There’s never been much love lost between Attorney General Eric Holder and Republican Rep. Darrell Issa of California – who heads the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The tension between the two men was on full display Wednesday, when Holder flatly labeled Issa’s conduct during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee “shameful.”

The charge came after an aggressive exchange about Labor Secretary nominee Tom Perez, whom Republicans say acted inappropriately during his time at the Justice Department.

“I am not going to stop talking now," Holder countered as Issa objected to the attorney general’s attempts to interject.

"It is inappropriate and too consistent with the way in which you conduct yourself as a member of Congress," Holder said. "It is unacceptable. It is shameful."

This story was originally published on Wed May 15, 2013 3:33 PM EDT

As the White House faces a trio of burgeoning controversies that have put the administration and agencies throughout Washington on the defensive, Attorney General General Eric Holder reiterated before a House panel Wednesday that he was not involved in the Justice Department's decision to seize two months of phone records from Associated Press journalists as a part of a leak probe.

LIVESTREAM: House Judiciary Committee hearing

The Justice Department has also opened an investigation into revelations that the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status for additional scrutiny. In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Holder said that prosecutors are looking at several different statutes in the investigation of those actions. 

He said those potential violations could include an IRS statute that requires employees to do their jobs without favoritism, civil rights laws, the Hatch Act that restricts a federal employee's political activities, or the law against making false statements to investigators.

“The facts will take us wherever they take us,” he added, promising a nationwide investigation. 

Asked about the leak probe, Holder confirmed that Deputy Attorney General James Cole authorized the subpoenas on AP reporters' phone records after Holder recused himself from the matter.

Brendan Smialowski / AFP - Getty Images

Attorney General Eric Holder is sworn in during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill May 15, 2013 in Washington, DC.

Holder first announced Tuesday that he had recused himself from the AP leak probe because he had previously been questioned by the FBI about the intelligence breach.

He added Wednesday that he also turned over his own phone records as a part of that questioning. 

He told the committee that he recused himself because he was one of the “relatively limited number of people” who had first-hand knowledge of the leaked information – and also because he had more regular communication with reporters than Cole.

“I was a possessor of the information that was ultimately leaked,” he added. “And the question then is, who of those people who possessed that information – which was a relatively limited number of people  within the Justice Department – who of those people actually spoke in an inappropriate way to the Associated Press,” he added.

In response to questions, he said that he did not know the date of his recusal for certain and that there was not a written record of it.  He also said that the White House would not have been informed of the recusal. 

Holder has been widely criticized by Republicans for DOJ's handling of the matter, scrutiny Holder noted at the beginning of his remarks.

"The head of the [Republican National Committee] called for my resignation in spite of the fact that I was not the person who was involved in that decision," he said.

The routine Justice Department oversight hearing became a hot ticket after two scandals – the DOJ probe and the revelations about the IRS – erupted since the end of last week. The Obama administration also continues to be dogged by lingering questions over its administration’s response to the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on a diplomatic outpost in Benghazi.

In opening remarks he was set to deliver before the House Judiciary Committee, Holder says the Justice Department “has taken critical steps to prevent and combat violent crime, to confront national security threats, to ensure the civil rights of everyone in this country, and to safeguard the most vulnerable members of our society.”

NBC's Pete Williams contributed to this report. 

This story was originally published on Wed May 15, 2013 1:07 PM EDT

Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters Tuesday that he recused himself last year from any involvement in an investigation of national security leaks.

Holder also announced Tuesday that he has ordered an investigation to see if there were criminal violations in the Internal Revenue Service scrutiny of conservative political groups that had sought non-profit status.

On the leaks case, Holder – who is slated to testify before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday afternoon -- reminded reporters that he testified to a congressional committee last year that he had recused himself to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

The Associated Press reported Monday that phone records of its reporters and editors had been subpoenaed and seized in that probe.

Holder said decisions in that investigation were being made by Deputy Attorney General James Cole and “the deputy attorney general would have been the one who ultimately had to authorize the subpoena that went to the AP.”

He added that since he was recused from the investigation, “I’m not familiar with all that went into the formulation of the subpoena.”

He also said he could not explain why voluntary cooperation wasn’t sought from the Associated Press before the subpoena was executed.

 “I am confident that the people who are involved in this investigation, who I know for a great many years and who I’ve worked with for a great many years, followed all of the appropriate Justice Department regulations and did things according to DOJ rules,” Holder said.

He added that it “certainly not the policy of this administration” to target reporters. What has been done in the leaks investigation was, he said, “not as a result of a policy to get the press.”

Referring to the leaks of national security information, Holder said, “This was a very, very serious leak. I’ve been a prosecutor since 1976 – and I have to say that this is among, if not the most serious, in the top two or three most serious leaks that I’ve ever seen. It put the American people at risk – and that is not hyperbole.”

Trying to find out who leaked the information “required very aggressive action,” Holder said.

Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid, D- Nev., on Tuesday joined other congressional critics of the Justice Department’s search of SAP’ phone records telling reporters  “I have trouble defending what the DOJ did. It’s inexcusable. There is no way to justify this.”

In a letter to Holder on Monday, Associated Press President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said, "There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters.” Pruitt complained that the records could “disclose information about AP's activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know."

In a response, Cole wrote to Pruitt Tuesday that seeking phone records from media organizations “is undertaken only after all other reasonable alternative investigative steps have been taken.” He said that the Justice Department sought the AP phone records only after a comprehensive investigation which included conducting over 550 interviews and reviewing of tens of thousands of documents.

This story was originally published on Tue May 14, 2013 7:57 PM EDT

With a ding at the White House’s “humiliated” response, Sen. Rand Paul says he finally has the answer to the question that launched his marathon filibuster Wednesday on the Senate floor. 

“Hoo-ray,” the Kentucky Republican said upon being read a brief letter of response from Attorney General Eric Holder during an appearance on FOX News.

Paul led the nearly 13-hour filibuster in protest of what he called the Obama administration's lack of clarity about whether or not a U.S. citizen could be targeted by a drone attack on American soil. 

Holder's letter reads: "It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: 'Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil.' The answer to that question is no." 

Charles Dharapak / AP

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., leaves the floor of the Senate after his filibuster of the nomination of John Brennan to be CIA director on Capitol Hill in Washington, early Thursday, March 7, 2013.

“For 13 hours yesterday we asked that question, and so there is a result and a victory,” Paul said after being read the letter. “Under duress and under public humiliation the White House will respond and do the right thing.”

In a written statement issued later Thursday, Paul said that response guarantees "basic" rights of Americans.

"This is a major victory for American civil liberties and ensures the protection of our basic Constitutional rights. We have Separation of Powers to protect our rights," he said. "That's what government was organized to do and that's what the Constitution was put in place to do."

After holding forth on the Senate floor for almost 13 hours last night, Paul said that the curt letter from the Department of Justice sufficiently answered the question that fueled his Mr. Smith-style speechifying yesterday, which won him fans from Glenn Beck to Code Pink.

With the lengthy filibuster in the books, Paul had threatened to continue to hold up the nomination of CIA director John Brennan until Saturday morning if he didn’t receive an answer from the Obama administration.

“We’re using the leverage of holding up the vote,” he said on Beck’s show Thursday morning.. "And I can keep [the Senate] here through Saturday and they hate to work on weekends."

Brennan's nomination is now headed for a vote this afternoon. 

This story was originally published on Thu Mar 7, 2013 2:35 PM EST

House Republicans will file a civil suit against Attorney General Eric Holder during the August recess, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., has told NBC News.

House Republicans will file suit in an effort to compel Holder to release documents associated with the failed "Fast and Furious" gun-walking operation.

"We'll be filing a civil case during the break," Issa told NBC, "We will expect a day in court before a federal judge, which we have a 100 percent chance that the judge will hold that these documents should be delivered."

During negotiations between House Republicans and Holder in June, the White House invoked executive privilege on the documents Issa had requested for his investigation. Issa says that a federal judge should find that executive privilege does not apply to the documents he is requesting.

"The idea that you would withhold based on some executive privilege the documents related to a cover up of a crime is absurd, but that's the claim that the attorney general is hiding behind," Issa said.

The House voted on June 28th, 255-67, to hold Holder in contempt of Congress for not turning over documents related to the Fast and Furious operation. During that vote, the vast majority of Democrats walked off the floor of the House in protest of a measure they saw as a political witch hunt.

Soon after the House found Holder in contempt of Congress, the Justice Department penned a letter to House Republicans saying it would not be pursuing the case, stating that "the attorney general's response to the subpoena issued by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform does not constitute a crime." The DOJ cited the White House invoking executive privilege as a primary reason for not proceeding.

Larry Downing / REUTERS

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder during a meeting at the White House in Washington, July 26, 2012.

The DOJ's response has left Republicans with few options, according to Issa, who compared the current situation with congressional attempts to retrieve the Nixon tapes during their investigation into the Watergate scandal in the 1970s.

"We're seeking a remedy and the remedy is an order to compel," Issa said. "Nixon didn't respond to Congress, he responded to federal judges, ultimately the Supreme Court, ordering that he had no such privilege to cover up the tapes. And these are no different than the Nixon tapes, we're asking for documents related to a cover up of lying to Congress."

Gerardo Mora / Getty Images

Republicans in the House voted Thursday to cite Attorney General Eric Holder for contempt of Congress.

Updated 5:01 p.m. - Republicans in the House voted Thursday to cite Attorney General Eric Holder for contempt of Congress in a politically-charged vote stemming from an investigation into alleged gun-running by the U.S. government.

The House voted 255-67, with one member voting "present," to cite Holder for criminal contempt. Most Democrats, led by the Congressional Black Caucus, abstained from the vote and staged a walk-out. But 17 conservative moderate and Democrats voted in favor of the resolution; two Republicans broke ranks to oppose it.

The House staged the vote against Holder for refusing to turn over documents subpoenaed by the House Oversight and Government Reform in relation to its investigation into the "Fast and Furious" program. The investigation is probing whether the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms deliberately allowed firearms to fall into the hands of drug cartels in Mexico.

The vote came on a day already marked as politically significant, after the Supreme Court issued its opinion upholding President Barack Obama's signature health reform law.

"Over the past fourteen months, the Justice Department accommodated Congressional investigators, producing 7,600 pages of documents, and testifying at eleven Congressional hearings. In an act of good faith, this week the administration made an additional offer which would have resulted in the Committee getting unprecedented access to documents dispelling any notion of an intent to mislead," White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said in a statement. "But unfortunately, a politically-motivated agenda prevailed and instead of engaging with the president in efforts to create jobs and grow the economy, today we saw the House of Representatives perform a transparently political stunt."

Republicans had sought an agreement with the White House earlier in the week, but talks broke down.

"We'd rather not be there. We'd rather have the attorney general and president work with us to get the bottom of a very serious issue," House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) told reporters on Capitol Hill Wednesday morning. "We're going to proceed. We've given them ample opportunity to comply."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, speaking after the walk-out, called the vote an "abuse of power."

The vote, like most scheduled in Congress for the rest of this summer, is certainly imbued with election year politics. The oversight panel, led by California Rep. Darrell Issa, has been a consistent thorn in the administration's side, and has tangled frequently with Holder.

"Today's vote is the regrettable culmination of what became a misguided -- and politically motivated -- investigation during an election year," Holder said. "By advancing it over the past year and a half, Congressman Issa and others have focused on politics over public safety."

Tensions escalated last week when the White House invoked executive privilege over documentation sought by Issa as his committee prepared its own contempt vote. Republicans, in turn, have asked how the White House could invoke privilege when there are few indications that it had anything to do with "Fast and Furious."

That program came to national attention in late 2010 when a border agent was killed with a firearm purchased by suspects under investigation by the ATF. Conservative news outlets have pushed the story as a potential example of federal malfeasance, and Republicans have voiced suspicion about whether the Obama administration had known about the program. A Fortune magazine investigation published Wednesday, however, suggesting the ATF's work to intercede in illegal arms trafficking was hamstrung by personnel disputes and prosecutorial discretion.

"It is a political hatchet job and I believe the American people are disgusted with Congress, these types of actions, and we should vote no on this contempt process that will be on the floor tomorrow and return to the real problems confronting the American people," New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D) said on Wednesday of the vote.

But 17 of Maloney's colleagues -- as many 20 conservative and moderate Democrats, according to reports -- broke with their party and join Republicans in holding Holder in contempt. The politically powerful National Rifle Association sent notice to lawmakers that it intends to "score" this vote -- or, in other words, monitor members' votes in determining their endorsements in this fall's elections. (The pro-gun rights group is encouraging a "yes" vote to cite Holder for contempt.)

Democrats, when they controlled the House in 2007, voted to cite then-White House chief of staff Josh Bolton and former White House counsel Harriet Miers for contempt for refusing to testify in an investigation into allegedly politically-motivated firings of U.S. attorneys.

But contempt citations -- the House voted Thursday on both a criminal and civil contempt citation -- rarely proceed with much effect. While the citations are usually referred to a U.S. Attorney to present before a grand jury, administrations have historically invoked privileges that, they contend, don't compel them to prosecute.

The whole situation would seem to risk adding a degree of tarnish for the Obama administration as the president himself heads into the thick of the election season. Republicans have also sought to stoke inquiries into the administration's management of a program of loans to green energy companies, including the defunct solar energy firm Solyndra.

But while Mitt Romney frequently mentions the Solyndra bankruptcy on the campaign trail, he's made scant reference to "Fast and Furious." A spokesman for said the former Massachusetts governor supports citing Holder for contempt.

NBC's Frank Thorp contributed reporting.

Once the House committee votes in favor of citing Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt, it goes to the full House for consideration.

If the full House votes in favor of the contempt citation, the issue is sent to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. A federal law adopted by Congress in 1857 directs federal prosecutors to refer these matters to a grand jury for possible prosecution. The language is mandatory as to the U.S. attorney: "whose duty it shall be to bring the matter before the grand jury for its action."

But from there on, it gets complicated.

The Justice Department has long taken the position, as a separation of powers matter, that Congress cannot force the Justice Department to undertake a prosecution of an executive branch official. The courts have never resolved the question. 

The Justice Department, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, has further claimed that a U.S. attorney must not initiate a prosecution when the president has asserted executive privilege over what Congress seeks.

The administration of George W. Bush most recently made this claim during the congressional investigation of the firings of several U.S. attorneys nationwide. Congress subpoenaed former White House counsel Harriet Miers and Chief of Staff Josh Bolton, and the president directed that neither should testify or produce the requested documents. Though the broad issue of executive privlege went to court, it is still unresolved.

Another gray area here is how much a president can cover under the umbrella of an assertion of executive privilege. The further a matter gets from the White House and presidential decision making, the more the courts have been unwilling to recognize it.

On a broader point, the federal courts have been reluctant to referee what they see as fights between the White House and Congress. During the legal battle over Miers, the federal district court in Washington practically begged the two sides to work it out without suing each other.

"The court strongly encourages the political branches to resume their discourse and negotiations in an effort to resolve their differences constructively," it said.

And finally, there's this point to remember: if this does end up in court, it could take up to two years to resolve, given the time for a trial and subsequent appeals. However, a contempt citation is valid only during the Congress which approved it. Each term of Congress lasts only two years, so if the issue was still in the courts when this Congress ends in a year and a half, the contempt citation would evaporate, and so would any lawsuit.

Why Rubio probably won’t be Romney’s VP pick… And why T-Paw seems to be rising… Obama campaign releases two new TV ads hitting Romney’s record as Massachusetts governor… Romney’s boxed in on immigration… Romney raises money in Michigan, while the first lady stumps in Colorado… And House Republicans appear move forward on bringing contempt charges against AG Holder.

*** Why Rubio probably won’t be the pick: After reports surfaced yesterday revealing that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) either wasn’t being vetted by Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential search team or he wasn’t being vetted as much as two other choices, Romney made a statement to correct the record. “Marco Rubio is being thoroughly vetted as part of our process,” he told reporters, per NBC’s Garrett Haake. But here’s a little rule of thumb in American politics: If you have to say you’re vetting someone, is that someone really under serious consideration? Indeed, despite being the party’s rising star and a favorite of the GOP base, the signs always have pointed AGAINST Rubio being Romney’s pick. Why? For starters, he’s only been a U.S. senator for a year and a half, and he didn’t endorse Romney until late in the GOP primary season. Then there’s the opposition research out there on him -- something that the Romney folks who worked for Charlie Crist’s 2010 Senate campaign know pretty well: Rubio charged more than $100,000 to state GOP credit cards, had racked up nearly $1 million in personal debt, and nearly had his home foreclosed on. No doubt that Rubio has plenty of assets (young, Latino, from Florida). But he also carries a lot of risk for the usually risk-averse Romney.  

Jae C. Hong / AP file photo

Sen. Marco Rubio joins Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney for a news conference prior to a town hall-style meeting in Aston, Pa.

*** T-Paw rising: So if it isn’t going to be Rubio, who will it be? Politico today writes something we’ve been saying over the past couple of weeks: Don’t lose sight of Tim Pawlenty. “Tim Pawlenty has jumped to the top of the vice presidential shortlist of several Mitt Romney advisers after emerging as the most effective — and well-liked — surrogate for the GOP nominee-to-be, according to several Republicans familiar with campaign deliberations.” That story follows a Washington Post report noting that Pawlenty and Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) have undergone “a more intensive review” than Rubio has in the Romney campaign’s vetting process. If Pawlenty becomes the pick, Romney and his team would be sending this fairly implicit message: T-Paw should have been the VP choice four years ago. It also highlights just how differently Romney and McCain go about making decisions -- Romney: data-driven; McCain: gut. See the AP’s write up today on how Romney’s likely going about the VP process “The Bain Way.”

*** Team Obama’s two new TV ads: The Obama campaign has unveiled two new TV ads, both of which continue to hammer away at Romney’s record as Massachusetts governor. The first one points out that Romney raised revenues and fees as governor -- something that his GOP opponents rarely brought up during the primary season. The other one hits him for outsourcing jobs to India when he was governor. “Outsourcing jobs -- Romney economics. It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now,” that advertisement goes. The Romney campaign has issued this response to these new ads: “Mitt Romney was a successful businessman and governor with a decades-long record of helping to create American jobs, in contrast to President Obama's hostility to free enterprise that has left millions of Americans out of work.  It's still the economy and the American people aren't stupid.” Speaking of ads, the conservative group Concerned Women for America is up with a big buy in swing states hitting the health-care law.

*** Romney boxed in on immigration: Why do Republicans have a problem when it comes to immigration? And why will Romney’s speech on Thursday to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) be such a challenge for him? Here’s a reason: The first actual GOP bill that gets traction after Obama’s immigration move on Friday is an effort to reverse the president’s action. As NBC’s Frank Thorp reported yesterday, Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) has introduced legislation that would prevent the Department of Homeland Security from enforcing a presidential executive action as immigration law. This demonstrates the box that Romney finds himself in (and which John McCain found himself in four years ago): Even if you want to try to woo Latinos by pursuing a more moderate path on immigration, the GOP base is against that. That said, the Republican National Committee is up with web video (in both English and Spanish) arguing that the economy hasn’t worked for Latinos during the Obama years. But is an economic message, with nothing to offer on immigration, really enough?

*** On the trail: Romney hits a pair of fundraisers in Michigan… First Lady Michelle Obama speaks to two gatherings of campaign volunteers in Colorado… Vice President Biden begins his day with a fundraiser in Carmel, CA before heading to New Orleans, where he addresses the National Association of Black Journalists… And the Romney sons appear on Conan O’Brien’s show.

*** Trying to pressure Merkel: Here’s the dispatch by NBC’s Shawna Thomas and one of us from the G20 summit in Mexico. “President Barack Obama expressed support for his European counterparts and their measures to manage the fiscal crisis as the G20 Summit in Los Cabos, Mexico wrapped up Tuesday, saying he believes they are ‘ready to do what is necessary to hold the Eurozone together.’ Behind the scenes, however, one senior administration official said the focus of the summit was to convince German Chancellor Angela Merkel to pull away from an austerity plan and focus more on spending and creating jobs. Another senior administration official was asked whether leaders "ganged up" on Merkel; that official replied, ‘I don’t think I’d describe it that way.’ But another official said world leaders were very blunt in their efforts to convince Merkel to sign on to the plan.”

*** In contempt? After failing to reach an agreement yesterday with Attorney General Eric Holder in handing over more documents in the so-called “Fast & Furious” matter, House Republicans appear to be moving ahead to bring contempt charges against Holder. Politico looks at the stakes for the House GOP: “The contempt fight with Holder and the White House is a big moment for House Republicans. With stubbornly high unemployment, a president with weak approval ratings, a redistricting process that has shored up Republican seats from coast to coast and a worse-than-expected economic recovery, GOP officials think they’re poised to keep the House in their control, and many believe they have a shot at taking the Senate and White House. Yet, despite public pronouncements of support from Boehner and other GOP leaders, significant pockets among GOP leadership think the spectacle of holding the attorney general in contempt of Congress would knock the party off message.”

Countdown to GOP convention: 68 days
Countdown to Dem convention: 75 days
Countdown to Election Day: 139 days

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Attorney General Eric Holder will meet with Rep. Darrell Issa on Tuesday, NBC's Pete Williams reported, in hopes of resolving a Republican threat to hold Holder in contempt of Congress.

Holder wrote a letter to Issa on Monday proposing the two of them meet on Tuesday; his offer came in response to a letter Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, had sent to the attorney general last Friday.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Attorney General Eric Holder answers questions while testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill.

Issa and House Republicans are angry that Holder has so far refused to turn over most documents subpoenaed by the oversight panel in its investigation of "Operation Fast and Furious," a government gun-running operation in Mexico. Issa has scheduled a meeting of the committee on Wednesday to consider holding Holder in contempt, though it could be postponed if Republicans are satisfied by Holder's efforts to comply.

Read Holder's full letter to Issa here

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder today leveled the Obama administration's strongest criticism yet at new voting laws that, for example, require photo ID's at the polls, limit early voting, and restrict periods for registration.

In a speech prepared for delivery at the LBJ Library at the University of Texas in Austin, Holder quoted Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), a longtime civil rights leader, who said recently that voting rights are under attack by "a deliberate and systematic attempt to prevent millions of elderly voters, young voters, students, and minority and low-income voters from exercising their constitutional right to engage in the democratic process." 

What Lewis was talking about, Holder said, was concerns about "some of the state-level voting law changes we’ve seen this legislative season."

The Justice Department is now reviewing some of those new laws. "We will examine the facts, and we will apply the law," Holder said.

"If a state passes a new voting law and meets its burden of showing that the law is not discriminatory, we will follow the law and approve the change. And where a state can’t meet this burden, we will object as part of our obligation" under the Voting Rights Act, he said.

That law, Holder said, is being challenged in at least five lawsuits. And the U.S. Supreme Court recently expressed the view that the time may be ending when close review by the Justice Department is required for changes in voting procedures in states with a history of racial discriminating at the polls. Perhaps, some members of the court said, that requirement of the Voting Rights Act is no longer necessary.

"I wish this were the case. The reality is that in jurisdictions across the country, both overt and subtle forms of discrimination remain all too common," Holder said.

He called the recent effort at congressional and legislative redistricting in Texas "precisely the kind of discrimination" that the Voting Rights Act was intended to block. The Supreme Court has agreed to review the state's newly drawn districts and a lower federal court's substitution of a different plan. 

New census data showed Texas gaining more than four million new residents, most of them Latinos, allowing the state four new seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. But Texas, Holder said, "proposed adding zero additional seats in which Hispanics would have the electoral opportunity envisioned by the Voting Rights Act.

"As concerns about the protection of this right and the integrity of our election systems become an increasingly prominent part of our national dialogue, we must consider some important questions. It is time to ask: What kind of nation and what kind of people do we want to be? Are we willing to allow this era, our era, to be remembered as the age when our nation’s proud tradition of expanding the franchise ended? Are we willing to allow this time, our time, to be recorded in history as the age when the long-held belief that, in this country, every citizen has the chance and the right to help shape their government, became a relic of our past, instead of a guidepost for our future?