Washington ? Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales defended the Justice Department’s decision to ignore staff lawyers’ concerns that a Texas redistricting plan orchestrated by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay would dilute minority voting rights.

A Justice Department memo released Friday showed that agency staffers unanimously objected to the Texas plan, which DeLay pushed through the Legislature to help elect more Republicans to the U.S. House.

Senior agency officials, appointed by President Bush, brushed aside concerns about the possible impact on minority voting and approved the new districts for the 2004 elections.

Gonzales, who was not attorney general when the agency reviewed the redistricting plan, said it was approved by people “confirmed by the Senate to exercise their own independent judgment,” and their disagreement with other agency employees doesn’t mean the final decision was wrong.

The decision appears to have been correct, Gonzales said, because a three-judge federal panel upheld the plan and Texas has since elected one additional black congressman.

Of the state’s 32 House seats, Republicans held 15 before the 2004 elections. Under the DeLay-backed plan, Republicans were elected to 21 of the state’s seats in the House. Six members of the Texas delegation are Hispanic, one of them a Republican, and three are black, all Democrats.

The redistricting plan has been challenged in court by Democrats and minority voting groups claiming it was unconstitutional and that district boundaries had been illegally manipulated to give one party an unfair advantage. The Supreme Court is considering whether to review the case.

The memo released Friday had been sought by lawsuit plaintiffs before going to court, but the Justice Department declined to surrender it then.

“The Supreme Court is our last hope for rectifying this gross injustice. We couldn’t count on the (lower) court. We couldn’t count on the state, and we obviously couldn’t count on the politically corrupt Justice Department,” said Gerry Hebert, an attorney representing the challengers.

The plan was approved by the Republican-controlled state Legislature in special sessions after Democratic lawmakers fled the state capital in an effort to block votes on the new congressional boundaries.

An effort by DeLay to use federal resources to help track down missing Texas lawmakers led to a rebuke by the House ethics committee.

Because of historic discrimination against minority voters, Texas is required under provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to get Justice Department approval for any voting changes it makes to ensure the changes don’t undercut minority voting.