Civil Rights Groups Applaud Court’s Takedown of Discriminatory Voting Schemes in Texas

by Jeremy Leaming

In its ruling yesterday rejecting several new Texas voting districts, a federal court in Washington, D.C. blasted the efforts of Texas lawmakers as seeking to suppress the vote of Latinos.

Janell Ross for The Huffington Post noted that the federal court’s opinion provided a “sharply worded” and exhaustive account of “Texas officials’ plans to draw districts for four new congressional seats created by the state’s booming Latino population that were almost certain to elect Congress members preferred by white Republican voters. And it’s a ruling that should serve as a cautionary tale, according to voting rights advocates.”

Nina Perales, vice president of litigation at the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund (MALDEF), told Ross, “For other states thinking of doing anything to dilute the [power] of their minority voters or their fast-growing minority populations, this not just a warning. This is a warning in the strongest terms.”

Indeed as noted on this blog yesterday, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found that Texas lawmakers failed badly in proving that their redistricting plans did not violate Sec. 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The act applies to states and localities with a history of discriminating against classes of voters, and requires those jurisdictions to get preclearance for redistricting from the Department of Justice or a federal court.

In State of Texas v. U.S. the federal court said Texas failed to show that its new voting maps would not discriminate against voters on “account of race, color, or membership in a language minority group.”

MALDEF, which intervened on behalf of Latino voters to challenge the state’s new voting schemes, said the federal court had found the state’s congressional plan was created with “discriminatory racial intent,” and its State House redistricting plan undercut “voting strength,” while the state Senate redistricting plan “was enacted with discriminatory racial intent.”

The Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ) and the Texas State NAACP were also involved in challenging the legality of the redistricting plains. In a joint press statement about the federal court’s ruling, the groups said it would provide “a useful tool in defending those types of minority opportunity districts going forward.”

Over the last two years a string of states, led mostly by Republican lawmakers, has implemented or is trying to implement onerous new voting requirements that are blatantly aimed at suppressing the vote of minorities, students, the elderly and low-income people. The federal court’s takedown of the Texas schemes to suppress Latino voters was a rare, but invaluable victory for democracy.