Texas GOP’s secret anti-Hispanic plot: Smoking gun emails revealed

[kpete]

Texas GOP’s secret anti-Hispanic plot: Smoking gun emails revealed
Rick Perry and GOP state leaders go on trial today -- and the verdict could mean big things for Voting Rights Act



On Nov. 17, 2010, Eric Opiela sent an email to Gerard Interiano. A Texas Republican Party associate general counsel, Opiela served at that time as a campaign adviser to the state’s speaker of the House Joe Straus, R-San Antonio; he was about to become the man who state lawmakers understood spoke “on behalf of the Republican Congressmen from Texas,” according to minority voting-rights plaintiffs, who have sued Texas for discriminating against them.
...

In the Nov. 17, 2010, email, Opelia asked Interiano to look for specific data about Hispanic populations and voting patterns.

“These metrics would be useful to identify the ‘nudge factor’ by which one can analyze which census blocks, when added to a particular district (they) help pull the district’s Total Hispanic pop … to majority status, but leave the Spanish surname RV (registered voters) and TO (turnout) the lowest,” Opiela writes to the mapmaker.

Interiano responded two days later: “I will gladly help with this Eric but you’re going to have to explain to me in layman’s terms.”

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In a follow-up email on Nov. 19, 2010, Opiela explained to Interiano that he called his proposed strategy: “OHRVS” or “Optimal Hispanic Republican Voting Strength.” Opiela defined the acronym-friendly term as, “a measure of how Hispanic, and (,) at the same time (,) Republican we can make a particular census block.”


MORE:
http://www.salon.com/2014/07/14/texas_gops_secret_anti_hispanic_plot_smoking_gun_emails_revealed/

[Scuba]

1. Rupblicans can't win on policy, so they cheat. It's all they've got.