Justice Department Files Lawsuit Against Texas Over Redistricting Plans; Says It Discriminates Latino, Black Voters

The Justice Department has sued Texas on Monday after the state introduced redistricting plans for Texas' congressional delegation and the state legislature. The department alleged that Texas put Latino and Black voters at a disadvantage.

Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said that the complaint alleges that the redistricting plans approved by the Texas state legislature and signed into law by the governor will deny Black and Latino voters an equal opportunity to participate in voting, according to an NPR report.

The lawsuit was filed by the department in the Western District of Texas.

Gupta said that their complaint also alleges that several of those districts were drawn with "discriminatory intent."

The Supreme Court has ruled that redistricting plans is a political question beyond the court's purview, but doing so with the intent to discriminate against minorities is unlawful.

Justice Department Lawsuit Against Texas

The lawsuit claims that the Republican-controlled state violated part of the Voting Rights Act in drawing new district boundaries for its congressional delegation and state legislature, according to a Fox 10 News report.

Meanwhile, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton slammed that litigation and described it as an intrusion by the Democratic administration. Paxton tweeted that the lawsuit of the Justice Department against Texas is the Biden administration's "latest ploy" to control the voters in the state.

He added that the redistricting plans will be proven lawful, and the "preposterous attempt" to control democracy will fail.

The lawsuit is the fourth the Department of Justice has filed against Texas since U.S. President Joe Biden took office in January.

Other lawsuits against Texas were on the state's immigration enforcement, new voting law, and restrictive new abortion law.

Meanwhile, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, did not immediately comment regarding the lawsuit.

Redistricting Plans in Texas

The lawsuit noted several congressional districts where Republicans drew lines to lower the share of Black and Latino voters in their party's congressional districts, according to a South Florida Sun-Sentinel report.

The map had cut areas near El Paso and San Antonio, which lowered the voting-age residents by nine percent.

Meanwhile, the Dallas areas pulled Black and Latino residents of the northwest suburbs out of the district of Rep. Beth Van Duyne. Van Duyne narrowly won her reelection bid against a Democratic Black Latina candidate last year.

In addition, the map kept six of 10 House districts as white-majority or plurality districts in the Houston area.

The lawsuit alleged that Texas "surgically excised" minority communities from the core of the Dallas-Fort Worth area by connecting them to heavily Anglo rural counties.

It is still illegal for mapmakers to discriminate on the basis of race while drawing legislative lines. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act bans line-drawers from diluting the voting power of minorities by scattering them among districts.

Black voters are also treated improperly by the map, but the case also centers around the map's treatment of Latinos.

Several Latino civil rights groups have also filed a lawsuit to challenge the redistricting plans.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Mary Webber

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