Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah are pressing their case that the Department of Justice favors abortion clinics over churches, demanding that the law enforcement agency take steps to ensure “the rights of all American citizens”—not just some—are protected.

In a letter sent Tuesday, obtained first by The Daily Signal, Cruz and Lee criticize the Justice Department’s enforcement of a 1994 law. The intent of the law was to prohibit the use or threat of force and physical obstruction outside abortion clinics, guaranteeing safe access to such facilities.

Before passing the legislation, called the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, lawmakers extended the protections to apply to places of worship.

In their letter, addressed to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Cruz and Lee accuse the Justice Department of a double standard in enforcing the law. They argue that while the agency has pursued more than two dozen cases involving actions to safeguard access to abortion clinics, the agency hasn’t pursued a single case involving churches and other places of worship.

This is the second letter Cruz and Lee have sent to the Justice Department concerning the FACE Act. They sent the first March 16.

The Justice Department responded to Cruz and Lee in June, arguing the reason it has not used the FACE Act to protect religious liberty is because other statutes that are “broader in scope” already enable them to do so.

The FACE Act allows people to protest peacefully, and exercise their First Amendment rights outside abortion clinics and places of worship. However, if those demonstrations turn violent, they could face civil or criminal charges.

Since January 2009, the Justice Department has listed 25 cases it pursued under the FACE Act that involved access to women’s health clinics, some of which performed abortions.

In the response to Cruz and Lee, Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik wrote:

With respect to the protection of religious freedom, the department has prosecuted dozens of cases of violence directed at houses of worship and interference with the free exercise of religion under 18 U.S.C. 247, a statute that is broader in scope than the FACE Act.

According to the Justice Department, that statute “prohibits anyone from intentionally defacing, damaging or destroying any religious real property because of the race, color, or ethnic characteristics of any individual associated with the property.”

As a result, the Justice Department “has not filed any criminal or civil actions under the FACE Act in this enforcement area,” Kadzik said, citing several cases involving religious freedom that the agency pursued.

In one case, Jedediah Stout “pleaded guilty to the arson of a mosque and two attempted arsons of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Joplin, Missouri,” Kadzik wrote.

Another was the well-publicized mass murder June 17, 2015, at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Dylann Roof, now 22, was charged with “killing and attempting to kill African-American parishioners … because of their race and in order to interfere with their exercise of their religion.”

But Cruz and Lee weren’t satisfied with the Justice Department’s argument. They responded with the detailed letter to Lynch, dated Tuesday, arguing that the FACE Act “clearly offers broader protections than 247, which greatly undermines the DOJ’s rationale for not using FACE.”

“But even this somewhat misses the point,” the Republican senators add. “FACE is the law. It is not the DOJ’s prerogative to decide which laws merit enforcement and which ones merit no enforcement at all.”

By way of example, Cruz and Lee accuse the Justice Department of taking a pass on an instance in Los Angeles involving accusations involving a massive protest against Mormons for the church’s support of the ballot question known as Proposition 8. Voters eventually approved the measure, which overturned a California Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage by upholding the definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

A news clip, Cruz and Lee write, “shows ‘more than a thousand’ angry protesters chanting hateful slogans and blocking the entrance of the Los Angeles Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

“Demonstrations like this,” they add, “were part of a larger campaign of intimidation and harassment carried out against the Mormon Church for its support of California’s Proposition 8.”

Cruz and Lee write:

This campaign of hate was covered extensively by the press; for example, stories ran in major newspapers like the Los Angeles Times, and on national news networks like CNN and CBS. The DOJ’s explanation for its inaction on this issue, that the matter ‘had not previously been brought to our attention,’ simply lacks credibility.

“In short, it would appear the DOJ’s process for tracking violations of religious liberty is either woefully inadequate or purposefully biased.”

In their letter, the senators ask the Justice Department to answer a series of follow-up questions and “respond to several inquiries made in our March letter that have gone unanswered.”

“The information we ask for is necessary to carry out our duty to conduct oversight of the DOJ, and to determine whether the DOJ is doing everything it can to protect the rights of all American citizens,” they write. (For more from the author of “Cruz, Lee Step up Claims That Justice Department Isn’t Doing Enough to Protect Churches” please click HERE)

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Sen. Ted Cruz’s latest showdown with the Obama administration over the White House plan to give up control of the internet could help bring wayward conservatives back to Republican leadership’s heel on a stopgap spending measure.

Arguments about internet freedom and federal spending have become intertwined on Capitol Hill, affecting how some House conservatives say they’ll vote on a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government after the fiscal year ends Sept. 30.

On Oct. 1, the Obama administration plans to relinquish control of ICANN—the global, nonprofit organization that functions as the phonebook of the internet by curating website domain names.

That’s the same day that the federal government’s spending authority ends.

Multiple members of the House Freedom Caucus told The Daily Signal that a policy rider stopping the internet handoff could sweeten a short-term continuing resolution that, so far, they’ve been loath to swallow.

Conservatives have sparred with members of the House Appropriations Committee for weeks over the length of a stopgap spending measure.

Appropriators want a three-month continuing resolution that would put government spending on autopilot until December. Conservatives balk at that option because it allows outgoing lawmakers to legislate during the lame-duck session, the period after the election but before the next Congress convenes.

Members of the Freedom Caucus have pushed for a longer, six-month continuing resolution. But if they secure policy guarantees from leadership, that could change.

A founding Freedom Caucus member, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., said conservatives are open to supporting a short continuing resolution if two provisions are added: one pausing immigration from Syria and another “stopping the transfer of ICANN to an international entity.”

Cruz is spearheading the effort to craft the policy rider on internet control in the Senate’s version of the short-term budget measure.

The Texas senator has launched a website blasting President Barack Obama for “giving away the internet.” And he has scheduled a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing Wednesday to push Republicans to make good on their promise not to allow the Obama administration to surrender control of ICANN.

“In 22 short days, if Congress fails to act, the Obama administration intends to give away the internet to an international body akin to the United Nations,” Cruz said during a Sept. 8 floor speech. “I rise today to discuss the significant, irreparable damage this proposed internet giveaway could wreak, not only on our nation but on free speech across the world.”

Support for a policy rider to halt the transfer has been building among Senate leadership. Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., told Politico that he’d back the effort to add an internet policy rider to a short-term measure to fund the government.

Opposition to the transfer has been widespread in the past. In April 2014, 34 Senate Republicans, including then-Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, called on the White House to keep ICANN out of the hands of the United Nations or any other international agency.

When asked if McConnell, now majority leader, would support Cruz’s proposal, an aide to the Kentucky Republican declined to comment.

In the House, Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., is quarterbacking a coordinating effort. A GOP aide told The Daily Signal that the Cruz counterpart “has been in talks with the speaker’s office and is optimistic.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan’s office declined to comment on ongoing negotiations. But members of the Freedom Caucus already were warming to that idea Tuesday afternoon.

“It’s popular with the American people to maintain sovereignty over our own country and some control over the internet,” said Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, who supports adding the measure to a three-month continuing resolution.

The Freedom Caucus has not taken a formal position, although several members are interested. Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., told The Daily Signal that adding a policy rider on internet control “would be most helpful” in persuading conservatives to rethink their opposition to a short-term budget measure.

For Freedom Caucus members who have been fighting with GOP leadership over spending levels all year. Stopping the transfer of ICANN could be a good consolation prize, Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., told The Daily Signal.

“If you’re locked into a bad [budget] package,” Brat said, “we will try to get what we can out of it.”

At least one key member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee is already on board.

Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee that oversees internet issues, told The Daily Signal he will use “every legislative tool available” to make sure the internet remains under U.S control.

“I’ll push for language in the [continuing resolution] that would prevent the Obama administration from moving forward with this irresponsible internet giveaway,” Culberson said.

But this isn’t the first time Republicans have tried this strategy to block Obama from making the transfer.

“There has been a longstanding appropriation rider to prevent funds from being used to hand over the internet that the administration is ignoring,” a Cruz aide told The Daily Signal.

“The senator thinks that language should be strengthened. He is hopeful that before the Sept. 30 deadline Congress will show leadership and protect freedom on the internet.”

Asked about Cruz’s latest effort, White House press secretary Josh Earnest projected confidence Monday that the president’s ICANN transition would go as planned.

The administration sees the handoff as “the right thing for the long-term security and well being of the internet,” Earnest told reporters.

“So that’s the approach that we’re intending to pursue,” he said. “We’ll see what kind of tricks Sen. Cruz has up his sleeve.” (For more from the author of “How Ted Cruz’s Internet Offensive Could Change Spending Strategy in the House” please click HERE)

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