Alex Padilla U.S. Senator for California

On John Lewis National Day of Action, Senators request access to Civil Rights Division Memo that changes mission statement to investigating voter fraud

Senators: “Taken together, the Department is clearly pursuing an anti-voter, partisan agenda aligned with 2020 election deniers and conspiracy theorists”

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, on John Lewis National Day of Action, U.S. Senators Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) led 13 Senators in raising the alarm on the Department of Justice (DOJ) Civil Rights Division’s policy shift to focus on unsubstantiated voter fraud investigations. The Senators pushed Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon to share the recent staff memorandum reportedly changing the mission statement of the Civil Rights Division Voting Section away from defending voting rights. The Department of Justice has repeatedly refused Ranking Member Padilla’s oversight requests to access this memo.

The letter comes as the DOJ’s Voting Section made a sweeping request asking Colorado to provide all 2024 federal election records and maintain any remaining 2020 election records, in addition to seeking voter rolls from at least nine other states. The Voting Section is also pursuing cases in Arizona, Wisconsin, and North Carolina based on baseless claims of election irregularities or fraud. They also criticized the Voting Section for abandoning efforts to protect voting rights, including dropping its lawsuit challenging Georgia’s Senate Bill 202, withdrawing its claims in redistricting cases in Texas, and revoking its requests to orally argue before the Supreme Court for Louisiana redistricting cases.

“We write out of grave concern for the reported changes to the mission and work of the Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section, which appear to redirect the Section’s focus towards the extremely rare instances of voter fraud and noncitizen voting. Since its creation by the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the Division has been charged with enforcing the civil and criminal provisions of federal laws that protect the civil rights of Americans, including the right to vote,” wrote the Senators.

“Taken together, the Department is clearly pursuing an anti-voter, partisan agenda aligned with 2020 election deniers and conspiracy theorists. We urge you to change course and take a nonpartisan approach to protecting voters’ rights that is grounded in facts and the law, not unfounded speculation and conspiracy theories,” continued the Senators.

The Senators also expressed concern about the reduction of lawyers in the Voting Section as well as the appointment of Acting Chief Maureen Riordan, a former line attorney in the Section, who has been associated with election skeptics and worked for the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), a leading anti-voting legal group. Riordan has appeared on “Stop the Steal” architect Cleta Mitchell’s podcast and made accusations of political bias in the Voting Section, while voicing her disagreement with the Section’s pursuit of cases aimed at protecting voting rights and access to the ballot box for racial minorities.

Additionally, they highlighted the DOJ’s attacks against election officials, wasting limited resources to examine how existing laws could be used to criminally charge state and local election officials.

“This clear attempt to intimidate these hardworking individuals, whose work holds up our democracy will not go unchallenged,” added the Senators. “The Department must abandon this effort and instead focus on working on actual problems facing election officials, which includes protecting these officials from the ongoing threats and harassment.”

In addition to Senators Padilla, Durbin, and Welch, the letter was also signed by Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Angus King (I-Maine), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).

Earlier this year, Padilla and his Democratic Senate Judiciary Committee colleagues demanded answers from the DOJ concerning the Trump Administration’s efforts to dismantle the Department’s Civil Rights Division. The Senators separately called for Senator Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), Chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, to immediately hold an oversight hearing with Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, a San Francisco-based lawyer leading the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, on its politicization. During her Senate Judiciary Committee nomination hearing in February, Senator Padilla criticized Dhillon for her alarming track record of restricting the right to vote, spreading disinformation about the 2020 election, and perpetuating discriminatory laws.

Full text of the letter is available here and below:

Dear Assistant Attorney General Dhillon:

We write out of grave concern for the reported changes to the mission and work of the Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section, which appear to redirect the Section’s focus towards the extremely rare instances of voter fraud and noncitizen voting. Since its creation by the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the Division has been charged with enforcing the civil and criminal provisions of federal laws that protect the civil rights of Americans, including the right to vote.

To start, we are unable to fully understand the Section’s work as the Department has repeatedly refused requests for the memorandum you sent to employees of the Civil Rights Division—which was reported by the Associated Press in May 2025—highlighting the new mission statement for the Voting Section. This refusal to cooperate with such a simple and specific congressional information request is alarming, and we once again renew our request for basic transparency to review this document and confirm these reports are accurate.

We are particularly concerned about the Voting Section’s unprecedented and intrusive request for significant amounts of election data from the state of Colorado. This overly broad and burdensome request appears to have limited justification and raises alarming questions regarding what the Department intends to do with this information, and which states are next to be targeted. This initial request demands a full, public explanation and exacerbates ongoing concerns about the sharing and misuse of voter data by the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency.

Public reporting and court filings also indicate that the Voting Section is down to a small number of attorneys and that Maureen Riordan—who previously worked for an anti-voting rights group and has associated with individuals who perpetuated falsehoods around the 2020 election, has been appointed as Acting Chief. This raises questions about whether the Section has abandoned its longstanding mission to conduct meaningful voter protection work and will instead act to perpetuate the myth of widespread voter fraud.

Ms. Riordan’s documented disregard for established legal precedent in the voting rights context is troubling and should disqualify her from leading the Section. For instance, Ms. Riordan recently appeared on election-denier Cleta Mitchell’s podcast and expressed disapproval of the Department’s previous challenges to racial discrimination in the electoral process. Ms. Riordan also joined Ms. Mitchell in spreading false claims of widespread voting by noncitizens and criticizing as negligent states’ voter roll maintenance, among other inflammatory comments. 

With the significant changes occurring at the Department, we are paying close attention to the Division’s work and are alarmed at how the Section is now using its limited resources. In addition to the recent action in Colorado, the Voting Section is pursuing alleged infractions about proper semantics of “and/or” language on Arizona’s voter registration form, and the Section is requesting that the U.S. Election Assistance Commission withhold any future election security funding for the Wisconsin Elections Commission based on alleged violations of federal elections laws. The Voting Section is also attempting to pursue a partisan agenda by suing the North Carolina State Board of Elections over the same baseless voter registration claim that was at issue in the Republican challenger’s failed attempt to nullify election results to regain a seat on North Carolina’s Supreme Court.

Recent reporting also indicates the Department is using its limited resources to determine how existing laws could be used against state and local election officials to charge them criminally as they administer elections. This clear attempt to intimidate these hardworking individuals, whose work holds up our democracy will not go unchallenged. The Department must abandon this effort and instead focus on working on actual problems facing election officials, which includes protecting these officials from the ongoing threats and harassment.

As its priorities shift, the Department is also withdrawing from cases that it has been engaged in for years that are meant to protect the right to vote, including dropping its lawsuit challenging Georgia’s Senate Bill 202, dropping all its claims in several consolidated cases in Texas around redistricting, and withdrawing its requests to participate in oral arguments before the Supreme Court for consolidated cases involving redistricting in Louisiana. Through these actions, it is clear that the Department has abandoned any work protecting the voting rights of communities of color, despite its core mission to enforce the protections of the Voting Rights Act.

Taken together, the Department is clearly pursuing an anti-voter, partisan agenda aligned with 2020 election deniers and conspiracy theorists. We urge you to change course and take a nonpartisan approach to protecting voters’ rights that is grounded in facts and the law, not unfounded speculation and conspiracy theories.

We respectfully request specific responses to these concerns and your prompt response in sharing the new mission statement for the Voting Section with Congress without further delay.

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