Meant to do this awhile ago but never quite got my act together.
The future of Texas congressional elections and minority voting rights are in the hands of three federal judges after hearing nearly two weeks of testimony in a lawsuit alleging Republican leaders violated the voting rights of Hispanics and Blacks through redistricting.
The nine-day trial of testimony from Texas legislators and political experts, laying out the process of redistricting, concluded on Friday, Oct. 10, with applause from the dozens of attorneys and the public who listened to more than eight hours of testimony every day in the courtroom.
However, the happiness may not last for one side, as the judges’ decision will shape the foundation of elections in Texas and perhaps determine whether the Republican Party can retain control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Senior U.S. District Judge David C. Guaderrama of the Western District of Texas, 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jerry E. Smith and U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown of the Southern District of Texas heard testimony from state and civil rights organizations’ attorneys in the case.
What’s clear is that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the GOP-controlled Legislature rushed through the redistricting process to give President Donald Trump five more Republican-leaning congressional seats in Texas.
The redistricting process grouped minority districts and resulted in them having less representation in the U.S. House.
“The DOJ twice identified Hispanic majority districts to dismantle,” Nina Perales, one of the civil rights organizations’ attorneys that filed the racial discrimination lawsuit, said in her closing arguments. “Partisan gerrymandering has a limit and that limit is voting rights. Intentionally diluting minority voting strength is unconstitutional.”
State attorneys countered that Republican leaders did not target minorities, but Democrats, in a legal redistricting process. They did not deny that the efforts were to find Trump more representative seats in Congress.
“There can be no doubt the reason we are here is because President Trump called for more House seats,” Ryan G. Kercher, lead attorney for the state of Texas, said in his closing arguments. “This map is sorting on party, not race. We are left with the bare facts that a Republican president wanted more Republican seats and a Republican Legislature passed a partisan (redistricting) bill.”
See here for the previous update, which came a couple of days into that trial. Looking in Google News now, there’s barely anything from after that; this one El Paso Times story is the only mainstream media wrapup story I saw. If you want some day by day stuff, Democracy Docket is your place to go:
In Testimony, Top Texas Republican Remembers Another Conversation With GOP Mapmaker
RNC-Hired Mapmaker Denies Using Racial Data in Texas Gerrymander
Top GOP Mapmaker Describes a Texas Gerrymander Ordered Up By Washington
New Details Emerge in Federal Court About Texas’ Secretive Redistricting Map
We expect to get a ruling soon, as the filing period begins in mind-November. KUT, which did a feature story on the lone courtroom observer of the trial, has more.