On Thursday, House Republicans criticized the Department of Justice’s decision to challenge the voter ID laws that have recently been approved in a number of U.S. states. Republicans said the DOJ’s decision shows that the White House administration is concerned more with the Democrats winning in the November election than protecting the country against possible election fraud.

Trent Franks a Republican member of the House from Arizona said that the DOJ has embarrassed itself, as the partisan bias was very obvious. The DOJ’s enforcer of civil rights, Thomas Perez denied there was partisan bias of any kind.

Republicans in both Texas and South Carolina passed new laws that require voters to have photo IDS that are government issued to have the right to vote. The DOJ indicated earlier in the week it will look to determine if the new voter ID legislation in Pennsylvania violates the 1965 Voting Rights Act that ensures the right to vote to minorities.

Perez said the DOJ’s philosophy is straightforward; it wants to enforce the laws. At the present time, there is a great debate in the U.S. and Perez thinks that debate needs to be continued and he said the DOJ would do all they could to ensure that each eligible voter is able to cast their ballot and has access to it.

Perez said the DOJ believes that the South Carolina and Texas laws both will hinder a number of citizens in exercising their voting right, especially minorities. He said his current policy under Eric Holder the Attorney General and President Obama is not any different from the position under George W. Bush the former Republican president or Michael Mukasey his Bush’s attorney general.