Updated at 2:45 pm Tuesday with new letter to McCaul from Democrats, and 5 p.m. Wednesday with McCaul setting hearing Sept. 12 and Democrats' complaints.

WASHINGTON — In the wake of a neo-Nazi rally in Virginia on Saturday that turned deadly, congressional Democrats demanded a hearing on white supremacists and the threat of domestic terrorism.

They've made similar requests for several years and most recently in June and March. Each time, Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul, an Austin Republican, has shrugged them off. He did so again on Wednesday.

Rather than a stand-alone hearing focused on the Ku Klux Klan, white nationalists and others involved in the "Unite the Right" rally, McCaul will channel such inquiries through an annual assessment next month of worldwide threats to the homeland.

Democrats called that entirely inadequate.

On Wednesday afternoon, McCaul set the hearing for Sept. 12. He urged Democrats to pose all the questions they want about domestic terrorism to the heads of the FBI, Homeland Security Department and National Counterterrorism Center.

"We must stand together and reject racism, bigotry, and prejudice, including the hateful ideologies promoted by Neo-Nazis, the KKK and all other white supremacy groups," McCaul wrote in response to their demands. "Their repulsive values must not be allowed to infect our neighborhoods and spread violence in our communities."

The hearing will cover Russia, border security and other topics, McCaul aides said. That left Democrats on his committee frustrated and fuming.

Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the panel's senior Democrat, called McCaul's response "completely inadequate" and a sign of "inaction." He noted that next month's hearing was already planned before last weekend's neo-Nazi rally.

"After years of requests for Congressional hearings and the deaths of many, this is nothing more than attempt to distract from a topic the Republicans are unwilling to address," he said. "Many of them have distanced themselves from the actions of these hateful, evil groups - but talk is cheap."

We must condemn the hate fueling the violence in #Charlottesville. It does not define us as Americans. Those affected are in my prayers. — Michael McCaul (@RepMcCaul) August 12, 2017

There's no doubt that McCaul condemns white supremacists. Via Twitter, he denounced "the hate fueling the violence" as events unfolded in Virginia. And in a newsletter to constituents, he wrote that "we must condemn the white supremacy and the hate which fueled the violence in Charlottesville over the weekend. This domestic terrorism does not define us as Americans."

But Democrats on McCaul's committee say he can do more, and should have done more already, by using his authority to shine a direct spotlight on domestic terrorism.

"It is past time for this Committee on Homeland Security to Act," says the letter, signed by a dozen Democrats on the panel, including Texas Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston and Filemon Vela of Brownsville. "Unfortunately, it has become clear we cannot count on President Trump for action. Even before he was elected, many of us were concerned that his unwillingness to denounce and distance himself from white nationalists would be taken as tacit support by those ready to use violence to advance their racist ideology."

From House Democrats' letter to Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul on Aug. 15, 2017.

The letter was penned by Thompson, the panel's senior Democrat. And it was hardly the first time he has prodded McCaul to hold hearings on domestic terror.

"Time and again I have requested that our Committee fulfill its responsibility and commitment to 'continue to conduct rigorous oversight of the Federal government's counterterrorism efforts including monitoring ongoing and emerging terror threats to the United States,'" Thompson wrote McCaul on June 1.

That came shortly after an a man in Portland, Ore., stabbed girls he apparently believed were Muslim on a train in Portland, Ore., killing two men who tried to defend them, and injuring a third person. In court, the attacker shouted: "You call it terrorism. I call it patriotism! You hear? Die."

"These types of terrorist attacks can no longer be ignored by this Committee for the sake of those who do not want to acknowledge that all forms of terrorism, no matter the ideology or the inspiration, are a threat to our safety, rights and our homeland," Thompson wrote.

He also demanded a hearing on domestic terrorism one week after the June 17, 2015, massacre at a black church in Charleston, S.C. (Read that letter here.) The gunman, Dylann Roof, had written a racist manifesto before joining a Bible study class, then opening fire. He killed nine people.

A year later, Thompson wrote McCaul to complain that the lack of hearings on that attack amounted to "a dereliction of our responsibilities in the House to tackle all homeland security matters."

Rep. Lou Correa of California, a senior Democrat on McCaul's committee, wrote the chairman on Monday to urge a hearing on domestic terrorism. He noted that a number of leading Republicans condemned the violence Saturday in Charlottesville, at a rally that featured former Klan grand wizard David Duke and Dallas native Richard Spencer, a leader of the self-described "alt-right," as domestic terrorism.

An Ohio man who openly embraced Nazism rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one women and injuring at least 20 others; he was charged Monday with murder and other crimes.

Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, along with House Speaker Paul Ryan all deemed the attack an example of homegrown terror, Correa noted.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Monday on ABC's Good Morning America that the attack "does meet the definition of domestic terrorism in our statute."

Correa called it a "European-style terror attack." On June 3, an attacker killed eight people in London and injured dozens more by ramming a van into pedestrians on London Bridge. Last week a driver injured a half-dozen French soldiers on an anti-terror patrol in a Paris suburb.

As justification for fresh hearings focused on domestic terror, Correa cited the Portland attack, the murder in February of a man in Kansas by an attacker who questioned his legal status and race, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, a 2012 shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, and the Charleston church massacre.

"White supremacist domestic terrorists cannot be allowed to continue to terrorize Americans," he wrote.