The staff objections were ignored, department veterans said, and the Georgia ID rule was approved by the Justice Department 24 hours after the staff report was filed.
Rich and other former department staff have also charged that redistricting cases reviewed by the division have consistently benefited the GOP. These cases were particularly sensitive because redistricting has been a high priority for Rove and earlier GOP strategists. Republican success in redrawing congressional districts has helped increase the number of so-called safe seats for GOP candidates in recent years, especially in the South.
Delays by political appointees effectively allowed "the Republican Party in Mississippi to obtain implementation of a congressional redistricting plan that had been drawn at the party's behest," Rich said in congressional testimony.
The Supreme Court later upheld the process by which the plan was drawn up without addressing the plan's merits or whether the Justice Department delays were inappropriate.
Rich said unanimous staff objections to the Texas redistricting plan engineered by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay were ignored, and the plan was approved with encouragement from Republican officials in the department.
The Supreme Court later ruled 5-4 that most of the map was proper.
Though legal actions have generally declined in the division since Bush was elected, Rich and others said that shortly before the 2004 election, the division filed a series of "friend of the court briefs" in three cases challenging ballot provisions of the federal voting statute.
"In each case, the brief supported the position of the Republican party," Rich said.
tom.hamburger@latimes.com
