WASHINGTON — The Maryland congressman leading an investigation into the error-filled effort to purge suspected noncitizens from Texas voter rolls referred to Texas officials as “laggards” who are taking a “minimalist approach” to satisfying demands on Capitol Hill for emails that could show the origin and motivation for the program.

Jamie Raskin, a Democrat who chairs the Oversight Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, says his panel will continue to aggressively press Texas for documents despite the resignation last week of Secretary of State David Whitley after scrutiny of the botched effort. Whitley’s five-month tenure in the job ended after state Senate Democrats blocked his appointment.

Raskin said that Georgia, another state under investigation, has sent hundreds of thousands of pages of materials to Washington. But Texas, he said, is cooperating “minimally” and treating the congressional demand as “some kind of unlawful imposition.”

“We’re going to continue to press for meaningful disclosure,” he said. “The sudden departure of the Texas secretary of state only makes us that much more determined to get all the information we sought.”

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Raskin, a constitutional law professor, argued that the Constitution’s Election Clause and other provisions give Congress clear authority to deal with matters of alleged voter suppression.

Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office, in the most recent refusal letter last month, steadfastly declined to turn over “privileged and confidential” documents. Instead, the attorney general’s office has forwarded general materials along with a dismissive note that “Congress may request records from this office under the Texas Public Information Act.”

The letter to Raskin and full Oversight Committee chair Elijah Cummings, D-Md., asserted that none of the constitutional powers Raskin cites “override the inherent and reserved power of state constitutional officers to lawfully assure the integrity of that state’s own democratic elections through maintaining the voter rolls…”

A spokesman for the Texas secretary of state’s office said 3,600 pages have been turned over to the panel. In a letter to Raskin and Cummings on May 29, Adam Bitter, the office general counsel, wrote that barring a ruling from Paxton “we do not anticipate producing additional documents in response to your request.”

Raskin observed that his panel has subpoena power, albeit not yet invoked. The back-and-forth suggests an impasse that could wind up in the courts - a likely destination of other disputes simmering at present between Congress and the White House.

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Raskin said he worried that a refusal of late by the White House to allow administration officials to testify in front of congressional panels “has somehow affected the willingness of these Republican state officials to cooperate.”

He observed that the new Democratic-run House is spending considerable effort on the topic of elections.

“As terrible as the Russian intervention was in our 2016 campaigns, it’s worth noting that the Russians did not invent voter suppression and voter purges. That was a home-grown product,” he said.