Been waiting a long time for this one.
Questions over whether Latinos had their voting power diminished in the Dallas area will be a focus of a federal trial in El Paso that begins Wednesday.
U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, is scheduled to testify Friday before the three-judge panel in the case that will determine whether Texas must draw new maps for state and congressional districts.
In a filing last week, Crockett and U.S. Rep. Al Green, D-Houston, alleged that the Legislature intentionally used racial discrimination to draw a pair of congressional districts in Houston and another in Dallas.
Among the allegations is that state officials failed to create districts with a majority of voting-age Latino citizens in Dallas and Tarrant counties.
“The Dallas-Ft. Worth area could have gained (but did not) an additional Latino majority congressional district and State Senate district,” the lawsuit alleges.
Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation, said the current map “packs Latino voters” in North Texas and the Harris County area, depriving them of equal representation.
In Texas, “voters of color tend to vote for one party, while white voters tend to vote for the other,” she told reporters Monday. “And the white voters do this in a way that blocks minority voters from being able to elect their preferred candidates.”
For the congressional maps, Crockett and Green allege that their districts — and a vacant boundary represented by the late U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston — dilute “minority voting strength” and prioritize racial considerations over traditional mapmaking principles.
“The evidence will demonstrate that [the congressional map] was enacted with discriminatory intent, that the legislators knew of and intended the discriminatory effect on Black and Latino voters, and that it constitutes an unconstitutional racial gerrymander,” attorneys for the federal lawmakers wrote.
See here and here for the most recent updates, in which both the corrupt Trump Justice Department and some plaintiffs dropped out of the case. Since the filing, the SCTOUS decision in the Alabama redistricting lawsuit in 2023 upheld the ban on racial gerrymandering, which is a cornerstone of the Texas case. Whether any of that still applies post-Trump is a question I can’t answer but which we will presumably find out. Michael Li has a nice thread on the various pretrial briefs that have been filed, and a look at the witnesses that the plaintiffs plan to call. Democracy Docket has a broad overview of the case and all of the related filings. The case is expected to take two weeks, and then we’ll wait for a ruling, which of course will be appealed. We’re not getting a resolution any time soon. The Dallas Observer has more.
UPDATE: Here’s the Trib story, published this morning.
Latinos in Texas in the 1960s and 1970s were almost all of Mexican ancestry, but that is not the case now. There is no reason to think that creating districts that tend to elect Latinos will elect Latinos. One has but to look at Houston as an example. There are three Latinos in the Commissioners Court. One is from Colombia, one is from here, and his parents were from Mexico. Briones is from Laredo, but I found nothing to indicate where her parents are from.
In my opinion, Latinos here and most places are at the bottom of the totem pole in politics in Houston and Texas.
District J was advertised by the Parker administration as a Latino district. We are still waiting for that Latino.
“nnise Parker served as the Mayor of Houston from 2010 to 2016
. During her administration, District J was created in 2011 as a result of city council redistricting.
Creation of District J and Hispanic Representation:
District J was formed with the goal of increasing Hispanic representation on the Houston City Council.
At the time, the Hispanic population in Houston was significant (44%), but only two of the eleven council members were Hispanic.
The creation of District J aimed to give the Hispanic community a stronger voice in city government.
The district includes neighborhoods like Gulfton and Sharpstown, located along U.S. Route 59 (Southwest Freeway), outside the 610 Loop.
Demographics of District J:
As of 2022, District J had a total population of 202,357.
A majority (65.6%) of the district’s residents identified as Hispanic or Latino.
Other significant racial/ethnic groups in the district include Black or African American (16.4%) and White alone (9.1%)”