Voting rights advocates are suing Texas again, this time with support from a former U.S. attorney general, over the state’s newly redrawn congressional district maps that favor the GOP, claiming the maps dilute the vote of communities of color after growth in America’s largest red state was overwhelmingly Hispanic, Black and Asian American people….
The latest lawsuit alleges that the new U.S. House maps violate the 1965 Voting Rights Act by not giving people of color a fair opportunity to elect their representatives. The maps do not include any additional districts in which Black or Hispanic voters make up more than 50% of eligible voters, and census data shows more than 9 of 10 of Texas’ new residents in the past decade were people of color.
It comes on the heels of a separate lawsuit filed by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund this month, which makes similar claims.
Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr., who leads the National Democratic Redistricting Committee and whose affiliate organization, the National Redistricting Action Fund, is supporting the lawsuit, said the maps, which pave potentially safer paths for Texas’ majority GOP incumbents to remain in office, were a “desperate grasp for partisan political power.”…
Texas Sen. Joan Huffman, a Republican who authored the maps and chairs the state Senate’s redistricting committee, and Abbott did not immediately respond to the Associated Press’ requests for comment. Huffman said prior to Tuesday that the maps were “drawn blind to race.”