Texas has a long history of suppressing the vote of minorities dating back to the Whites Only primary of the old Democratic Party and continuing with the extreme gerrymandering and voter id laws. People are figthing the GOP voter suppression efforts and we won a victory this month before a very very conservative 5th Circuit. The judge who wrote the opinion is a former Baker Botts partner and she was forced to agree that the Texas voter id law vioated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in part because of the SCOTUS disparat impact ruling in the Federal Fair Housting case.
The voter id law was bad but Texas democrats had no idea how bad. My county spent $175,000 in 2014 and saw our vote total go down by 9,000 votes compared to 2010. We had some good candidates who got killed by voter id. If the Baker/Rice study is accurate, then we should have seen a 12,000 vote increase in my county and Wendy Davis would have carried my county.
The voter suppression in Texas is not a social issue so much as a deliberate political decision to lock in the GOP control of the state. The gerrymandering of Texas boundaries was amazing and devious. Texas has even stated in the court filings that they are discrminating against Democrats and that means minorities since they tend to vote for Democratic candidates. The Texas GOP is good at gerrymandering but I really hope that this legal defense fails. The voter id law was passed in a very partisan fashion. I have a law school classmate who together with others proposed 80+ amendments that laid the framework for show that the Texas law was intenionally discrminatory.
I work with the State Party on voting issues and just met with Battleground Texas on voting issues. There is a ton to do but Texas will turn blue.
I was on the credentials and nominations committee of my district convention during 2008 and I can tell you that Hillary Clinton has a very deep level of support among Hispanic voters, white democratic voters and other groups. Right now, she is very popular with the African American community. In Texas we are hoping that she will select Julian Castro as her nominee and if this happens, Texas will be far more competitive. Almost two years ago the Texas Democratic Party (the "TDP"
printed up some Clinton Castro 2016 bumperstickers that I hope to get to use.
I am also on the weekly conference calls on messaging with the State Party and we are following Trump and his birthright citizenship comments closely. Trump is alienating the heck out of Hispanic voters. The talking points that were circulated by the party are designed to help motivate hispanic voters. The TDP has good polling that the term "anchor baby" is as offensive to Hispanic voters as the term "wetback." The talking points are well done and Texas will turn blue one day
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