New political maps to get less scrutiny
2013 court ruling nixes precheck for racial discrimination
Even before the state’s new political maps were signed into law, voting rights and Latino advocacy groups were filing lawsuits to overturn them, alleging the Republicans who crafted them discriminated unlawfully against minorities by diluting their votes.
Though such court battles have succeeded in the past to stall the implementation of the maps — redrawn every 10 years — or force changes to them, there’s one critical difference this time.
Texas is no longer subject to preapproval — known as “preclearance” — by the U.S. Department of Justice or federal judges in Washington, as called for by the Voting Rights Act that for decades served as a check on the racial discrimination that has historically been a problem in Texas and other states. In every decade since that law was put in place in 1965, new Texas maps have been found in violation of it.
But after a 2013 Supreme Court decision stripped out the preclearance requirement, that extra level of oversight is gone. Now the seven legal challenges that are being heard in an El Paso federal court will have less of a foothold and inevitably will take longer, which means the maps being challenged in court are undoubtedly going to be in place for the March 1 primary election and most likely for the general election in November as well.
“Although we are doing our best to move as quickly as possible, the reality of litigation is that it takes time,” said Noor Taj, voting rights counsel for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice who is representing one of the plaintiffs, the Fair Maps Texas Action Committee. “You can only imagine what the burden is on litigation now without that initial preclearance.”
The Texas Attorney General’s Office, which defends state laws and officials in court, did not respond to a request for comment on the suits. Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have defended the maps in public statements.
“The Senate’s map that passed today is fair and legal, and passed with bipartisan support,” Patrick said in a statement in October. “This map illustrates our commitment to making sure every Texan is well-represented in their state Legislature and their voices are
heard.”
The redistricting suits all make similar arguments and demands, with critics pointing out that while people of color made up 95 percent of the state’s population increase since 2010 — and Hispanics made up half of the total increase — the maps approved by lawmakers do not reflect that growth and unconstitutionally water down the minority vote.
The population increase of 4 million people in the past decade earned Texas two new U.S. House seats this year, both of which benefit white voters in Houston and Austin, plaintiffs in the lawsuits allege. Yet no new majority Hispanic congressional districts were created.
Instead, the number of Hispanic-majority districts fell from eight to seven and Black-majority districts went from one to zero, while one white-majority district was added.
In Harris County, home to more nonwhite residents than any other county in the state, plaintiffs argue the new congressional map evades an opportunity to create a new majority-minority district by spreading out or “cracking” the Latino community by taking many of those voters out of Democratic Rep. Sylvia Garcia’s District 29 and placing them into the Republican Rep. Brian Babin’s predominantly white and rural District 36.
They also take issue with the weakening of current majority-minority districts, accomplished by overconcentrating their population in already Democratic districts to strengthen surrounding Republican districts and avoid giving them more representation, such as in South Texas where they say Latinos were “packed” into Democratic Rep. Filemon Vela’s District 34 to help flip a neighboring district from blue to red.
“Justice is supposed to be blind — not so at the Capitol,” said Gloria Leal, attorney and redistricting chair for Texas LULAC, one of the plaintiffs, “especially for incumbents and the dominant party that wants to stay in power even though demographically white people are growing less than minorities.”
Texas Republicans, who dominate both chambers and had ultimate control over the redistricting process, stressed that they did not take into account race when creating the maps, setting the foundation for the state’s current argument that plaintiffs have not proven intent to discriminate.
“We drew these maps race blind,” state Sen. Joan Huffman, Rhouston, who led the redistricting process in the Senate, said repeatedly at public hearings as the maps were debated. “We have not looked at any racial data as we drew these maps, and to this day I have not looked at any racial data.”
The state has argued in court filings that Huffman’s statement “cannot be evidence that the decisionmaker acted ‘because of,’ not merely ‘in spite of,’ race.”
Attorneys for the plaintiffs say there was substantial testimony during hearings on the redistricting bills demonstrating the maps’ effects on minorities.
“You can’t use partisan gerrymandering as a proxy for racial gerrymandering,” Taj said. “When you look at the data and see the maps, I don’t think that argument holds. They were put on ample notice of how problematic these maps were constitutionally and under Section 2 (of the Voting Rights Act).”
Noor added that she sees this redistricting fight as having effects beyond the latest maps.
“These maps are in place for the next decade,” she said. “But they also create precedent for maps that then come after it. We’re talking about decades’ worth of effect on people. And as communities of color continue to grow, we have a responsibility to ensure each and every person has their vote counted and is represented fairly.”