Why wait? We already know they suck.
Before they’ve even been signed into law, Texas’ new maps for Congress and the statehouse are being challenged in court for allegedly discriminating against Latino voters.
Filing the first federal lawsuit Monday in what’s expected to be a flurry of litigation, a group of individual voters and organizations that represent Latinos claim the districts drawn by the Legislature unconstitutionally dilute the strength of their votes and violate the federal Voting Rights Act.
The lawsuit was filed in El Paso by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
The legal challenge comes as the Legislature rounds out its redistricting work to incorporate a decade of population growth into new maps for Congress, the Texas House and the Texas Senate. Of the 4 million new residents the state gained since 2010, 95% were people of color; half were Hispanic.
Yet the maps advanced by the Republican-controlled Legislature deny Hispanics greater electoral influence — and pull back on their ability to control elections. The House map drops the number of districts in which Hispanics make up the majority of eligible voters from 33 to 30. The Congressional map reduces the number of districts with a Hispanic voting majority from eight to seven.
Here’s the MALDEF press release, and the lawsuit itself is here. From the introduction:
Plaintiffs seek a declaratory judgment that the redistricting plans for the Texas House (Plan H2316), Senate (Plan S2168), SBOE (Plan E2106) and Congress (C2193) violate their civil rights because the plans unlawfully dilute the voting strength of Latinos. Plaintiffs further seek a declaratory judgment that the challenged redistricting plans intentionally discriminate against them on the basis of race and national origin. Plaintiffs seek a permanent injunction prohibiting the calling, holding, supervising, or certifying of any future Texas House, Senate, Congressional and SBOE elections under the challenged redistricting plans. Plaintiffs further seek the creation of Texas House, Senate, Congressional and SBOE redistricting plans that will not cancel out, minimize or dilute the voting strength of Latino voters in Texas. Finally, Plaintiffs seek costs and attorney’s fees.
Glad to know that the SBOW map won’t go unchallenged this time around. The plaintiffs include include the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, Mi Familia Vota, American GI Forum, La Union Del Pueblo Entero, Mexican American Bar Association of Texas, Texas Hispanics Organized For Political Education (HOPE), William C. Velasquez Institute, FIEL Houston Inc., the Texas Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents, and five individual voters. Defendants are Greg Abbott and Greg Abbott and Deputy Secretary of State Jose Esparza. I expect this will be the first of multiple lawsuits against the actual maps; we also have the still-untested lawsuit by Sens. Eckhardt and Menendez that claimed the Lege could not do non-Congressional redistricting in a special session. There’s supposed to be a hearing for that next week. Given that the three maps in question there might already be signed into law by that time it may be moot, but I’m just guessing. As you know I don’t have much optimism for any of these challenges, including the ones that haven’t been filed yet, but we have to try anyway. You never know.
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