservative attorneys from criticism only further undermined 

morale. 

That, Mr. Chairman, is true ‘‘mismanagement’’: marginalizing the career experts, 

politicizing the decision-making process, and ultimately breaking the law. If the 

purpose of this hearing was to look back at conditions in the Division between 2001 

and 2008, then today’s title would be appropriate. 

But the timing and title of this hearing are no coincidence. They are intended to 

disparage the reputation of the Associate Attorney General as he stands for confirmation. 

Fortunately, his record can withstand this partisan attack. Although he inherited 

a Division in disarray, Mr. Perez has righted the ship. In fact, to the extent the Inspector General’s report mentions Mr. Perez at all, it clears him of wrongdoing and 

credits him for his management practices. 

Moreover, under his leadership: 

• The Division has obtained $660 million in lending settlements, including the 

three largest lending discrimination settlements in the Department’s history. 

• The Division obtained $128 million in the largest recovery ever awarded in 

an employment discrimination case. 

• The Division secured $16 million as part of a settlement to enforce the Americans with Disabilities Act at more than 10,000 banks and other financial retail offices across the country. 

• And in the last year alone, the Division has opened 43 new voting rights 

cases—more than twice the number than in any previous year—and filed 13 

additional objections to discriminatory voting practices under Section 5 of the 

Voting Rights Act. 

Mr. Perez has accomplished these tasks and more, and he has restored the confidence and effectiveness of his career staff. There may be some who disagree with 

Mr. Perez’s policy objectives, but even his political opponents should be impressed 

by his achievements. 

I have, over the course of the past two years, made several requests for hearings 

on matters including the wave of changes in state voting law, various Voting Rights 

Act preclearance cases, and the Division’s enforcement of the National Voter Registration Act. To date, we have not held a single substantive hearing on any of those 

topics. My colleagues and I have held forums on these issues across the country— 

the public’s interest in these matters is overwhelming. 

Unfortunately, I suspect that much of today’s discussion will cover long-discredited accusations of wrongdoing at the Justice Department. Instead of attacking Mr. 

Perez, we ought to get back to the work of strengthening civil rights and voting 

rights laws in this country. How many times will we discuss the New Black Panthers case, or the theoretical possibility of voter fraud, or the idea that the Civil 

Rights Division responds selectively to records requests, before we hold a hearing 

about making it easier for citizens to vote? 
14 

Before any of my colleagues accuse the Assistant Attorney General for Civil 

Rights of injecting politics where politics do not belong, I urge them to think hard 

about the evidence, about the conclusions of the Inspector General, and about the 

context for this hearing today. 

I hope my colleagues will put aside this partisan rhetoric and return to the people’s business. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman for his remarks. And I 

now turn to the Chair of the Constitution and Civil Justice Subcommittee, the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Franks, for his opening statement. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to express 

gratitude for allowing me this statement. And I also want to echo 

both yours and the Ranking Member’s expression of condolence and 

concern on behalf of the victims of the attacks in Boston. 

Mr. Chairman, last month the Inspector General at the Justice 

Department released a report that exposes serious mismanagement 

issues within the Department’s Civil Rights Division. Some of these 

management issues span two or three presidential administrations. 

Others are limited to the present Administration. Unfortunately, it 

appears that nothing has been done by leadership within the Civil 

Rights Division to correct this mismanagement, including by its 

current leader, Assistant Attorney General, Tom Perez. 

The mismanagement uncovered by the IG’s report takes several 

forms. One of the more disturbing mismanagement issues identified in the IG’s report is a culture of harassment and mistreatment 

of conservative employees within the Division. For example, Mr. 

Chairman, according to the IG report, ‘‘At least three career Voting 

Section employees posted comments on widely-read liberal 

Websites concerning Voting Section work and personnel, including 

a wide array of inappropriate remarks ranging from petty and juvenile personal attacks to highly offensive and potentially threatening statements.’’ 

Mr. Chairman, nothing has been done to end this harassment 

and treatment of Division career employees. Employees who engaged in this hostile, racist, and inappropriate behavior are still 

employed by the Department, including one who admitted lying to 

the Inspector General. This would be shocking except for the fact 

that it appears that the Division’s senior leadership also participated in some of the harassment in at least one instance involving 

the removal of a career attorney, Voting Section chief, Chris 

Coates. Mr. Coates was harassed and eventually, with Assistant 

Attorney General Tom Perez’s approval, was reassigned outside the 

Division because of his conservative views. Moreover, the IG determined that political appointees within the Division provided misleading information to the Attorney General as rationale to remove 

Mr. Coates. 

Other mismanagement issues under the current Administration 

include ‘‘incidents in which Voting Section career staff shared confidential Section information with outside civil rights attorneys, 

some of whom were working on matters where they were adverse 

to the Department;: hiring practices that the IG determined risk 

‘‘future violations of merit system principles as well as for creating 

perceptions that the Division engages in favoritism based on ide-
15 

ology and politics;’’ and finally, ‘‘widespread and vehement opposition among career employees to race neutral enforcement of voting 

laws.’’ 

Mr. Chairman, it appears that the Assistant Attorney General, 

Tom Perez, tried to cover up Division employees’ opposition to race 

neutral enforcement of the laws by providing misleading testimony 

to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, despite specifically being 

briefed on the problem. 

Some have claimed that the Obama administration ushered in a 

new era at the Civil Rights Division. The IG reports demonstrate 

conclusively that such a claim is far from reality. It appears that 

instead of correcting problems that may have existed within the 

Civil Rights Division during previous Administrations, that the 

current leadership within the Department has only exacerbated 

them. Indeed, it appears that the Attorney General was more concerned with manipulating the rule of law and pushing the limits 

of justice to strike a secret deal with the City of St. Paul to preserve a questionable legal theory than he was with cleaning up the 

Civil Rights Division. Moreover, he either allowed pervasive, hostile, and inappropriate actions to occur, or was willfully ignorant of 

what was happening in the Division he is charged with running. 

Mr. Chairman, the Justice Department is one of the Federal Government’s most powerful agencies, and the Civil Rights Division is 

one of the Department’s largest components. The Civil Rights Division needs just and competent leadership to correct the egregious 

and dysfunctional operation of the Division uncovered in the IG report. Hopefully by combining this IG report with strong congressional oversight, reform can finally come to the Civil Rights Division in the United States Justice Department. 

And I would yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair thanks the gentleman, and is now 

pleased to recognize the gentleman from New York, the Ranking 

Member of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice, 

Mr. Nadler. 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me begin by also expressing my obvious outrage at the terrorist attack in Boston, and 

also extend my condolences, as we all do, to the victims. 

Mr. Chairman, this hearing is not about legitimate oversight of 

the Civil Rights Division. That is perfectly clear from its inflammatory title, its timing, and the invitation of two witnesses with 

long histories of leveling unfounded partisan claims against this 

Administration’s Civil Rights Division. 

Any serious oversight effort would have invited testimony from 

the Office of Inspector General, whose report is the alleged subject 

of this hearing, and from a representative of the Department of 

Justice. Apparently, however, scheduling to ensure their presence 

would have interfered with efforts to tarnish Assistant Attorney 

General Perez’s leadership on the eve of his Senate confirmation 

hearing as President Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Labor. 

Instead, we get two witnesses who were very much a part of the 

problem in the last Administration. Mr. von Spakovsky was counsel to the Civil Rights Division when its leadership was breaking 

the law by politicizing hiring and personnel practices. Mr. Adams 

misrepresented facts when testifying before the Civil Rights Com-
16 

mission to bolster his allegation that the Division is hostile to race 

neutral enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. 

As the OIG report that we examine today found, ‘‘Polarization 

and suspicion in the Voting Rights Section became particularly 

acute during the period from 2003 to 2007,’’ which is the time 

frame during which these two witnesses served in the Division. 

And their ongoing posting on the Internet of confidential and deliberative Voting Section information, information that they apparently receive from current employees, continues to foment partisan 

rancor and calls into serious question the legitimacy and credibility 

of anything they say today. 

We unquestionably will hear plenty of heated rhetoric and baseless allegations of mismanagement by the current Administration 

from these witnesses today. But the actual evidence paints a very 

different picture. It shows that Assistant Attorney General Perez 

is an effective leader who has restored the tarnished professionalism, integrity, and effective civil rights enforcement of the 

Civil Rights Division. Under his leadership, the Division has increased enforcement efforts and obtained unprecedented monetary 

and policy settlements across a broad range of substantive areas. For example, his Division obtained a $660 million in settlements 

of lending discrimination lawsuits. It brought several cases to enforce the Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision, and ensured that 

Americans with disabilities are not left languishing in large institutions. 

His Division increased the number of human trafficking cases by 

40 percent over the prior 4-year period and convicted nearly 75 percent more defendants in hate crime cases. It acted aggressively to 

protect the rights of military members, working to eliminate discrimination in housing and lending, and to ensure the voting rights 

of our men and women serving overseas. 

This is not mismanagement. It is effective leadership, and that 

is exactly why Assistant Attorney General Perez has been targeted 

for criticism in this hearing and elsewhere. Those who do not share 

his commitment to enforcing this Nation’s civil rights laws are unquestionably unhappy with him, but there is no legitimate legal, 

ethical, or professional responsibility basis for their complaints. 

Rather, this is partisan politics plain and simple to tarnish the reputation of someone who ought to be commended for restoring the 

honor of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. 

This hearing and the Inspector General report of the Voting 

Rights Section upon which it rests are stark confirmation of this 

fact. The 258-page OIG reports finds absolutely no evidence that 

this Administration and, more specifically, Assistant Attorney General Perez, has made hiring personnel or law enforcement decisions 

for racial or political reasons, no evidence whatsoever in this OIG 

report. Yet even in the face of the facts, my colleagues and the panelists that they have invited to be here today continue to allege 

otherwise. 

There is no question that the Obama administration inherited a 

Voting Rights Section in crisis. A prior 2008 Joint Office of Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility Report documented unlawful misconduct of political appointees in the Bush administration, who, from 2003 to 2007 made personnel and hiring 
17 

decisions in an aggressive effort to pack the Section with employees 

who shared their political ideology. 

During this time, 31 trial lawyers left the Section, including 

many experienced trial attorneys. Workplace culture and employee 

morale was severely damaged. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the vast 

majority of the troubling and unacceptable incidence of workplace 

harassment recounted in the Inspector General’s report that we examine today came during this time frame, from 2003 to 2007. Yet 

problems that may have been fostered and took place prior to Assistant Attorney General Perez’s leadership of the Division will go 

largely unexamined by my colleagues. 

As the recent OIG report confirms, however, Assistant Attorney 

General Perez made several changes to ensure that the problems 

recounted in the OIG report remained in the past. These reforms 

are working, with the OIG report confirming that there was no evidence that recent hiring was influenced by political or ideological 

bias. Career and merit-based hiring has been restored so that politics and ideology no longer have any place in the hiring of individuals entrusted with enforcing our Nation’s civil rights laws. 

While broader efforts to restore a workplace culture of respect, 

collegiality, and professionalism will unquestionably take time, 

those efforts are ongoing and appear to be taking hold. Assistant 

Attorney General Perez has worked quickly and effectively to address the wrongs that he inherited when he took the helm of the 

Civil Rights Division. He should be thanked for his service, and we 

should all look forward to his stewardship of the Department of 

Labor. 

As to the Civil Rights Division, this Committee should stop chasing the unsubstantiated allegations of political activists, whose 

prior claims repeatedly have been proven false, only after the expenditure of tremendous resources and taxpayer dollars. It is long 

past time to end the smear campaign against the Obama administration’s Civil Rights Division and allow its devoted employees to 

spend their full time and energy enforcing the Nation’s laws. 

I thank you, and I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. The Chair thanks the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Conyers, for his observations about the tragedy that occurred in Boston yesterday. And I believe it would be appropriate 

that we have a moment of silence in remembrance of those who 

have lost their lives and those who have suffered severe injuries, 

some of whom are fighting for their lives, and the families, and the 

citizens of Boston, and the citizens of America who have rallied to 

support them. And we will now observe a moment of silence. 

[Moment of silence.] 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you. 

Mr. CONYERS. Good idea. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. We will now welcome our distinguished panel 

today. And before I introduce them and swear them in, I do want 

to mention that the Assistant Attorney General, Mr. Perez, and the 

Inspector General have been invited to testify. And given the ongoing nature of this and the fact that both Chairman Issa, and myself, and Ranking Member Grassley in the Senate have indicated 

that we intend to pursue the matter, particularly as it relates to 

the case before the Supreme Court and the matter with the City 
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of St. Paul, Minnesota, that I suspect that they will be afforded additional opportunities to testify. 

At this time, we would welcome our distinguished panel, and ask 

that they all rise and be sworn in. 

[Witnesses sworn.] 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you very much. Please be seated. Let the 

record reflect that all the witnesses responded in the affirmative. 

Our first witness is Mr. Hans von Spakovsky, Senior Legal Fellow in the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage 

Foundation, and Manager of the Civil Justice Reform Initiative. He 

has published extensively on elections, voting, and civil rights 

issues, including the management of the Civil Rights Division and 

the handling of its enforcement responsibilities. 

Prior to his time at The Heritage Foundation, Mr. von Spakovsky 

was a Commissioner on the Federal Election Commission and a career civil service lawyer in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. As a Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for 

Civil Rights, he helped coordinate the enforcement of Federal laws 

that guarantee the right to vote. 

Our second witness today is Mr. Harry Mihet, Senior Litigation 

Counsel with Liberty Counsel, an international nonprofit litigation, 

education, and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious 

freedom, the sanctity of life and the family. Liberty Counsel is associated with Liberty University, which I am proud to say is in 

Lynchburg, Virginia, a part of the 6th District that I represent. 

Mr. Mihet grew up in communist Romania, where his father 

pastored 17, mostly underground, churches. Because of this, his 

family suffered great persecution. At the age of 12, he participated 

in the Christmas Revolution of 1989, which overthrew Romania’s 

oppressive communist regime. Once he immigrated to the United 

States, Mr. Mihet received his undergraduate degrees in Political 

Science and Criminology from the University Florida and graduated magna cum laude from Duke University School of Law. 

The third member of our witness panel is Mr. Bagenstos, a professor of law at Michigan Law School. Mr. Bagenstos specializes in 

civil rights law, public law, and litigation. 

From 2009 to 2011, he was a political appointee in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, the number two official 

in the Civil Rights Division. He has been widely published in law 

journals, and remains an active appellate and Supreme Court litigator in civil rights and federalism cases. 

He clerked for Judge Steven Reinhardt on the 9th Circuit Court 

of Appeals and for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the United 

States Supreme Court. 

Our final witness is Mr. J. Christian Adams, the founder of the 

Election Law Center. In addition, Mr. Adams, also serves as legal 

editor of PJMedia.com, an Internet news publication. 

Previously, Mr. Adams served in the Voting Section at the U.S. 

Department of Justice from 2005 to 2010, where he brought a wide 

range of election cases to protect racial minorities in South Carolina, Florida, and Texas. Mr. Adams successfully litigated the landmark case of United States v. Ike Brown in the Southern District 

of Mississippi, the first case brought under the Voting Rights Act 
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on behalf of a discriminated against White minority in Noxubee 

County. 

Mr. Adams has received the Department of Justice Award for 

Outstanding Service and numerous other Justice Department performance awards. 

I thank all of you for joining us, and we will begin with Mr. von 

Spakovsky. Each witness has written statements that will be entered into the record in their entirety. I ask that each of you summarize your testimony in 5 minutes or less. To help you stay within that time, there is a timing light on your table. When the light 

switches from green to yellow, you will have 1 minute to conclude 

your testimony. When the light turns red, it signals that the witness’ 5 minutes have expired. 

We will now proceed under the 5-minute rule. And, Mr. von 

Spakovsky, welcome. 

TESTIMONY OF HANS A. von SPAKOVSKY, SENIOR LEGAL FELLOW AND MANAGER, CIVIL JUSTICE REFORM, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. Thank you. I appreciate the invitation to 

discuss the mismanagement of the Civil Rights Division and its 

toxic culture where I spent 4 years as a career lawyer. 

The IG report is a sad commentary on a dysfunctional division 

torn by polarization and unprofessional behavior, where career employees who do not tow liberal views are subjected to racist comments, harassment, bullying, and threats of physical violence. It is 

engaged in discriminatory hiring practices and has pursued 

meritless cases based on ideology rather than the law. 

Perhaps the most disturbing problem is the hostility toward race 

neutral enforcement of Federal voting laws. The IG report details 

the ostracism of employees who believe in race neutral enforcement 

by those who do not think that racial minorities who discriminate 

should be discriminated. 

This culminated in the mistreatment of Christopher Coates, the 

chief of the Voting Section who has received numerous awards for 

his outstanding work, including from the NAACP. This Administration drove Coates out because they disagreed with his proper race 

neutral view of the law that individuals who violate Federal law 

should not be given a free pass because of their race. This is one 

of the most shameful revelations in the IG report. 

The Division also ordered Christopher Coates and Christian 

Adams not to respond to subpoenas from the U.S. Commission on 

Civil Rights, which was investigating the dismissal of the New 

Black Panther voter intimidation case. Apparently this Division 

does not believe it has to abide by the rule of law like everyone 

else. 

The head of the Division, Thomas Perez, misled the U.S. Civil 

Rights Commission in his testimony about the New Black Panther 

case. He was specifically asked whether ‘‘any political leadership 

was involved in the decision not to pursue the case.’’ Perez said no, 

yet a Federal judge has said that DoJ’s internal documents contradict that testimony. The IG said Perez should have sought more 

details about this before his testimony. Being uninformed on the 
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correct answer to this question was the result of either incompetence or deliberate ignorance. 

Further, Perez was specifically asked whether he knew about the 

hostility toward race neutral enforcement of his staff. Perez said 

there were ‘‘no people of that ilk in the Division.’’ Yet Coates and 

Adams briefed Perez the day before his testimony about that disgusting attitude. 

Perez was also specifically asked whether he believed in the race 

neutral enforcement. He told the Commission he did, yet the IG report says that Perez informed the IG that he does not believe that 

White voters are protected under Section 5 of the Voting Rights 

Act. 

The Division also abuses its power through radical claims and filing meritless suits. In the Hosanna-Tabor case before the Supreme 

Court, Mr. Perez signed onto a brief arguing that the religious freedom clause of the First Amendment did not extend to the hiring 

decisions of a church. This was such an extreme position that all 

nine justices of the Supreme Court found the arguments of the Justice Department untenable. 

In addition to the FACE Act cases, which Mr. Mihet is going to 

talk to you about, the Division was forced to pay Arkansas 

$150,000 last year when a case under the Civil Rights for Institutional Persons Act was dismissed by a Federal court after the judge 

found almost no evidence to support the Division’s claims. 

The Division has tried to twist Federal discrimination laws to go 

after school districts for having dress codes that prevent boys from 

going to school in drag. The Administration also has engaged in biased hiring, setting up criteria that ‘‘resulted in a pool of select 

candidates that was overwhelmingly Democratic liberal in affiliation,’’ according to the IG. The IG report notes that ‘‘The Voting 

Section passed over candidates who had stellar academic credentials and litigation experience with some of the best law firms in 

the country.’’ The Division might as well have put up a sign that 

said ‘‘conservatives need not apply.’’ 

Let me conclude by talking about an issue that shows just how 

bad the situation is in the Division that is a personal issue. 

The IG report describes the nasty postings made by career staff 

on ‘‘widely-read liberal Websites concerning Voting Section work 

and personnel.’’ The highly offensive comments included suggestions that the parents of one former career Section attorney were 

Nazis. Those comments were directed at me. My mother grew up 

in Nazi Germany, and she was arrested by the Gestapo when she 

was a teenager. That she survived is a testament to her courage 

and the grace of God. My father fled communist Russia and fought 

as a partisan against the Nazis in Yugoslavia during World War 

II. 

It is shameful that such cruel, untrue comments were made publicly about my parents by fellow employees because of my personal 

views and my belief that the Voting Rights Act protects all voters 

from discrimination. Believing in equal enforcement of the law 

makes you a pariah in the Division and subject to being called a 

Nazi. 

Some of these same employees are no doubt sitting in their offices at 1800 G Street watching this hearing today. Employees who 
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bragged to the IG about their harassment and cyber bullying of 

conservative employees are still employed by the Division as is another unapologetic employee who admitted committing perjury. The 

Division is filled with biased and unprofessional behavior that is 

unacceptable from a government lawyer, and conservative employees continue to be marginalized. 

The Division must enforce the law equally and fairly in a manner 

that meets the highest ethical and professional standards and protects all Americans from discrimination. That is not being done in 

the Civil Rights Division today. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. von Spakovsky follows:] 
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Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Mr. von Spakovsky. 

Mr. Mihet, welcome. 

TESTIMONY OF HORATIO G. MIHET, 

SENIOR LITIGATION COUNSEL, LIBERTY COUNSEL 

Mr. MIHET. Chairman Goodlatte, Ranking Member Conyers, and 

Members of the Judiciary Committee, thank you for inviting me to 

testify before you today. My name is Horatio Mihet, and I am Sen-
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ior Litigation Counsel at Liberty Counsel, a nationwide nonprofit 

firm dedicated to protecting our first freedoms. 

Having grown up under a totalitarian regime, I have seen firsthand what happens when the very government agency charged 

with protecting civil rights becomes complicit in violating them. 

Unfortunately, that is precisely what the Civil Rights Division 

under the leadership of Thomas Perez has done with Liberty Counsel’s client, Susan Pine, a 61-year-old American from Florida. 

Susan has for over 20 years spent her free time outside of an 

abortion clinic peacefully counseling expectant mothers about alternatives to abortion. In 2009, after trying unsuccessfully for years 

to silence Susan, the abortion clinic began to entreat the DoJ to 

eject her from that public square. Mr. Perez readily agreed, and he 

assigned seven of his top litigators, including himself, to file a lawsuit against Susan under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE. 

Now, before filing this lawsuit, Mr. Perez flew several of these 

taxpayer-funded lawyers from Washington, D.C. to Florida in November 2009 to have a taxpayer-funded stakeout outside this clinic, 

to see if by chance Susan might violate the law while these lawyers 

are hiding in the bushes watching her. In its lawsuit filed 9 months 

later, the DoJ then claimed that on the same day that its lawyers 

were descending upon West Palm Beach, Susan obstructed one vehicle attempting to enter the clinic’s parking lot. 

Now, there were many clear signs indicating to every reasonable 

observer that this was nothing more than a political prosecution 

not grounded in any fact or law. First, there was no victim. No one 

actually came forward to complain of being obstructed. Instead, the 

lawsuit was filed entirely based on what one police officer claimed 

that he saw from the bushes 300 feet away. This officer conveniently forgot to record the license plate of this phantom vehicle, and 

he forgot to identify this mystery driver that was allegedly obstructed, so that all we had was his word. 

Second, Mr. Perez did not file his lawsuit in November 2009. He 

waited over 9 months to file it, just long enough for the clinic to 

conveniently destroy the videotapes from its surveillance cameras, 

as well as its patient sign-in sheets. The court found that the DoJ 

was ‘‘negligent’’ and ‘‘even grossly negligent’’ in its failure to preserve this critical evidence. 

Third, the DoJ claimed that Susan ‘‘stopped and stood in front 

of a vehicle in the pedestrian crosswalk.’’ Now, this allegation was 

entirely made up by the DoJ because its own witness, the police 

officer hiding in the bushes, testified under oath that once this 

phantom vehicle stopped, Susan ‘‘immediately got out of its path.’’ 

The officer himself admitted that she did not stop and stand in 

front of any vehicle. 

And so, after almost 2 years of litigation against Mr. Perez and 

his legal dream team, the court concluded that the DoJ suit did not 

even warrant a trial, and granted us summary judgment. Judge 

Ryskamp said, ‘‘The court is at a loss as why the government chose 

to prosecute this particular case in the first place.’’ He concluded 

that the DoJ’s position was inconceivable and absurd, and he suspected a conspiracy was afoot between the DoJ and the clinic to deprive Susan of her First Amendment rights. 
34 

We asked the Court, based on its findings, to sanction Mr. Perez 

and his legal team for filing a frivolous lawsuit. Rather than await 

the results of that motion, Mr. Perez and his team quietly paid 

$120,000 out of the public treasury and then moved on to their 

next target. 

So throughout this litigation and several others like it, the leadership at the Civil Rights Division has demonstrated that it cannot 

be trusted to follow the law whenever it conflicts with their ideology. We, therefore, would urge this Committee to exercise its constitutional authority and oversight, and to take whatever steps are 

necessary to restore the public’s trust in the institution that is 

charged with safeguarding and protecting our most basic and cherished freedoms. 

I thank you for inviting me, and I look forward to answering any 

questions that you might have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mihet follows:] 
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SUPPLEMENT 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you very much. 

Professor Bagenstos, welcome. 

TESTIMONY OF SAMUEL R. BAGENSTOS, PROFESSOR OF LAW, 

THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LAW SCHOOL 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and 

thank you, Ranking Member Conyers, and Members of the Committee for inviting me to testify today. I have had the privilege in 
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my life of serving twice in the Civil Rights Division of the Justice 

Department, first at the beginning of my career as a career attorney where I really learned how to be a lawyer from the excellent 

career attorneys who had been civil servants throughout many Administrations in the Civil Rights Division, and then as a member 

of the senior leadership team in the Division as a political appointee from mid-2009 to mid-2011. And I began service as Principle Deputy Assistant Attorney General in January of 2010, which 

was one of the great honors of my career. 

Now, I discuss in my written testimony the many, many achievements, and only a subset of the many, many achievements, of the 

Division in the last 4 years. Let me just note a few here because 

they are extremely notable: 40 percent more human trafficking 

cases; nearly 75 percent more hate crimes convictions than the previous 4 years; an unprecedented effort to enforce the Supreme 

Court’s Olmstead decision for people with disabilities, including 44 

matters in 23 States with major settlements with North Carolina, 

Virginia, Georgia, and Delaware; 16 agreements to guarantee services to English language learners; 10 agreements to address the serious problem of discriminatory harassment that keeps kids from 

learning; record setting settlements for sexual harassment by landlords of their tenants; and more than $600 million in settlements 

for violations of the Fair Lending Laws. More than $50 million in relief for our soldiers and sailors under 

the Service Member Civil Relief Act; nearly 40 percent increase in 

the number of cases brought to enforce the employment rights of 

our returning veterans; and landmark settlements with the New 

Orleans Police Department and the Shelby County, Tennessee juvenile just system, in addition to many, many others. 

But perhaps the best illustration of the success of the Assistant 

Attorney General Perez’s effort comes from the voting rights area. 

When Tom Perez arrived in 2009, in October of 2009, the Division’s 

Voting Section was in disarray, and his career staff was demoralized. Both the IG’s recent report and its 2008 joint report with 

the Office of Professional Responsibility document this fact extensively. Those reports show massive turnover among career attorneys from 2003 to 2008, and a pervasive atmosphere of 

politicization in the Voting Section, an atmosphere that stemmed— 

unfortunately I hate to say this—but an atmosphere that stemmed 

directly from the reports found to be the unlawful politicized hiring 

decisions made by a former Acting Assistant Attorney General, 

Brad Schlozman. 

Details are in my written testimony, but the 2008 joint report 

really bears careful reading for anyone who wants to understand 

the management task that Tom Perez was confronting when he 

took over. 

Now, this kind of pervasive politicization of the career civil service from the very top is a culture that cannot be changed overnight, 

and nobody thinks it can. But Tom Perez realized he had to begin 

right away to restore the culture of nonpartisanship, transparency, 

and professionalism to the Division, and that is exactly what he 

did. 

After taking office in October of 2009, he quickly moved to restore a career-driven, merit-based hiring process, and the recent 
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OIG report demonstrates that this process has been successful. In 

making hires under the new policy, the report found, the Voting 

Section ‘‘was keenly focused on the candidates’ voting litigation experience and substantive knowledge of voting rights.’’ That is exactly what they should have been focused on. 

The report found that the new attorneys had ‘‘a high degree of 

academic and professional achievement, and that the hired attorneys had substantially higher achievement than the people who 

were not hired.’’ Now, of course, culture change takes time, but the 

Voting Section has made major progress, and the proof is in the results. 

In each of the past 2 Fiscal Years, the Section set a record for 

the largest number of new matters in litigation it has handled: 43 

last year, 27 the year before. These include major, major cases defending judicial preclearance actions and defending the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. In the last 4 years, 

the Section has filed and obtained settlements in seven cases to enforce the Voting Rights Act’s language minority provisions, including the first case brought on behalf of Native Americans since 

1998. It has filed new lawsuits under Section 7 of the National 

Voter Registration Act, including a major settlement with the State 

of Rhode Island, and it has vigorously enforced the MOVE Act, 

which ensures that our men and women in uniform and other citizens overseas have their voting rights protected. Twenty-one litigations or settlements since the act took effect, all in this Administration, including filing lawsuits and obtaining consent degrees or preliminary injunctive relief against six States and the Virgin Islands 

in the 2012 election alone. 

Now, similar stories could be told throughout the Division. When 

Tom Perez arrived at the Civil Rights Division, it was divided and 

demoralized. The work is not done, but thanks to his leadership 

and management skills and the very hard work of extraordinarily 

dedicated career attorneys, things have turned around, and I am 

very pleased to testify about that today. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bagenstos follows:] 
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Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you very much. 

And our final witness, Mr. Adams. Welcome. 

TESTIMONY OF J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS, 

FOUNDER, ELECTION LAW CENTER 

Mr. ADAMS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Conyers, and Members of this Committee. 

While at the Department, I was fortunate to serve with dedicated 

attorneys and staff who had profound respect for the rule of law 

and placed integrity at the center of their personal and professional 

life. 

Unfortunately, over the last few years, the Civil Rights Division 

of the Justice Department has seen instances of embezzlement, employee abuse, harassment, theft, and perjury. Little to nothing has 

been done by Division management in response. In some cases, Division management has defended, or promoted, or given awards to 

the wrongdoers. 

Tragically, the Civil Rights Division has also pursued abusive 

and meritless cases against Americans exercising free speech 

rights, as well as States enacting voter integrity measures. So 

meritless, courts have imposed cost sanctions against the Division. 

Simply, the Civil Rights Division under the current management 

have pervasively abused the civil rights of Americans, abused the 

fiscal trust of the taxpayers, and abused the rule of law. 

Perhaps worst of all, Thomas Perez, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, has repeatedly provided inaccurate testimony 

under oath to this Committee, as well as the Civil Rights Commission on multiple matters, including whether or not he knew that 

this corrosive and abusive atmosphere existed inside his Division 

toward employees willing to enforce the voting laws in a race neutral fashion. 

This hostility toward enforcement of voting laws in a race neutral has festered into name calling, harassment, racial attacks on 

DoJ employees, both Black and White, who were willing to enforce 

the law race neutrally. For example, the IG report documents vile 

racial harassment against an African-American paralegal, who 

served on the New Black Panther case with me and another similar matter. This dedicated and hardworking paralegal, as well as 

his mother, who is a long-time DoJ employee, was subject to cruel 

racial harassment by other DoJ employees for working on the New 

Black Panther case. When Mr. Perez testified in May of 2010 before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that he had never heard 

of this sort of hostility, he testified falsely. 

My written testimony details multiple instances of harassment of 

an employee also for his evangelical Christianity. 

There is a false perception that the Division has vigorously protected minority voting rights more than the prior Administration. 

The current Administration has failed to initiate a single Section 

2 Voting Rights Act case investigation which resulted in enforcement action since the inauguration in 2009. Voter rolls nationwide 

are filled with millions of ineligible and dead voters, yet the Division is deliberately refusing to enforce Section 8 of the National 

Voter Registration Act, and require States to purge their voter rolls 

because Division leadership, as detailed in the IG report, has a 
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philosophical disagreement with this purging statute. Hundreds of 

counties across the country now have more voters registered than 

people alive, and this Division leadership spiked investigations into 

these places. 

A Washington Times story headlined, ‘‘Taxpayers Finance Justice Officials’ Romantic Travel,’’ reported that a Division employee 

embezzled at least $30,000 in money and travel, including hotel 

rooms in Miami, and according to Senator Grassley—excuse me, 

and cash advances. Current Division leadership oversaw this fiasco, yet according to Senator Grassley, did absolutely nothing 

about it. The whistleblowers in this case have been treated more 

poorly by Division leadership than was the person who took the 

money. 

Division leadership has overruled career lawyers who recommended South Carolina voter ID be pre-cleared in 2011 under 

Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Their recommendation was 

overruled. An expensive, costly, and ultimately meritless objection 

was interposed. South Carolina was forced to spend over $3.5 million to obtain approval of South Carolina voter ID. The Federal 

taxpayers almost certainly also wasted millions. 

As I have already testified, the hostility in the Division toward 

equal enforcement of civil rights laws was open and pervasive. The 

IG report confirms all of my testimony in that regard. Former Voting Section Chief Christopher Coates was subject to harassment, 

and many of those employees who engaged in this conduct are still 

employed by the Division. 

Coates was targeted for removal by the Division and political appointees specifically because of his willingness to enforce the law 

equally. The Attorney General was even aware of this and did not 

instruct Division leadership that it could be illegal to target Coates 

in this way. The IG report documents many other details. 

In a few decades, America will look very different. The founding 

documents presume that all Americans should be treated equally 

before the law, and it is time that the Civil Rights Division act accordingly. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Adams follows:] 
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Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Mr. Adams. 

We will now proceed under the 5-minute rule with questions, and 

I will begin by recognizing myself for 5 minutes. 

First, I would like to ask unanimous consent to put into the 

record a joint report of the House Committee on Oversight and 

Government Reform, the House Judiciary Committee, and the Sen-
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ate Judiciary Committee minority. The report is titled, ‘‘DoJ’s Quid 

Pro Quo with St. Paul: How Assistant Attorney General Thomas 

Perez Manipulated Justice and Ignored the Rule of Law.’’ 

Without objection, it will be made a part of the record. 

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Mr. GOODLATTE. And I would like to ask my first question to Mr. 

von Spakovsky and Mr. Adams, and I would like to ask you this: 

in your experience as attorneys at the Justice Department, whether 

you or do you know of anyone else who ever participated in or ever 

became aware of a quid pro quo like the one that occurred between 

Tom Perez and the City of St. Paul? That is, a deal in which the 

United States agreed to settle two cases in which the United States 
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could have made a significant recovery to the United States Treasury in one in exchange for a litigant dismissing a case in which the 

United States was not even a party? 

Mr. von Spakovsky? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. Mr. Chairman, I am not aware of anything 

like that happening. When I was at the Civil Rights Division, I 

knew people in the Civil Division, which was involved in this particular deal. And we would have considered it improper and unethical to have requested the Civil Division to give up a qui tam action 

under the False Claims Act where the American taxpayer was possibly going to recover $200 million, especially in this case, which, 

as I understand it, both HUD, the Civil Division, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota thought it was most egregious examples of false certifications they had ever seen. To ask them to dismiss a case like that in exchange for asking St. Paul to dismiss a 

case in which we were not even a party because they were afraid 

the Supreme Court would toss out a discredited legal theory. 

I mean, I think that is unethical, and I think, quite frankly, it 

violates professional codes of conduct. For example, Rule 1.3 of the 

D.C. Code, which says that you are not supposed to intentionally 

fail to seek lawful objectives of a client or prejudice or damage a 

client. And that is, in fact, what happened this case, prejudicing 

and damaging the False Claims Act that the American taxpayer 

had. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Adams? 

Mr. ADAMS. Mr. Chairman, that would have been radioactive for 

us to leverage one division’s enforcement authority to a civil rights 

matter. 

But the report from the House Oversight Committee had something even more disturbing, and that is that the Assistant Attorney 

General was doing this by using his personal Verizon email account. When he was asked by Oversight Committee investigators 

whether or not he was using his personal email to do the St. Paul, 

he said he did not recall until he was confronted with a document 

showing that he did, and then he recalled. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Adams, in a 2012 decision by the D.C. District Court, the court states, ‘‘The documents reveal that political 

appointees within the Department were conferring about the state 

and resolution of the New Black Panther Party case in the days 

preceding the Department’s dismissal of claims in that case,’’ which 

would appear to contradict Assistant Attorney General Perez’s testimony that political leadership was not involved in the decision. 

Did Mr. Perez mislead the Civil Rights Commission and the Congress? 

Mr. ADAMS. Well, there are two points involving Mr. Perez’s testimony, and the first one the IG report deals with. The second does 

not deal with in the IG report. 

The first one. He was asked whether or not anybody besides career lawyers were involved in the decision to dismiss the New 

Black Panthers, and he testified no. The IG report says he was not 

forthcoming. He should have inquired into greater detail. It did not 

accuse him of committing perjury. 

The second point, though, is more important, and the IG report 

is silent. He was asked whether or not he knew about the open and 
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pervasive hostility toward race neutral enforcement, which frankly 

is worse than political appointees being involved in the dismissal. 

He testified that there were no people of that ilk in that Division. 

Of course, that is false. He knew there were people of that ilk because we told him the day before there were. Secondly, the IG report details dozens of instances of people of that ilk, including 

him—— 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Adams, I am going to interrupt you because 

I have got one more question to ask you, and then you can answer 

that, and then we will move on to the Ranking Member. 

In your written testimony, you cited a December 2009 statement 

that Mr. Perez made before the American Constitution Society 

where he stated, ‘‘Those who have been entrusted with the keys to 

the Division treated it like a buffet line at the cafeteria, cherry 

picking which laws to enforce.’’ In your opinion, does Mr. Perez’s 

record as Assistant Attorney General reflect an improvement of 

this image of the Civil Rights Division? 

Mr. ADAMS. It is worse. I would put our record up against anybody in the Division. We brought cases under Section 2 to protect 

minority voting rights, Section 203, foreign language protections. 

We protected people under both Section 7 and Section 8 of Motor 

Voter. We enforced all the laws. We did not treat it as a buffet line. 

It has been precisely the opposite. No Section 7. No Section 2. 

Barely any Section 203 cases. They are focused on different priorities instead of all priorities. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you very much. My time has expired. 

The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Conyers, is recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to enter in the Democratic staff findings on the results of the 

investigation of the St. Paul decision, and also 10 errors and 

mischaracterizations and omissions in the other report. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Without objection, they will be made a part of 

the record. 

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Mr. GOODLATTE. And the gentleman is recognized. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. Could I begin by asking Professor 

Bagenstos to just review, since we are all under 5 minutes, just a 

couple of the problems that we have had with the accuracy of the 

allegations. It sometimes seems like we are talking about two completely different sets of events and work in the Civil Rights Division. 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. I think that is right, you know. So when I read 

the Inspector General’s report with great interest, as I think everybody at this table did, what I saw in the report is, number one, the 
229 

report goes through allegations of politicized hiring in this Administration and finds there was no politicized hiring in this Administration. 

The report rehashes once again what had already been investigated by the Office of Professional Responsibility with respect to 

the New Black Panther case, and finds, as the Office of Professional Responsibility did, there was nothing illegal, unethical, or 

improper that happened in that case. 

The report finds a number of incidents of harassment of employees, which are unacceptable, and I want to say that. But I will note 

that the incidents of harassment of employees that the report finds 

are centered in the period between 2003 and 2007, and there are 

no incidents of harassment found by the report that I could find 

that post-dated 2009. Of course, Tom Perez became Assistant Attorney General in October of 2009. 

Mr. CONYERS. Right. 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. Obviously there is work still to be done, but that 

is consistent with him making substantial progress. 

Mr. CONYERS. Now, in your view, did Mr. Perez not reverse some 

of the unlawful practices and negative trends that had been established before he became the head of this part of the Civil Rights 

Division? 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. Absolutely. And so the two examples are, one, 

the career driven, nonpartisan, merit-based hiring process, which, 

as I said in my prepared and spoken testimony, the Inspector General found was successful in hiring people with a high degree of 

skills. Also restoring the role of career attorneys in the Section 5 

pre-clearance process is exceptionally important, and that was 

something that was a very big priority of Tom Perez’s. 

Mr. CONYERS. Yes. And after the departure of the Bush administration, did you find that Mr. Perez took the appropriate steps to 

address the Inspector General’s 2008 findings after becoming what 

has now been characterized, a division in crisis? 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. I think he did, absolutely. Absolutely. I think, 

you know, it was Tom Perez’s major priority from day one to restore the traditions of the Civil Rights Division, which is a nonpartisan tradition of enforcement of civil rights. As I said when I 

started my career as a career attorney, the people who I looked up 

to, the people who are my bosses, my first boss had actually had 

been hired during the Reagan administration. You know, Tom 

Perez came to work as an intern in the Reagan administration. He 

wanted to restore that, and I think the evidence suggests that he 

did restore the nonpartisan, and merit-based, and career driven aspects of our practice. 

Mr. CONYERS. Well, I am the only Member of this Committee 

that voted to pass the 1965 Voting Rights Act. That is because I 

was the only one here. It was not they were not in support of it. 

But I was grateful when Jim Sensenbrenner on this Committee 

joined with us and others when we reenacted and went further in 

2006. And we now have Section 5, pre-clearance. Why is that so 

crucial to halting discriminatory practices in voting? 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. It is so crucial. I think, you know, the best example of that actually is given by the preclearance decisions of the 

Federal District Court this year, this past year, in response to the 
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objections or litigation by the Justice Department. When the District Court in D.C., Republican and Democratic judges, Democratic 

appointed judges, denied pre-clearance to various voting chances 

because they said there is still substantial discrimination going on, 

and these laws are still necessary. 

Judge Bates, a George W. Bush appointee to the District Court, 

who wrote the opinion upholding the Voting Rights Act extension, 

also said in the South Carolina case, look, this is an example of 

why we need Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. 

Mr. CONYERS. Exactly. Thank you very much. Very much. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the Ranking Member. 

And the Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Iowa, Mr. 

King, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the witnesses, and 

I happened to have a couple of flashbacks from testimony before 

this Committee by Mr. Perez. And I picked out some of the language along the line of our witnesses. I turn first to Mr. von 

Spakovsky and ask you, as you testified, as you reviewed this, as 

you read the record, I would like to take this to the perjury discussion. 

If I remember right, Mr. Perez was sitting in exactly that same 

chair when he told me that the maximum penalty under the law 

had been applied to the perpetrators at the Philadelphia New 

Black Panthers case. Do you have knowledge of that testimony, 

and do you believe that his testimony, that that was the maximum 

penalty applied under the law, was a dishonest statement before 

this Committee? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. Well, I have never seen a case in my career 

at the Justice Department where the Department decided when the 

defendant defaulted and did not answer the claim, therefore, admitting all of the allegations, would suddenly decide to dismiss the 

case. 

And the one injunction that they did get was considerably weakened. It was for a short period of time. And all too early at times, 

one of the defendants who had engaged in this despicable behavior 

was a poll watcher again in Philadelphia. 

Mr. KING. And when Mr. Perez testified that they had applied 

the maximum penalty under the law, and I asked him specifically, 

do you believe that today that the maximum penalty was obtained, 

and his answer was, that was the maximum penalty. We know 

today that it was, in fact, a minimum penalty rather than a maximum penalty. Would you agree with that? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. I would agree with that, yes. 

Mr. KING. Thank you. And I would turn to Mr. Adams with a 

similar question. You have been involved in the middle of this and 

you have watched this unfold. I recall also testimony, a question 

that was asked by Mr. Gohmert. Five times he asked Mr. Perez, 

did you review the videotape of the New Black Panther intimidation that took place in Philadelphia, and after the fifth question, 

he finally and reluctantly answered, yes. If you were evaluating 

this for potential prosecution of someone who was not forthcoming, 

would that be something that would bring your antenna up to listen very carefully to the balance of his answers? And what is your 
231 

viewpoint on whether perjury was committed before this Committee? 

Mr. ADAMS. Well, Mr. King, I do not have the benefit of Mr. 

Perez’s transcript. But I will say this, that there are criminal penalties associated with violations of Section 11 of the Voting Rights 

Act, which, as far as I know, could still be imposed against those 

New Black Panthers. They could still be indicted today. 

There are nationwide injunctions available, and as you know, the 

injunction was restricted to the city of Philadelphia, and it was limited in time as opposed to being permanent. 

Mr. KING. And so the testimony by Mr. Perez, it is a clear matter 

of the record that they had applied the maximum penalty allowable 

under the law. Could you devise how that could be an honest statement before this Committee? 

Mr. ADAMS. Well, I would prefer to see the Black Panthers indicted. Obviously that has not happened. 

Mr. KING. And I will make this point back again, that in a Justice Department that would objectively be not choosing from the 

cafeteria form of what to prosecute, what kind of justice under the 

law could happen when you have an Administration, an Attorney 

General, and an Assistant Attorney General that all seem to agree 

that the civil rights cases under the law should be brought selectively with a preference for people of, let me say, certain ethnicity 

or race. 

How would justice ever prevail in an Administration that was 

locked in from the White House, to the Attorney General, to the 

Assistant Attorney General, and have people come before this Committee and provide dishonest statements to the Justice Department? Is there anybody out there that can prosecute perjury if it 

takes place before this Committee, or how would that take place? 

Mr. ADAMS. Well, I would probably direct that question to your 

staff. But generally speaking, it is important to have equal enforcement of the law. It is a bedrock principle of America that—— 

Mr. KING. Mr. Adams, I know you have contemplated this, so 

could you give me a little bit more, maybe a hypothetical response 

on how that might happen at a different time—— 

Mr. ADAMS. Sure. I mean, the U.S. Attorney would look at a 

transcript, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia—— 

Mr. KING. Pardon me, I am sorry? 

Mr. ADAMS [continuing]. Would look at a transcript, look at the 

law, and make a decision. But to get the U.S. Attorney from the 

District of Columbia to do so may be a task. 

Mr. KING. That is my point. And I would turn back to Mr. von 

Spakovsky. How would justice prevail under the configuration that 

I have described hypothetically? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. Well, there are not often voting cases pursued by the Department where they have video evidence. And I 

was at the Civil Rights Commission when the poll watchers and 

others who were actually there came in and testified, and it was 

extremely strong testimony. I think it would be fairly easy to win 

a criminal prosecution for voter intimidation. 

Mr. KING. Easy to win, and perhaps difficult to confirm someone 

who would perpetrate such a thing. 
232 

I thank all the witnesses, and I yield back the balance of my 

time. 

Mr. GOWDY [presiding]. I thank the gentleman from Iowa. 

The Chair would now recognize the gentleman from New York, 

Mr. Nadler. 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you. Mr. von Spakovsky, do you have any 

firsthand personal knowledge of the Magner v. Gallagher case, a 

matter about which you testified, yes or no? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. No. 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you very much. I would point out that people 

have investigated this and have talked to the individuals involved. 

Namely, the minority staff have concluded there was no inappropriate conduct. 

Since we have wasted our time with more misinformation about 

the New Black Panther Party case, let me just comment that that 

case was investigated in the recent OIG report as well as in a prior 

Office of Professional Responsibility report. The allegations of voter 

intimidation were taken seriously in that case, as they should be. 

Without any evidence that any voter felt intimidated, and having 

determined that many of the charges lacked sufficient evidentiary 

support, experienced career DoJ lawyers decided to dismiss some of 

the defendants in that case. These decisions came before Assistant 

Attorney General Perez assumed leadership of the Civil Rights Division. 

We have now spent 6 years and hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars investigating baseless allegations that these decisions 

were racially or politically motivated. Those allegations have now 

been investigated and debunked twice before we hear crap again 

today with both the Inspector General and the—— 

Mr. ISSA. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. NADLER. No, I will not. 

Mr. ISSA. I did not catch the word. 

Mr. NADLER. What word? 

Mr. ISSA. We hear something. Again, I could not understand 

what it is. 

Mr. NADLER. I think I said ‘‘nonsense.’’ 

Mr. ISSA. Okay, ‘‘nonsense.’’ That is what I thought, thank you. 

Mr. NADLER. Baseless nonsense, ill-motivated baseless nonsense. 

Those allegations have now been investigated and debunked twice 

with both the Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility, finding that these decisions were based on the facts in 

the law and nothing else. 

There should be no bite at this apple. Any continued claims of 

wrongdoing in efforts to taint this Administration or Assistant Attorney General Perez with this case should be flatly rejected as the 

ill-motivated nonsense that they are. 

Professor Bagenstos, it has been alleged that little changed in 

the Civil Division from the leadership of the Bush administration 

where key leaders broke the law by engaging in politicized hiring 

personnel practices. Do you agree? 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. I disagree. Very much has changed. I mean, 

there has been a very substantial change in both the policies adopted for purposes of hiring, which have restored nonpartisan, meritbased, and career-driven hiring, and there has been a change, I 
233 

think, in the culture of the Division. I think it is restored, you 

know to—— 

Mr. NADLER. And these changes to restore de-politicized hiring 

have been made under the leadership of Assistant Attorney General Perez? 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. Under the leadership of Assistant Attorney General Perez. He issued the policy, absolutely. 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you. You know, many inflammatory claims 

have been made about the findings of the recent Office of Inspector 

General report. Would you help us clear up the record on this, 

please? Specifically, was there any finding in the report of selective 

enforcement of the law by this Administration? 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. No, there was not. 

Mr. NADLER. Was there any finding in the report that this Administration’s hiring or personnel practices improperly considered 

the political or ideological views of applicants? 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. No. In fact, the IG found to the contrary. 

Mr. NADLER. Was there any findings in this report, in the OIG 

report, that this Administration’s handling of FOCA requests—I 

am sorry, Freedom of Information Act requests favored liberal 

groups or interests? 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. No. The IG found that when they were asked to 

respond to requests or requests for pending Section 5 submissions, 

regardless of who sent them, they got filled quickly, and other requests did not get filled quickly. 

Mr. NADLER. And it is true that we know from the Office of Professional Responsibility report, and from this OIG report, and the 

prior OIG report, is it not, that all these things were going on during the period of 2003 to 2007 during the prior Administration 

when Mr. von Spakovsky and Mr. Adams were in the Department? 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. Well, certainly as to the politicized hiring and 

the politicized culture within the Division, absolutely. 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you. I would simply comment then that the 

credibility of Mr. von Spakovsky and Mr. Adams, anything they 

testify here lacks any credibility. 

Now, Mr. von Spakovsky, the Inspector General finds the disclosure of confidential or deliberative information for publication by a 

third party has ‘‘contributed to partisan rancor within the Voting 

Section.’’ That is on page 135. The two recent examples given by 

the IG involved internal information related to the two of you— 

that is, to Mr. von Spakovsky and Mr. Adams—and then posted by 

you on the Internet in 2011 and 2012. That is, footnotes 117 and 

118 on page 136 of the report. 

Do you agree that the employees leaking internal information to 

you should be investigated, Mr. von Spakovsky? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. When they are providing evidence of wrongdoing and they can get no responses from people above them, in 

fact, they will be harassed and bullied and intimidated for calling 

attention to things that are being done wrong—— 

Mr. NADLER. So it is your—— 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY [continuing]. No, I do not think so. I think 

they should be recognized as whistleblowers who are trying to right 

wrongs. 
234 

Mr. NADLER. So people who leak internal information to motivate—I will not say motivated—outside individuals should not be 

disciplined, but they should praised. 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. No, that is not what I said, Mr. Nadler. 

What I said was that given the current attitudes there and the fact 

that conservative employees there are marginalized, harassed, intimidated, when they see wrongdoing, they have no alternative because they know that their supervisors and other individuals above 

them will do nothing about it. And, in fact, if they become whistleblowers, they will be retaliated against. 

And individuals who are trying to draw attention to things that 

are unlawful and unethical I do not think should be—— 

Mr. NADLER. So people who see things that they believe are unethical or unlawful, instead of reporting them to law enforcement 

authorities should report them to you. 

Mr. GOWDY. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Chairman, I have a point of personal privilege. While Mr. Nadler is still here, he referenced more than once 

ill motivation, and it was not clear to me whether he was imputing 

ill motivation finally to Mr. Perez or if he was imputing ill motivation to Members of Congress in violation of the rules of the House. 

Mr. NADLER. Neither. I was imputing ill motivation to Mr. von 

Spakovsky and to Mr. Adams. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Well—— 

Mr. GOWDY. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The Chair would now recognize the gentleman from California, 

Mr. Issa. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I might note for the 

record that without whistleblowers, including the update the President recently signed, my Committee next door could not operate. 

We depend on whistleblowers, and, in fact, Fast and Furious, 

Benghazi, the IRS scandal, and right down next door, the manipulation that went on and what was disclosed when the Park Service 

complained they would not have enough money for toilet paper. All 

of that was exposed and more by whistleblowers. So I want to commend whistleblowers. I would prefer they come to Congress. I 

would prefer they trust my Committee. But notwithstanding that, 

if it is the New York Times they feel they have to go to, then I will 

read the New York Times. 

With that, I would like to read an older quote for a moment to 

begin my questioning. Congressman Davy Crockett famously in 

1835, when speaking and coining the phrase, ‘‘log rolling,’’ ‘‘My people don’t like me to log roll in their business. To vote away their 

preemption rights to fellows in other States that never kindle the 

fire in their own land.’’ He was talking about Congress doing quid 

pro quo, to use a different term. 

Mr. von Spakovsky, in the case of Mr. Perez and his going to St. 

Paul and trading away $200 million of taxpayer potential money, 

and in return for dismissing effectively or killing a Supreme Court 

case, one that might have been decided in a way he did not like, 

was he not, in fact, log rolling through his administrative power? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. I think he was, and I think it was another 

example of, frankly, something that Mr. Adams and I saw a lot, 

and that is the inability of individuals going to work in the Civil 
235 

Rights Division, particularly individuals from liberal advocacy organizations, being able to make the transition to being a government lawyer and understanding that their clients were now the 

American public and the American taxpayer. 

Instead, many of them go to work for the Civil Rights Division 

and continue to push and advocate the same kind of policies and 

legal positions that they did at those organizations, and they do not 

make the transition. I think it is an example of that. 

Mr. ISSA. Now, the same court, the exact same court, that decided Obamacare would have decided this civil rights question on 

behalf of people who felt that poor people in a city who felt that 

they should have better solutions than the status quo of calculation. Do you trust that Supreme Court? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. Well, I do, and it is very clear that this 

whole deal was done because Mr. Perez believed that the Supreme 

Court, and a lot of commentators agreed, was going to toss out 

these legal theories that were being used. And it is important to 

remember the whole issue here was over a city falsely certifying 

that it was going to use millions of dollars to help low income individuals, and they falsely certified to doing that. 

Mr. ISSA. So I think one of the more important questions that I 

need to get answered is, if you, in fact, bribe a city into dropping 

a case in return for dropping another case, or log rolling, to use 

Davy Crockett, because quid pro quo sounds way too highfalutin, 

and I think the gentleman from Tennessee would be more appropriate to quote. If, in fact, that were to continue, would we not basically have any number of things? I will give you a new courthouse in your district. I will bring stimulus funds. Would there not 

be almost limitless things the executive branch could do in return 

for having the Court not see cases they did not want, and see cases 

they wanted? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. Yeah, I think that would be the start of a 

long trend of doing that. 

Mr. ISSA. And is not the fact that that case is now basically dead, 

does that not mean that we have an inconsistency? We have one 

part of the country, one circuit, that has one rule and others that 

may have another? In other words, the lack of a clear decision 

could be years before we have one law of the land? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. That is true. And one of the worst things 

that all lawyers will tell you is to have inconsistent views and opinions from different courts in the country. 

Mr. ISSA. Now, from the IG report, and Mr. Nadler mentioned 

the OIG and the other case. But I just want you to help me with 

something that was said in the OIG report, and I will quote it. This 

is as to Thomas Perez. ‘‘Nevertheless, we found that Perez’s testimony did not reflect the entire story regarding the involvement of 

political appointees in MBPP decision making.’’ And then they 

again say, ‘‘We believe that Perez should have sought more details 

from King and Rosenbaum about the nature and extent of participation of political appointees,’’ et cetera. 

Now, you are more technical than I am. Would you say that that 

is not a lie, but it is not the whole truth? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. What I would say about that is my job as 

counsel to the Assistant Attorney General previously was to help 
236 

prepare my boss, people like Mr. Perez, for testimony before hearings like this and before the Commission. We would have briefed 

him on every aspect of that case and gotten all of the information 

necessary to answer every question, particularly a question like 

that, which Perez told the IG he anticipated the question. 

Mr. ISSA. So what you are saying is he did not tell the whole 

truth, and that was part of what he was sworn to do. 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. I believe that is correct. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the gentleman from California. 

The Chair would now recognize the gentlelady from Texas, Ms. 

Jackson Lee. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me thank the Chair very much, and I 

want to thank Mr. Conyers for refreshing our memory on one of the 

most hope springs eternal moments of this Congress and this Committee, which was the reauthorization in 2006-2007 led by Mr. Sensenbrenner and many of our colleagues here. And I want to thank 

them for the reauthorization of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act 

and thank you for your historical perspective as well. And I know 

that the witnesses here would agree with me that the legislation 

lives and provides vitality to democracy. 

I would only offer a caveat and suggest that the hearing should 

be renamed to ‘‘We Lost the Presidency, and Mr. Tom Perez is at 

fault,’’ because I see no reason for this hearing. I respect my colleagues. But let me just put on the record that the Office of Professional Responsibility as it relates to the New Black Panther Party 

did confirm that no mishandling occurred, no professional misconduct, no exercise of poor judgment. And Mr. Tom Perez was not 

even at the Department of Justice, to my knowledge. 

I note that in the earlier comments, some individuals were 

quoted as indicating that someone was booing at a Member of Congress, and as well that someone mentioned something about a 

noose. I would ask, as my good friend who is not here, that that 

individual go immediately and become a whistleblower. To my 

knowledge, it was Facebook, and I would hope because of the whistleblower protection, let me very clear to all of those who worked 

hard to cover under the whistleblower protection, that would have 

been the appropriate vehicle in which to be able to deal with. 

But let me show what Tom Perez did to uphold democracy, because this is a map of shame that shows the variety of voter suppression laws across America. If we had not had a diligent Justice 

Department led by Tom Perez, then people who wanted to vote, no 

matter where they came from, would not have had the opportunity 

to vote. 

The Voting Rights Act protects all people. Texas, which passed 

the strictest voter ID law in 2011 fortunately was turned back because of the Department of Justice, and people were able to vote. 

If you are not familiar with Texas, you will note Romney won the 

State of Texas. States like Florida that had enormous voter suppression that occurred, the Justice Department intervened. Ohio 

that had voter suppression, fortunately they turned it back. 

Voter suppression is not democratic, and I am not understanding 

why we are here trying to malign a gentleman who worked vigor-
237 

ously to enhance the opportunity for all Americans to vote. So let 

me proceed with some questioning for Mr. von Spakovsky. 

Mr. von Spakovsky, do you know perjury is? Can you explain 

that to me? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. Well, any lawyer will tell you perjury is 

lying under oath. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. So let me recount for you, and I am not going 

to challenge your interpretation. But in your July 2008 testimony 

before the House Judiciary Committee, July 2009 testimony before 

the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, March 2010 testimony before the 

House Judiciary Committee, and your September 2011 before the 

Senate Judiciary Committee, you praised the work of the Department during your tenure and consistently cite the positive cases, 

actions, and the environment fostered at the Department during 

that time. 

At the time of your testimony in the aforementioned Committee 

and commissions, did you believe your perception and depiction of 

the Department’s culture and work to be true at that time? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. I am sorry. I did not quite understand your 

question. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. In all of your testimonies that I gave—’09, ’08, 

2010, and 2011, do you believe your perception and depiction of the 

Department’s culture and work to be true at that time, what you 

said? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. I would stand behind any testimony—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. You are saying yes. Were you aware of any 

illegal hiring practices at the Department at that time? Yes or no? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. I was not aware. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Yes or no, sir. 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. There was absolutely no prosecution or—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. There was confusion—— 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. There was no prosecution of any case by the 

United States Attorney’s Office. They did not believe that any law 

had been violated. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Were you aware of any harassment or misconduct within the Division at that time? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. I am sorry, what? 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Were you aware of any harassment or misconduct within the Division at that time against career attorneys? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. There has been harassment from the first 

day I went to work there, including of me. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Yes. And the OIG recently found otherwise 

and characterized division at the time that you were in that were 

in crisis during the time that you were there. I think it is somewhat questionable to come before this panel when charges have 

been made during your tenure, and when Mr. Perez has been proven innocent of the charges you all make. And if it had not been for 

his vigorous prosecution of the Voting Rights Act, the legal Voting 

Rights Act of 1965, Section 5, that none of us would have had a 

fair and honest election in 2012. Do you admit to that, Mr. von 

Spakovsky? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. I completely disagree. I disagree with that. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Do you admit to that, sir? 
238 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. I disagree with your assessment of that and 

the way Mr. Perez has conducted himself. Perhaps you could explain—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. And there may be those who disagree with 

how you handled yourself. 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. Perhaps you can explain, Ms. Lee, why it 

is that—I recall getting criticism from Members of this Committee 

during the Bush administration that we supposedly had not filed 

enough Section 2 lawsuits. If you look on page 44 of this, you will 

find that there were 18 lawsuits filed under Section 2 during the 

Bush administration. If you look on the same IG report, you will 

find that this Administration has one case, one case that the investigation was started during the Bush administration, and that Section 2 was filed by Mr. Adams. There has not been a single Section 

2 lawsuit—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. It may be that the—— 

Mr. GOWDY. The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. It may be that the time was used up by voter 

oppression. And I thank the Chairman for his time. 

Mr. GOWDY. The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I yield back. 

Mr. GOWDY. The Chair will now recognize himself. I want to see 

if I can settle some facts. I had hoped to settle the facts with the 

witnesses, no offense intended to any of the four of you. But you 

were not the witnesses I wanted to settle these facts with. I wanted 

to ask the Department of Justice, but they are not here, so this is 

going to be a challenge, but I will see if I can work my way through 

it. 

South Carolina passed a voter ID law in 2011, May of 2011. And 

in 2011, one-third of South Carolina’s congressional delegation was 

African-American. I may be mistaken. I suspect that South Carolina’s percentage of African-American Members of Congress may 

have been the highest in the country in 2011. And as we now 

know, one of two African-American United States senators is from 

South Carolina in the person of my friend, Tim Scott. 

In addition, South Carolina’s governor is of Indian descent. Further to the same, South Carolina’s voter ID law was similar, if not 

less, restrictive than those Department of Justice had pre-cleared 

in New Hampshire, Virginia, and Georgia. And moreover, South 

Carolina’s plan was similar, if not less, restrictive to plans approved outside of Department of Justice preclearance in States like 

Tennessee, Kansas, Indian, which incidentally was affirmed by the 

United States Supreme Court, Idaho, South Dakota, and Michigan. 

And just to be clear, South Carolina’s voter ID law allowed for 

the casting of provisional ballots where the voter did not have one 

of the forms of accepted identification. Now, that is withstanding 

the fact that South Carolina’s new voter ID law made it easier to 

obtain one of those forms of identification, allowed for the casting 

of provisional ballots. 

So, Professor, in your testimony, you had mentioned the significance of having career prosecutors to make these decisions. Did I 

understand your testimony correctly? 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. Yes, absolutely. 
239 

Mr. GOWDY. Would you be interested to know whether or not the 

leadership of the Department of Justice ignored the opinion of 

these career prosecutors whose opinion you value so highly? 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. What I would want to know—— 

Mr. GOWDY. I want to know whether or not you—I want you to 

answer my question before you answer the one you want to answer, 

okay? Answer my question, and it is this: would you be interested 

in knowing whether or not leadership in the Department of Justice 

ignored the advice of career Department of Justice attorneys? 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. Of course, but ignoring and disagreeing are not 

the same thing. I do not know what happened in that case. 

Mr. GOWDY. Exactly, and we do not either. You know why? Because they will not tell us. They have ignored Senator Graham’s 

letter. So I am asking you, will you join Senator Graham and me 

in asking the Department of Justice whether or not they ignored 

advice from career attorneys to pre-clear South Carolina’s plan? 

Will you join us? 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. No. I think the deliberative process within the 

Department is incredibly important. You cannot get candid—— 

Mr. GOWDY. Is that a yes? Will you join us today? 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. No, congressman. You cannot get candid views 

from career staff if they know—— 

Mr. GOWDY. Are you interested in whether or not those candid 

views were ignored? 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. You know, as a citizen I would be interested 

whether they were ignored. But ignore and—— 

Mr. GOWDY. As a citizen? How about as a law professor? 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. Yeah. 

Mr. GOWDY. Would you be interested in whether or not sound 

legal advice was ignored for political expediency? Would you be interested in that? 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. Sure, but I think the proof in the pudding in 

this case is precisely in the opinion of the District Court, which I 

referred to—— 

Mr. GOWDY. Oh, I have read the opinion. And by the way, who 

won? 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. And by the way it was a—— 

Mr. GOWDY. Who won? 

Mr. BAGENSTOS [continuing]. Decision, by the way. 

Mr. GOWDY. South Carolina won. 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. By the way—— 

Mr. GOWDY. And here is the difference. I am going to reclaim my 

time. Here is the difference. There was a 1.6 percent difference in 

African-Americans who had accepted photo IDs and White South 

Carolinians, 1.6 percent difference. Twenty years ago when I was 

working on voting rights cases, that was considered the minimus. 

Now it costs South Carolina $3.5 million to defend that 1.6 percent 

difference. 

But it also means this: that my fellow South Carolinians who are 

African-American are 1.6 percent less likely, less able, to enter a 

Federal courthouse because an ID is required there also. And they 

are 1.6 percent less likely to be able to board an aircraft because 

it also requires a photo ID. They are 1.6 percent less likely to enter 

the front door of this building because it also requires a voter ID. 
240 

So my time is up. I would simply say this to the men and women 

who have dedicated their careers at the Department of Justice to 

the apolitical, nonpartisan enforcement of the law, I am sorry that 

we are having to have this hearing. And I am also sorry to the 

State of South Carolina that it had to spend $3.5 million to have 

a district court, ultimately a three-judge panel, ultimately agree 

with us. And I am sorry for the Department of Justice that they 

put politics ahead of the law. 

And with that, I would recognize the gentlelady from California, 

Ms. Chu. 

Ms. CHU. I am one who feels very strongly about the Voting 

Rights Act, in particular, the aspects that protect language minority groups. And so, Mr. Bagenstos, we still continue to have examples of those who experience problems. For example, in 2010, we 

learned that poll sites in Queens, New York did not have translators for Korean and Chinese voters, even though languages are 

indeed covered by the Voting Rights Act, Section 203. And some 

sites were prohibiting limited English proficient voters from getting 

the assistance of a person of their choice in the voting booth as 

would be required by Section 208. 

As you know, the Voting Rights Act was specifically designed to 

protect citizens who are members of language minority groups from 

being excluded from the voting process and to ensure that they can 

receive the language assistance that they need to cast an effective 

vote. 

So let me ask: during and after your tenure, what progress and 

specific actions has the Civil Rights Division taken to enforce Section 203 and 208 of the Voting Rights Act, and to protect the voting 

rights of language minority groups more broadly? 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. Well, obviously the Division has brought a 

whole series of cases in the last 4 years to enforce Sections 203 and 

208 and the language minority provisions generally of the statute. 

It is a very important area. 

You know, after the 2010 census, there was a new set of jurisdictions that were certified for coverage under Section 203 of the statute because that is now the statute works. It is based on census 

data. And actually, as detailed in the OIG report, it is clear that 

Tom Perez and the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division responded immediately to first try outreach with jurisdictions that 

were newly covered because litigation is not the first response. Better to try to get voluntary compliance with the law. But we also 

saw a substantial effort to enforce these laws, both with respect to 

language minority voters, with respect to Asian languages, but also 

the first new case on behalf of Native Americans since 1998. So a 

very substantial push in this area. 

Now, I will say, I do want to be here and say nothing that happened in any previous Administration was positive by any means. 

I think the language minority provisions of the statute were enforced in the previous Administration, and this Administration has 

continued to enforce them. But I think there has been a substantial 

uptick in voting rights enforcement generally. 

Ms. CHU. Thank you. Let me ask, Mr. Bagenstos, about the Inspector General’s report. From 2003 to 2007, the Office of the IG 

concluded that the polarization and suspicion in the Voting Section 
241 

became particular acute as political appointees illegally recruited 

new attorneys into the Voting Section and other parts of the Division based on their conservative affiliations. Appointees regularly 

considered political and ideological affiliations in their personnel 

actions. 

What was the impact on the Department’s expertise and capabilities and on the remaining career attorneys’ morale when you came 

on in 2009? 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. It was dreadful. It was absolutely dreadful. I 

mean, I have often described my first 6 months on the job as Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the time as basically conducting 

grief counseling. I mean, it was a place where the career staff was 

completely demoralized. There had been very substantial turnover. 

Many of the people who had left, not surprisingly, are people who 

were outstanding attorneys, who had very good options, so they 

were the people who we would rely on to lead very significant litigations if we were to try to ramp up enforcement efforts. We had 

to figure out how to kind of rebuild what was there. It was a place 

that was in complete disarray and complete demoralization. 

Ms. CHU. And so, then Assistant AG Perez came in. And what 

was his attitude toward these improper hiring practices? How did 

he reform the hiring practices of that section and the Civil Rights 

Division as a whole? And in your personal view, what is the impact 

on the Division of these new policies? And what did the IG’s Office 

conclude in their recent investigation? 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. So if you look at the IG report, it does detail 

what Tom Perez did pretty much right away as soon as he got in. 

I mean, he got in in October and had to look at various proposals 

to do this. But by the end of 2009, he instituted a process where 

career attorneys were in the driver’s seat for hiring. All experienced attorney hiring would be done through hiring committee staff 

of career attorneys. 

The section chief, also a career employee, would make a recommendation to the Assistant Attorney General for hiring. If the 

Assistant Attorney General was to disagree with that recommendation, the Assistant Attorney General would have to do that in writing to promote transparency and to promote this culture of accountability. And the IG found that the nine attorneys hired in the 

Voting Section under that policy were outstanding in their qualifications and in their voting rights experience. 

Ms. CHU. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the gentlelady. 

The Chair would recognize the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. 

Franks. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. von Spakovsky, in your written statement, you described the 

Division’s legal arguments in the 2012 Hosanna-Tabor Supreme 

Court case as representing a ‘‘war on religious freedom, completely 

at odds with the Division’s prior history of protecting religious freedom.’’ You also state that Mr. Perez signed a brief to the United 

States Supreme Court that claimed ‘‘such an extreme position, that 

all nine justices of the Supreme Court disagreed.’’ I mean, nine justices, nine to zero. I am not sure in today’s environment of judicial 
242 

activism that we could get nine justices to all agree that two and 

two still equal four, so it is a pretty profound decision. 

Can you put some context on this and tell us why this Division, 

whose purpose it is to protect religious freedom, seemed in this 

case committed to turning it on its end and wiping away not only 

hundreds of years of history, but vaporizing the First Amendment 

in the process? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. Well, what was amazing about that case 

was that they basically tried to tell the Supreme Court that there 

should be no ministerial exemption. In other words, churches 

should not have the ability to impose their religious beliefs when 

they are hiring ministers, and lay ministers, and things like that. 

And that position was so at odds with the First Amendment. 

They were basically saying that churches should not have any more 

associational rights than a private club. And the Supreme Court 

said, you know, nine justices. And, in fact, Elena Kagan, the former 

Solicitor General for this Administration, joined with Justice Alito 

in a concurring opinion because the Court just could not believe, 

and it is very clear from the language, they could not believe that 

the Justice Department was pushing this kind of a view. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, I mean, I do sometimes think we get so impractical in these areas, under that reasoning of that brief, it would 

occur to me that as a Baptist, I could hold myself electable to papacy because I felt better qualified somehow than the pope. And I 

just find it hysterical. I mean, next we will have, you know, some 

bill here that suggests that Russian citizens should be able to vote 

in American elections. So, I mean, I do not know where this thing 

goes. 

Mr. Mihet, in your written testimony, you provided an email 

dated November 5th of 2009. And incidentally, your story, sir, compels all of us greatly. But this was a Civil Rights Division attorney 

that wrote the email to an employee of the Presidential Women’s 

Center, which, in part, states, ‘‘On Saturday, we had planned to observe the protestors. Usually we just hang outside the clinic and 

observe as well as chat with the escorts. We had planned to leave 

on Saturday afternoon.’’ 

Now, can you elaborate again, put some context in this situation? 

Elaborate on the Civil Rights Division’s presence in West Palm 

Beach. And do you think that the proponents of abortion who 

claimed that you got lucky in this case with the judge who is himself an ideologue, of course, and that the outcome would have been 

different in any other court? Can you put that in context and help 

us understand that? 

Mr. MIHET. Yes. The written documentation we obtained in discovery revealed a very sinister plan that began way before the lawsuit was actually filed against Susan in which the Department of 

Justice planned an elaborate trap against Susan and others of her 

pro-life friends. The email showed that they were on a first name 

basis with the clinic staff, Mona and Julie, and they were making 

all these plans. And multiple DoJ lawyers were flying from Washington, D.C. to Florida. Now, perhaps the weather differential in 

February might account for some of that eagerness to travel to 

Florida on taxpayer dollars. But that fact was easily lost upon 
243 

Susan, who all of a sudden is being prosecuted by the most powerful government on earth. 

As to your second question, if you read Judge Ryskamp’s opinion, 

which has been provided in the written submission, it is well reasoned and supported by the law. He exercised remarkable restraint 

in the face of what he clearly understood to be frivolous and outrageous conduct. Any other judge faithful to the Constitution would 

have reached the same result. How do we know that? The DoJ 

could have appealed that decision if they disagreed with it. In fact, 

Professor Bagenstos was an attorney at the DoJ at that time, perhaps the only attorney who managed not to have his name on the 

pleadings in this particular case. But he was in charge of the Appellate Division. If they thought the judge was off base, they could 

have appealed the decision. They chose not to. They quietly paid 

the significant attorney fee sanctions out of the public treasury, 

and then moved on to their next target. 

Mr. FRANKS. Thank you, folks. And thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the gentleman from Arizona. 

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. GOWDY. Before we go to my friend, the gentleman from Louisiana, I wanted to recognize the gentleman from Michigan. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, sir. I would like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the letter from Wade Henderson, who 

heads the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, as 

well as the letter from Joe Rich, the chief of the Voting Section 

from 1999 to 2005, a letter sent to the Honorable Dianne Feinstein 

and the Honorable Bob Bennett. 

Mr. GOWDY. Without objection, it will be made part of the record. 

[The information referred to follows:] 
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Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. 

Mr. GOWDY. I think the gentlelady from Texas had a quick document submission as well? 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I ask unanimous 

consent to put the submission of the testimony of the Lawyers 

Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, submitted to this Committee on April 16, 2013. I ask unanimous consent. 

And I ask unanimous consent to put in from the Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights the Map of Shame on voter suppression legislation by State. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, is it entitled the ‘‘Map of Shame,’’ because I 

see my State highlighted on it. If that is the title of it, then that 

is fine. But if that is your editorializing what the document means, 

then we will just put the document in. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Sir, I would never editorialize on a document, 

and it is not from me. It is from the Lawyers Committee on Civil 

Rights. I ask unanimous consent to put it in the record. 

Mr. GOWDY. Without objection. 

[The information referred to follows:] 
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265 
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Mr. GOWDY. I will now recognize the gentleman from Louisiana, 

Mr. Richmond. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Chairman, if the Civil Rights Division is editorializing by denoting that a State, which has clearly been found 

not to be discriminatory by the courts, is part of a Map of Shame, 

then I would submit—first I thought I would object, but then I 

would submit that is evidence of outright bigotry by this Justice 

Department. So I will not object. 

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the gentleman from Texas. 

And I will now recognize the gentleman from Louisiana and 

thank him for his patience. 

Mr. RICHMOND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [Laughter.] 

Mr. GOWDY. We are going to restart the clock for the gentleman 

from Louisiana so he does not lose any time. 

Mr. RICHMOND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And to the Ranking 

Member, who commented last week, and I think we both commented on the titles of the hearings in this Committee. I was excited when I saw the mild title of this one and thought we were 

actually having a hearing, and then I had a chance to read the report, which is the ‘‘Department of Justice’s Quid Pro Quo with St. 

Paul: How Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez Manipulated 

Justice and Ignored the Rule of Law,’’ which is right in line with 

other outrageous titles of hearings. 

It begs the question to me whether we are in search, whether we 

are trying to solve problems, or is this a race to be obstructionist 

in chief. And as I think about what we are trying to accomplish 

and if we are trying to accomplish anything, I can only think back 

to the last hearings. We had the REINS Act, which is Regulations 

From the Executive In Need of Review, where Congress wanted to 

approve every rule that the President wanted to promulgate. 

So last week, we wanted to be president. This week we want to 

be the U.S. Senate and actually have a hearing on Mr. Perez, who 

is not here, but we have heard his name a million times in this 

Committee. My understanding is this is a Committee in the House, 

and we do not have the right to examine Senate presidential appointees. But nevertheless, we are crossing not that jurisdictional 

lines, but, again, we want to be more than what we are. 

So let me just go ahead and ask a few questions, and I will start 

with the professor. Let me ask you, are you aware that the 2009 

GAO study conducted by the Civil Rights Division under the Bush 

administration, to be specific, are you aware, for instance, that it 

indicated that they decreased the number of Section 5 investigations, even though the number of submissions from States did not 

decrease? 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. I certainly generally read that report before I 

took my job, you know, a few years ago. 

Mr. RICHMOND. Did you remember or can you recall the part of 

the report that found that in various cases, career staff attorneys 

would recommend going forward with an investigation. However, 

political appointees would choose that these matters, would close 

those matters without any explanation? 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. Yes, and that was a substantial problem. I 

mean, that was the lack of transparency and respect for the career 

staff precisely there. 
267 

Mr. RICHMOND. Did you also know that they would stop communications with the States in those case, which ended the paper trail 

on their deliberation and further explanation of why they made 

their decision? 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. You are getting beyond my knowledge on that. 

But if the GAO said it, I trust that the GAO said it. 

Mr. RICHMOND. How far of a departure from the standard procedure do you think that eliminating the paper trail creates? 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. So, I mean, when we are talking about negotiations, I just want to understand what context we are talking about. 

We are talking about the Section 5 submission made to the Justice 

Department. And, you know, usually what happens in the context 

of a Section 5 submission made to the Justice Department, is the 

jurisdiction is required to submit all the information necessary to 

consider whether the voting change is discriminatory in purpose or 

effect. 

That information is supposed to go to the Justice Department 

both for its consideration and, as something we learned from the 

IG’s report most recently, and so it can be released to interested 

parties, who have an interest in commenting on the submission. 

And so, if the information is not provided in a way that it can be 

released to interested parties in that context, then you have a serious problem with the Section 5 procedure, if that is what you are 

talking about. 

Mr. RICHMOND. Mr. Mihet, you spoke about the case you all were 

involved in, and you said that it was government actors, they lost 

evidence, they did not have the license plate. The police officer was 

the only witness. As a defense attorney, I want you to know that 

that is not that far from the norm of many cases that I seek. Is 

this the only case that you all have ever initiated that there was 

only a police witness and not much further evidence? 

Mr. MIHET. This was the only case where the one eyewitness put 

forth by the plaintiff, the DoJ in this case, came back and actually 

refuted the very claim that the DoJ was making. Here they said 

that Susan ‘‘stopped and stood in front of a vehicle.’’ This one and 

only eyewitness comes and testifies that, no, she immediately 

moved out of its way. 

Mr. RICHMOND. In all of your practice of law, is this the first 

time that you have seen that happen? 

Mr. MIHET. In all of my practice of law, I have never seen the 

kind of politically motivated conduct that I have seen in this case 

from any plaintiff, let alone a government. 

Mr. RICHMOND. We were just talking about a witness contradicting the report of themselves. 

Mr. MIHET. Well, what is interesting here is that both the police 

officer and the DoJ admitted on the record—— 

Mr. RICHMOND. Is it the first time you have seen a witness contradict the prosecution in all of your practice of law? It is very simple. 

Mr. MIHET. It is my first time that I have seen it to this extent. 

No one disputed that this police officer and the DoJ had conferred 

before the lawsuit was filed. We have the documents going back 

and forth between them. There was no reason for them to misunderstand each other what I submit to you happened. 
268 

Mr. RICHMOND. I will take you at your word. In your vast experience, this is the first time you have seen a witness contradict the 

prosecution. 

I yield back. 

Mr. MIHET. To this extent. 

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the gentleman from Louisiana. 

The Chair would now recognize the gentleman from Texas, Judge 

Poe. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A lot has been said about 

Tom Perez and his reign in the Justice Department and what he 

has done or not done. It is my understanding he was invited to be 

here to talk about what he has done or not done, and he willfully 

chose not to be here. Is that correct, Mr. Chairman? Mr. Perez was 

invited, and he is not here? 

Mr. GOWDY. Judge Poe, my information is that he was invited. 

In the interest of full disclose to the court so I do not get myself 

in trouble, I think that there was some effort to arrange a date, but 

he is pretty occupied with the confirmation. And not only was he 

invited, I think the DoJ was given an opportunity to send another 

witness, and they did not avail themselves of that opportunity either. 

Mr. POE. Thank you. When a person goes to vote, if someone is 

cheating and should not be voting, it disenfranchises the lawful 

voter. That is the way I see our system. Cheats hurt the right and 

the power of the vote of one person, one vote because it is diminished to some extent. Some States have passed voter ID laws. The 

Supreme Court has ruled on Indiana’s voter ID law. 

I will ask the professor, do you agree with the Supreme Court’s 

decision in the Indiana case where they uphold their voter ID laws? 

It is either a yes or it is a no. 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. Well, it is a complicated—— 

Mr. POE. It is a either a, yes, you agree or it is a no, and I do 

not want to hear your answer that wants to explain it because I 

am not asking you to explain the answer. Either you agree with 

the Supreme Court or you disagree. Which is it? Pick a horse and 

ride it. 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. I do not have a problem with them upholding 

the voter ID law against the claim that was asserted against them 

there. I do think there are certain statements in—— 

Mr. POE. So you agree with the Supreme Court decision in that 

Indiana case under the circumstances. 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. I agree with the bottom line. There are parts of 

the opinion—— 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Professor. It is not that complicated. It is 

not a trick question. 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. Well, I am a professor. It is always complicated. 

Mr. POE. I want to call you that because they claim you are the 

professor, and I do not have a problem with that. So anyway, it is 

either yes or no. Pick a horse and ride it. It is probably a yes in 

your circumstances. 

Texas has a similar voter ID law that the Justice Department, 

after the Supreme Court decision, chose to make sure that law was 

not implemented for last year’s election. Now, I personally think 
269 

voter ID laws are probably a good idea. We will see what the Supreme Court does in this case. 

I want to ask the other members as well. Do you believe the Department of Justice in its litigation, and its philosophy, and its procedure applies our voter rights laws equally across the board to all 

citizens. Once again, it is either a yes or it is a no. I will start with 

Mr. Adams and go down the row. 

Mr. ADAMS. No. 

Mr. POE. Professor? 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. Yes. 

Mr. MIHET. No. 

Mr. POE. It is a no. Mr. von Spakovsky? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. No. 

Mr. POE. All right. Do you believe that if the three of you who 

think it is now not applied equally, do you think that is a violation 

of the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment, yes or no? 

Mr. ADAMS. No. 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. I thought you were skipping me. 

Mr. POE. Yes. We are just getting the yesses. Yes, that answered 

yes. 

Mr. MIHET. Yes. 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. I am frankly not sure on that one. 

Mr. POE. All right. I will take that as an answer. Let me ask you 

this. Do you you believe that the Justice Department’s Civil Rights 

Division has a bias against voter integrity groups that are of a conservative persuasion? In other words, if you are a conservative 

group and you are trying to promote integrity, hypothetically, you 

are looked at with intimidation as opposed to some other group? I 

mean, is that a fair statement or not? Mr. Adams, you may answer 

that question and explain it if you want to. 

Mr. ADAMS. We know the answer is yes based on the depositions 

that the Justice Department conducted in the State of Texas regarding the voter ID case where attorneys for the Department 

made inquiry of, for example, Patricia Harless, your State sponsor 

of the voter ID law there, about which conservative groups she was 

talking, whether or not she met with True the Vote, in full disclosure, one of my clients. And so there was an inquiry in discovery 

as to the extent of conservative groups’ involvement in the passage 

of the voter ID law. That is a fact. 

Mr. POE. Mr. von Spakovsky, you may answer that, too, if you 

want. 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. Well, I agree with Mr. Adams. 

Mr. POE. All right. I see that my time has expired. I will yield 

back to the Chair. 

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the gentleman from Texas. Thank you, 

Judge Poe. 

The Chair would now recognize the gentleman from Florida, Mr. 

Garcia. 

Mr. GARCIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I find myself at a great disadvantage with the other Members 

here today since I have known Tom Perez for many years, and I 

find him to be an excellent representative of a public servant, and 

someone who is committed to doing justice. Clearly, his tenure at 

the Department of Justice is something we should all be proud of. 
270 

But nonetheless, this morning when I woke up, I realized that 

I had been promoted to the rank of United States senator since we 

are engaging in a confirmation process. And thereby, since the 

judge engaged in questioning the panel, let us question the panel. 

According to the Constitution, does the House of Representatives 

have a role to play in the confirmation of a nominee? We will start 

from left to right, and you can answer. 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. I certainly think in its oversight role—— 

Mr. GARCIA. I would like a yes or a no answer like the judge has 

provided. According to the Constitution of the United States, does 

the House of Representatives have the same confirmation responsibilities as the United States Senate? 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. No. 

Mr. MIHET. Not the same, but a—— 

Mr. GARCIA. I would like a yes or no answer just as was given 

to the judge. 

Mr. MIHET. Not the same, but a different function, yes. 

Mr. GARCIA. Thank you. I will take as a no since the judge is allowed to interpret the question. 

Mr. MIHET. That is not what I testified. 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. The advice and consent power is to the Senate. 

Mr. GARCIA. Thank you. 

Mr. ADAMS. No. 

Mr. GARCIA. Great. Thank you, gentleman. That is all I have. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank the gentleman from Florida. 

The Chair would now recognize the gentleman from Texas, Judge 

Gohmert. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the 

witnesses for being here. 

There has been discussion already obviously about Mr. Perez’s 

prior testimony on different issues. And obviously the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights decided that Assistant Attorney General 

Thomas Perez testified that political appointees in the Department 

were not involved in the New Black Panther case. And they found, 

and I am quoting from the CCR, ‘‘We found that Perez’s testimony 

did not reflect the entire story regarding the involvement of political appointees. In particular, Perez’s characterizations omitted 

that Assistant Attorney General Pirelli and Deputy Associate Attorney General Hirsch were involved in consultations about the decision as shown in testimony and contemporaneous emails.’’ But 

basically they were giving him a pass because he at the time he 

testified did not know. 

Then in 2011, he testified before our Committee, and my friend, 

Mr. King, asked him specifically, but the decision to drop the case 

against other individuals you testified was made not by political, 

but by career employees. And I think the names were Mr. King and 

Mr. Rosenbaum. Does that still remain the case, or would you wish 

to clarify? He said that decision was made Mr. King and Steve 

Rosenbaum, two people who are career attorneys in the Division 

with combined experience of 60 years. Anyway, he said, but the 

question was, it was not overruled by or influenced unduly by political appointees, and he answered no. 
271 

Mr. Adams, from your own personal experience, after the CCR 

investigation had determined that he did not apparently know the 

truth at the time he misstated the truth, but by June of 2011, from 

your own personal experience, do you know if he lied when he said 

political appointees did not unduly influence that decision? 

Mr. ADAMS. Well, he certainly did not tell the truth when he said 

he had never heard about this toxic culture against race neutral 

enforcement. I can personally testify about that second point. 

As to your specific question, by that time you would have 

thought he would have inquired about the Attorney General’s involvement, which is detailed in the IG report, as well as Tom 

Pirelli, the Associate Attorney General, specifically denying them 

the opportunity to dismiss the entire case. So political appointees 

did overrule Rosenbaum and King, and they knew it. But Perez 

testified to the contrary. 

Mr. GOHMERT. So is it a true statement by Mr. Perez, now up 

for consent before the Senate, when he said that the decision not 

to pursue the New Black Panther case was not overruled by or influenced unduly by political appointees? 

Mr. ADAMS. Completely inaccurate. 

Mr. GOHMERT. All right, thank you. Now, there is a new thing 

that has arisen in conduct of people who appear to be violating 

State law and possibly Federal law with regard to something people in the media have called flash mobs. Mr. Adams, are you familiar with the consideration by the Federal Government to pursue 

such flash mobs and the civil rights that might be involved and 

being violated? 

Mr. ADAMS. Yes. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Would you tell us about that? 

Mr. ADAMS. What this refers to is racially motivated mob violence in places like Chicago, also at the Wisconsin State fair a 

number of years ago. The issue is whether or not it violates 18.U.S. 

242 and 18 U.S.C. 245, which is to deprive somebody of their civil 

rights. 

The Justice Department has long had a public streets view of exercising civil rights. If you are going about your business, you are 

exercising your civil rights. These groups have been attacking people with racial motivation in very violent fashion, and this Justice 

Department has done absolutely nothing about it. 

They have brought cases against White wrongdoers or Hispanic 

wrongdoers in places like New York, and they should because we 

have the right to walk the streets without being attacked. But 

those parents who went to the Wisconsin State fair or those parents who were attacked on their front lawn in Ohio by racially motivated mobs have had no justice from this Justice Department. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Okay. 

Mr. ADAMS. It is time that that stopped. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you. Well, very quickly, let me ask about 

Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. It seemed to me I tried to persuade my friend, Mr. Conyers and Mr. Sensenbrenner that to continue to cram down Section 5 requirements on States where there 

was less racial disparity than in the States where senators and 

congressmen were voting to force this down the throats of States 

who had brought themselves into compliance with the law was a 
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violation of Equal Protection, and the continued forcing of this law 

and these requirements, the punitive requirements, down the 

throats of States where the racial disparity had been cured while 

States that were cramming down those throats punitively now, 

after 40 years, were having great racial disparity that they are refusing to address, was a violation of Equal Protection. 

And since there is nobody here to object, I would just ask if each 

of you would address in your opinion whether you believe Section 

5, as it is today, violates the Constitution’s right of Equal Protection to those States that were in the minority, and upon whom that 

was crammed down. 

Mr. GOWDY. I have given everybody one extra minute that has 

gone over, and Judge Gohmert just hit the 1 minute. If you can answer with one sentence, then we will allow that to happen. 

Mr. ADAMS. Section 4’s triggers are probably outdated, and I suspect the Supreme Court will find that shortly. 

Mr. BAGENSTOS. I do not agree it is unconstitutional. 

Mr. MIHET. I would just defer to Mr. Adams on this. 

Mr. VON SPAKOVSKY. The extraordinary circumstances which justified Section 5 in 1965 have long disappeared. It is no longer constitutional. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you very much. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank the gentleman from Texas. 

On behalf of Chairman Goodlatte and all the Members of the Judiciary Committee, I want to thank all of our witnesses for your patience and your comity toward one another with a ‘‘T’’ and with the 

full Committee. 

Without objection, all Members will have 5 legislative days to 

submit additional written questions for the witnesses or additional 

materials for the record. 

With that, thank you again on behalf of all of us. And this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:16 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 
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