Federal trial opens to determine whether Texas discriminated in redrawn redistricting maps

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Do Texas’ district maps discriminate against some Black and Latino voters? That’s what advocates will allege in court Wednesday, while the state will argue that those communities can elect the candidates they want.

Some advocates will also argue in a set of cases four years in the making that the state intentionally discriminated — while the state will combat that claim.

A panel of three U.S. district judges in El Paso will hear the cases over the next month that allege the state violated federal law in its redistricting process — the once-a-decade redrawing of congressional and state district maps after every U.S. Census to ensure that all districts have approximately the same number of people.

The plaintiffs include the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Texas Latino Redistricting Task Force and the Texas chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. They plan to argue that in 2021, the Republican-majority Legislature deliberately drew its congressional, state House and senate districts in a way that split up voters of color and diluted their political power.

The case has been delayed while the parties fought over what information legislative members are required to disclose.

Plaintiffs point to data around the racial makeup of the state and those of the districts in their arguments: though whites and Latinos made up nearly the same share of the population in Texas in 2020, the state drew 23 white-majority districts out of 38 total congressional districts, while Latino voters made up majorities in only seven. The remaining eight districts had no majority group.

According to the 2020 Census, Texas added 4 million residents in the prior decade and gained two congressional districts. Of the population growth, 95% was among communities of color, with more than half of the growth among the Latino community.

“The inflated number of majority-white districts does not reflect the Census data and does not allow for fair representation,” Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation, an advocacy group supporting the plaintiffs in the congressional case, said at a news conference this week. “It is clear that Texas’ congressional map denies Latino voters an equal opportunity to participate in the political process and elect candidates of their choice, in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.’”

If a court finds that to be true, it wouldn’t be the first time: in every decade since the Voting Rights Act was enacted in 1965, Texas has been found by a federal court to have violated federal law by illegally discriminating against voters of color. The law prohibits voting practices that discriminate based on race, color or those who belong to a language minority group.

After the 2010 redistricting cycle, for example – in a battle with similar arguments — federal judges ruled that Texas lawmakers intentionally discriminated against Hispanic and Black voters by unnecessarily crowding them into certain districts.

The allegations that the state violated the Voting Rights Act don’t require the plaintiffs to prove the state intended to discriminate — only that the effect of the maps does so. Some of the plaintiffs are bringing additional claims that the state violated the 14th Amendment by intentionally discriminating against them, which does require proving the state acted in bad faith.

Various groups have sued the state since 2021, even before the maps were ratified. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, El Paso Division ordered those groups to consolidate their cases into the one that begins Wednesday.

The groups allege the state could have drawn a Latino-majority district in the state senate and congressional districts that encompass Dallas-Fort Worth and Harris counties, but failed to do so.

In the House maps, plaintiffs allege the Legislature failed to create Latino-majority districts where there was opportunity to do so in those counties, as well in Central and West Texas, and Bexar, Denton/Wise and Brazoria counties.

The NAACP also alleges the state intentionally discriminated against Black voters in all three maps.

The state plans to defend the maps on the basis that partisan interests, not race, were the primary factor in drawing the maps.

“The Texas Legislature drew the maps blind to race,” the state’s pre-trial brief says. “The redistricting lawmakers did not mince words: they intended to design maps that advanced partisan interests and other traditional redistricting principles.”

The Republican-led Legislature drew the maps, while the advocates who brought the lawsuits are arguing on behalf of Black and Latino voters who historically have aligned with the Democratic party.

The state’s brief says the legislative record will show both Republican and Democratic lawmakers acknowledged the Legislature’s “partisan motivations for drawing districts” — although in pre-trial proceedings leading up to Wednesday, the Legislature’s chief map drawer, Houston Republican Sen. Joan Huffman, declined to share some of the reasoning behind the maps, citing “legislative privilege,” a protection afforded by the state constitution.

The state also plans to argue that population growth was uneven, and that in some areas, such as El Paso County, declining population led to the reduction in the number of House districts where there was a Latino majority.

The governor’s office and attorney general’s office did not respond to requests for comments on the case.

Though the Legislature passed the bills creating the maps in 2021, lawmakers that session were unable to ratify the maps due to a Democratic walkout over a separate bill related to election processes. The next Legislature in 2023 then ratified the maps.

In the meantime, two primary and two general elections have taken place under those maps.

That includes the primary election in 2022, after the Court sided with the state on allowing the map for Senate District 10 to be used. Plaintiffs tried to appeal the case to the Supreme Court, but they dismissed the appeal because it was filed too late.

For Jenkins, with the National Redistricting Foundation, the impacts of a map that potentially violates the law means less of a voice for some Texans.

“The long-term effects of depriving a community of a seat at the table can be seen in disparities in multiple aspects of life, such as higher poverty and unemployment rates, lower incomes and being underrepresented in public office,” she said at the briefing. “This case isn't just about the congressional map, it's about representation and living up to the fundamental ideal that should guide our democracy, that every individual has the right to exercise self determination at the ballot box.”

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First round of TribFest speakers announced! Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Maureen Dowd; U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-San Antonio; Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker; U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff, D-California; and U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas are taking the stage Nov. 13–15 in Austin. Get your tickets today!