- Thread starter
- Staff
- #1
Dadparvar
Staff member
- Nov 11, 2016
- 10,578
- 0
- 6
A coalition of Texas voters backed by the National Redistricting Foundation filed a sweeping federal challenge late Saturday to House Bill 4, the mid-decade congressional map the Legislature approved just after midnight on August 23. The Second Supplemental Complaint, lodged before a three-judge panel, accuses state officials of intentionally dismantling performing majority-minority districts in Houston, Dallas–Fort Worth, Central Texas, and South Texas, with the predictable effect, the plaintiffs say, of expanding Anglo control over Texas’s 38 US House seats.
The suit names Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson and Governor Greg Abbott and seeks to block the use of HB 4 in any future elections. It asks the court to declare the map unconstitutional and unlawful under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, to appoint a remedial process, and to enjoin the state from administering elections under the new lines.
At the center of the dispute is why the Legislature took up redistricting at all, just four years after drawing a post-census plan. Abbott added redistricting to a July special session after the US Department of Justice sent a letter raising “constitutional concerns” about four districts — TX-9, TX-18, TX-29, and TX-33 — that it characterized as racially gerrymandered coalition seats. Though the state had defended the 2021 plan as “blind to race,” Abbott told a television interviewer he wanted maps that did not “impose coalition districts,” pointing to the Fifth Circuit’s 2024 Petteway decision. That case held the Voting Rights Act does not require states to create districts where multiple minority groups combine to form a majority, but it did not declare such districts unlawful. The plaintiffs argue that Texas seized on that nuance to justify eliminating districts where Black and Latino voters had already been electing their candidates of choice.
The complaint portrays HB 4 as a racially engineered overhaul masquerading as legal housekeeping. In Harris County, it alleges, lawmakers collapsed two longstanding coalition districts by packing Black voters into a newly drawn TX-18 set just above a Black-majority threshold while reworking TX-9 into a nominal Latino-majority seat that, on past election data, would still elect Anglo-preferred candidates. In Dallas County, the filing says TX-30 was transformed from a performing plurality-Black seat into a bare Black-majority district, while neighboring TX-33 was split and its Latino communities cracked across Anglo-majority districts stretching deep into rural suburbs. In Central Texas, the plaintiffs contend the Legislature eliminated TX-35 as a functioning Black-and-Latino opportunity district and replaced it with a rural-tilting seat that is technically Latino-majority on paper but, based on turnout and cohesion patterns, unlikely to perform. Along the Gulf Coast, they say TX-27 was redrawn from a majority Black-and-Latino district into an Anglo-majority seat despite already electing Republicans, evidence, in their view, that race rather than partisanship drove the change.
Beyond the specific districts, the filing claims the map rewrites the overall balance of representation. Under the 2021 plan, 22 districts had an Anglo-majority citizen voting-age population; HB 4 increases that to 24, even as Anglo Texans now make up roughly half of the statewide eligible electorate. The plaintiffs also point to a series of “laser-like” precision targets — districts drawn to 50–51 percent Black or Latino CVAP — as circumstantial proof that race predominated over traditional criteria such as compactness, county integrity, and community ties.
The Complaint proceeds on five fronts. First, the plaintiffs allege intentional discrimination under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and the Voting Rights Act, arguing that the state’s own statements, the timing of the special session, and the swift, opaque process reveal a plan designed “because of” race to diminish minority voting power. Second, they bring racial-gerrymandering claims, which turn not on outcomes but on whether race predominated in line-drawing; if the court agrees, Texas would have to show the design is narrowly tailored to a compelling interest, a high bar the plaintiffs say the state cannot meet. Third, they assert a Section 2 “results” violation, contending the Legislature failed to create additional compact Latino-majority opportunity districts that are plainly feasible in Harris County, DFW, Bexar County, and the Rio Grande Valley, and instead cracked cohesive Latino communities while crafting “Potemkin” districts that are Latino-majority on paper but non-performing in practice.
The fourth claim attacks HB 4 as malapportioned. Because Texas chose to redraw districts mid-decade while relying on 2020 census baselines, the complaint argues, the plan ignores dramatic post-census growth concentrated in the state’s major metros. Although courts tolerate population drift during a standard 10-year cycle to avoid constant redistricting, the plaintiffs say that legal fiction should not shield a voluntary mid-cycle map that bakes five years of growth disparities into fresh lines. Finally, they argue that the usual deference courts afford to partisan aims and unavoidable awareness of race in decennial remaps should not apply when lawmakers opt to re-enter the redistricting arena midstream; in that context, they contend, using racial data and pursuing partisan advantage are unjustified and violate Equal Protection.
Given that the case challenges congressional apportionment, it will be heard by a three-judge district court, with any appeal proceeding directly to the US Supreme Court. The plaintiffs are asking the court to enjoin HB 4, order a remedial plan that restores or creates functioning minority opportunity districts, and, if needed, oversee the process to ensure compliance with federal law. The state is expected to defend the new lines as a lawful response to evolving precedent and to argue that partisan considerations, not race, explain the design — a position the plaintiffs say is belied by the map’s shapes, the precision of its racial thresholds, and the state’s own record.
The post Texas House Bill draws immediate lawsuit alleging racially engineered overhaul appeared first on JURIST - News.
Continue reading...
Note: We don't have any responsibilities about this news. Its been posted here by Feed Reader and we had no controls and checking on it. And because News posted here will be deleted automatically after 21 days, threads are closed so that no one spend time to post and discuss here. You can always check the source and discuss in their site.
The suit names Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson and Governor Greg Abbott and seeks to block the use of HB 4 in any future elections. It asks the court to declare the map unconstitutional and unlawful under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, to appoint a remedial process, and to enjoin the state from administering elections under the new lines.
At the center of the dispute is why the Legislature took up redistricting at all, just four years after drawing a post-census plan. Abbott added redistricting to a July special session after the US Department of Justice sent a letter raising “constitutional concerns” about four districts — TX-9, TX-18, TX-29, and TX-33 — that it characterized as racially gerrymandered coalition seats. Though the state had defended the 2021 plan as “blind to race,” Abbott told a television interviewer he wanted maps that did not “impose coalition districts,” pointing to the Fifth Circuit’s 2024 Petteway decision. That case held the Voting Rights Act does not require states to create districts where multiple minority groups combine to form a majority, but it did not declare such districts unlawful. The plaintiffs argue that Texas seized on that nuance to justify eliminating districts where Black and Latino voters had already been electing their candidates of choice.
The complaint portrays HB 4 as a racially engineered overhaul masquerading as legal housekeeping. In Harris County, it alleges, lawmakers collapsed two longstanding coalition districts by packing Black voters into a newly drawn TX-18 set just above a Black-majority threshold while reworking TX-9 into a nominal Latino-majority seat that, on past election data, would still elect Anglo-preferred candidates. In Dallas County, the filing says TX-30 was transformed from a performing plurality-Black seat into a bare Black-majority district, while neighboring TX-33 was split and its Latino communities cracked across Anglo-majority districts stretching deep into rural suburbs. In Central Texas, the plaintiffs contend the Legislature eliminated TX-35 as a functioning Black-and-Latino opportunity district and replaced it with a rural-tilting seat that is technically Latino-majority on paper but, based on turnout and cohesion patterns, unlikely to perform. Along the Gulf Coast, they say TX-27 was redrawn from a majority Black-and-Latino district into an Anglo-majority seat despite already electing Republicans, evidence, in their view, that race rather than partisanship drove the change.
Beyond the specific districts, the filing claims the map rewrites the overall balance of representation. Under the 2021 plan, 22 districts had an Anglo-majority citizen voting-age population; HB 4 increases that to 24, even as Anglo Texans now make up roughly half of the statewide eligible electorate. The plaintiffs also point to a series of “laser-like” precision targets — districts drawn to 50–51 percent Black or Latino CVAP — as circumstantial proof that race predominated over traditional criteria such as compactness, county integrity, and community ties.
The Complaint proceeds on five fronts. First, the plaintiffs allege intentional discrimination under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and the Voting Rights Act, arguing that the state’s own statements, the timing of the special session, and the swift, opaque process reveal a plan designed “because of” race to diminish minority voting power. Second, they bring racial-gerrymandering claims, which turn not on outcomes but on whether race predominated in line-drawing; if the court agrees, Texas would have to show the design is narrowly tailored to a compelling interest, a high bar the plaintiffs say the state cannot meet. Third, they assert a Section 2 “results” violation, contending the Legislature failed to create additional compact Latino-majority opportunity districts that are plainly feasible in Harris County, DFW, Bexar County, and the Rio Grande Valley, and instead cracked cohesive Latino communities while crafting “Potemkin” districts that are Latino-majority on paper but non-performing in practice.
The fourth claim attacks HB 4 as malapportioned. Because Texas chose to redraw districts mid-decade while relying on 2020 census baselines, the complaint argues, the plan ignores dramatic post-census growth concentrated in the state’s major metros. Although courts tolerate population drift during a standard 10-year cycle to avoid constant redistricting, the plaintiffs say that legal fiction should not shield a voluntary mid-cycle map that bakes five years of growth disparities into fresh lines. Finally, they argue that the usual deference courts afford to partisan aims and unavoidable awareness of race in decennial remaps should not apply when lawmakers opt to re-enter the redistricting arena midstream; in that context, they contend, using racial data and pursuing partisan advantage are unjustified and violate Equal Protection.
Given that the case challenges congressional apportionment, it will be heard by a three-judge district court, with any appeal proceeding directly to the US Supreme Court. The plaintiffs are asking the court to enjoin HB 4, order a remedial plan that restores or creates functioning minority opportunity districts, and, if needed, oversee the process to ensure compliance with federal law. The state is expected to defend the new lines as a lawful response to evolving precedent and to argue that partisan considerations, not race, explain the design — a position the plaintiffs say is belied by the map’s shapes, the precision of its racial thresholds, and the state’s own record.
The post Texas House Bill draws immediate lawsuit alleging racially engineered overhaul appeared first on JURIST - News.
Continue reading...
Note: We don't have any responsibilities about this news. Its been posted here by Feed Reader and we had no controls and checking on it. And because News posted here will be deleted automatically after 21 days, threads are closed so that no one spend time to post and discuss here. You can always check the source and discuss in their site.