Federal Judges Find Texas Lege Discriminated Against Minority Voters Again
In the words of a federal appeals court, the Texas Legislature "turned the Voting Rights Act on its head" while drawing redistricting lines in 2011, using race to help guide their decisions.
On Thursday, the San Antonio-based three-judge panel found in a 2-1 decision that Texas had intentionally sought to reduce the power of the Latino vote based on how it drew the redistricting map that year, calling the maps unconstitutional. This is the third time this year that federal judges have ruled that Texas lawmakers have intentionally discriminated against minority voters, and the second time in as many months that this same panel of federal judges have.
Specific counties affected included Bexar, Harris, Dallas and Hidalgo, in the Rio Grande Valley. U.S. District Judges Xavier Rodriguez and Orlando Garcia wrote in the majority opinion that map drawers "demonstrated a hostility" toward minority-majority areas that should have retained their voting power as minority-controlled districts.
“The impact of the plan was certainly to reduce minority voting opportunity statewide, resulting in even less proportional representation for minority voters,” they wrote, later adding: “Instead of using race to provide equal electoral opportunity, they intentionally used it to undermine Latino voting opportunity."
Read more: http://www.houstonpress.com/news/for-third-time-this-year-federal-judges-rule-texas-discriminated-against-minority-voters-9375847
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