vote-fraud cases against ... antipoverty group ... case was dismissed by a federal judge who found "no evidence" to support it. [Wisconsin again?!]

Congress probes allegations of politicized hiring | POSTED: 9:52 p.m. EDT, May 7, 2007 | From Kelli Arena | CNN Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Congressional investigators are looking into new allegations a top official at the Justice Department illegally hired career lawyers based on their political affiliations.

Investigators are focusing on Bradley Schlozman, a former top official in the department's Civil Rights Division, who recently returned to Washington after serving as interim U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Missouri.
...
Rich now works for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, a nonprofit organization that held a March forum on what it called the politicization of the Justice Department. He said he never saw Schlozman make decisions based on partisan factors -- but he said hiring was increasingly concentrated in the hands of political appointees.

And he said political appointees at Justice overruled career lawyers' recommendations on controversial issues such as whether to approve a voter ID law in Georgia and the legality of 2002 redistricting efforts in Texas and Mississippi.

"There wasn't any formal statement that we were doing this to help the Republican Party, but certainly all of the circumstances behind the reviews indicated that," Rich said.

Critics of the administration have also questioned Schlozman's decision as U.S. attorney in western Missouri to bring vote-fraud cases against members of the antipoverty group ACORN before November's congressional election. The Justice Department said its cases are brought "on evidence, not politics."

But leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday asked Schlozman to answer questions about his handling of voter-fraud cases, including a lawsuit he pursued after his predecessor refused to support it. The committee's chairman, Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy, and ranking Republican, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, said the case was dismissed by a federal judge who found "no evidence" to support it. ...