Despite ‘grave concerns,’ Texas averts oversight of voting maps

AUSTIN, Texas — A federal court ruled Wednesday that Texas can change voting maps without supervision despite “grave concerns” and findings that Republicans used racial gerrymandering while trying to strengthen their majorities in Congress and the state Legislature.

The decision is key ahead of the census in 2020, when control of the Texas House is at stake and with it the power to influence new voting maps for the next decade.

Although the ruling is a win for Texas Republicans, the three-judge panel in San Antonio expressed doubts about the state’s ability to redraw maps in a fair way. Latino growth is driving Texas’ booming population, and recent census figures show Texas added nearly nine new Latino residents for every white resident in 2018.

Given those demographic changes, the judges said the Texas Legislature will likely continue finding ways to engage in “ingenious defiance of the Constitution.” In 2017, the same court found that GOP drawn voting maps approved six years earlier by then-Gov. Rick Perry intentionally sought to dilute the voting power of minorities, a ruling that Democrats said demanded putting Texas elections under federal oversight.

But in part because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that any problems with Texas maps had essentially been fixed, the court said there was insufficient reason to take the extraordinary step of mandating supervision.

“To be clear ... the Court has grave concerns about Texas’s past conduct,” said U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez, writing for the three-judge panel.