Tag Archives: Texas Civil Rights Project

Of course there are bills to do something with that bogus SOS advisory

Posted on February 27, 2019 by Charles Kuffner

What else did you expect? Among other things,  Senate Bill 960 and Senate Bill 953, filed late last week, would require voter registrars across the state to kick every person off the voter rolls who at one point said they were not a citizen … Continue reading →

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Civil rights groups want Whitley to not be confirmed

Posted on February 23, 2019 by Charles Kuffner

No kidding. More than 30 civil rights and community groups are calling on Senate Democrats to block the confirmation of embattled interim Secretary of State David Whitley, who oversaw the botched rollout of an investigation into the citizenship of tens … Continue reading →

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Three times a lawsuit

Posted on February 5, 2019 by Charles Kuffner

Hat trick! A group of civil and voting rights organizations is suing the state’s chief election officers and local election officials in five counties, claiming Texas’ voter citizenship review efforts are unconstitutional because they intentionally target naturalized citizens and voters … Continue reading →

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Civil rights groups push back on bogus SOS letter

Posted on January 29, 2019 by Charles Kuffner

Good. Lawyers with 13 organizations — including the Texas Civil Rights Project, the ACLU of Texas, the League of Women Voters of Texas and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund — are demanding that the state rescind an advisory sent to … Continue reading →

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Bail lawsuit 2.0

Posted on January 24, 2019 by Charles Kuffner

This one will be tougher to tackle, but the principle remains the same. A hard-fought battle to reform Harris County’s bail system has prompted a second civil rights action. The legal team that successfully challenged the county’s bail practices for … Continue reading →

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How Dems took Hays County

Posted on December 8, 2018 by Charles Kuffner

Three cheers for Texas State University. As the dust settles after last week’s election, the political identity of Hays County hangs in the balance: Is it red or blue? The rapidly growing Central Texas suburban county — Texas’ 22nd-largest by … Continue reading →

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Lawsuit filed over late start times at several precincts

Posted on November 6, 2018 by Charles Kuffner

This crap should not happen. After several polling locations in Harris County failed to open on time this morning, the Texas Civil Rights Project and the Texas Organizing Project are suing the county in hopes of extending Election Day voting … Continue reading →

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More campus voting issues

Posted on October 30, 2018 by Charles Kuffner

Hello, Texas State. The long early voting line that wrapped around the LBJ Student Center earlier this week was a welcome sign to those at Texas State University who were hoping for strong enthusiasm among young voters on campus. But … Continue reading →

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The eSlate issue

Posted on October 28, 2018 by Charles Kuffner

Everyone please take a deep breath. Some straight-ticket voters have reported that voting machines recorded them selecting the candidate of another party for U.S. Senate, exposing a potential problem with the integrity of the state’s high-profile contest between U.S. Sen. … Continue reading →

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High schools need to do a better job of making voter registration available to students

Posted on August 19, 2018 by Charles Kuffner

As the Texas Civil Rights Project notes, it is the law. In a report published today by the Texas Civil Rights Project, new data from October 2016 to February 2018 shows that just 34 percent of high schools in Texas … Continue reading →

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State asks for emergency stay of “motor voter” ruling

Posted on May 27, 2018 by Charles Kuffner

Also as expected. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Friday asked a federal appeals court to block a San Antonio judge’s order that gave state officials 45 days to correct an online voter registration system that was found to violate federal law. … Continue reading →

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State appeals “motor voter” ruling

Posted on May 22, 2018 by Charles Kuffner

No surprise. The legal fight over whether Texas is disenfranchising thousands of voters by violating a federal voter registration law is on its way to federal appeals court. Just after a federal judge gave Texas less than two months to … Continue reading →

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State offers no fixes for “motor voter” law non-compliance

Posted on May 19, 2018 by Charles Kuffner

I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked. Told it was breaking the law, and asked to propose a fix, Texas seems to have mostly declined. Following a ruling last month that Texas was violating a federal law designed to ease the voter registration … Continue reading →

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Revisiting online voter registration

Posted on May 15, 2018 by Charles Kuffner

Camel’s nose in the tent alert. Texas could be forced to create at least one narrow avenue for online voter registration after a federal judge ruled that the state is violating the National Voter Registration Act, a decades-old federal law … Continue reading →

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State ordered to come up with fix for voter registration problems

Posted on May 14, 2018 by Charles Kuffner

The clock is ticking. Texas has less than a week to tell a federal judge in San Antonio how it will begin complying with the National Voter Registration Act, a decades-old federal law aimed at making it easier for people … Continue reading →

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Texas loses another voting rights lawsuit

Posted on April 4, 2018 by Charles Kuffner

Anyone else detecting a pattern here? Handing the state another voting rights loss, a federal judge has sided with a civil rights group that claimed Texas violated federal law by failing to register residents to vote when they updated their … Continue reading →

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More on the status of SB4

Posted on March 16, 2018 by Charles Kuffner

Ed Sills sent this one-pager from MALDEF to his mailing list; there’s no link and I couldn’t find it on the MALDEF webpage, so I’m just going to copy and paste here: What did the Fifth Circuit Court decide? On … Continue reading →

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Yet another report about how much our voter ID law sucked

Posted on June 17, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

Keep ’em coming. Hundreds were delayed from voting and others nearly turned away entirely during the presidential election because of confusion over the status Texas voter ID laws, a new report from a voting rights advocacy group shows. It’s just … Continue reading →

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State files motion to combine all the “sanctuary cities” lawsuits

Posted on June 5, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

This isn’t a surprise, but there is a bit of a twist. In a filing late Thursday, Attorney General Ken Paxton asked a federal district court in Austin to absorb two other legal challenges that have been filed against the … Continue reading →

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El Paso files “sanctuary cities” lawsuit

Posted on May 24, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

Two and counting, as El Paso gets in on the anti-SB4 action. The lawsuit, filed by El Paso County, its Sheriff Richard Wiles and the Texas Organizing Project Education Fund, a client of the Texas Civil Rights Project, charges that … Continue reading →

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Some Texas voting rights lawsuit updates

Posted on April 9, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

This has been a busy week for litigation related to voting rights issues in Texas. Here are updates to some cases, all of which happened this past week. From Texas Redistricting: The three-judge panel in the Texas redistricting case has … Continue reading →

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AG’s office sanctioned in voter registration lawsuit

Posted on February 19, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

They were warned. A federal judge has ordered sanctions against the state of Texas for blowing past deadlines and ignoring a court order to hand over thousands of pages of documents in a lawsuit challenging its voter registration practices. Texas … Continue reading →

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State fails to respond to voter registration lawsuit

Posted on January 31, 2017 by Charles Kuffner

Here’s an update on a different voting rights lawsuit from last year. Civil rights lawyers suing Texas over its voter registration practices are asking a federal judge to sanction the state for allegedly blowing past deadlines and ignoring a court … Continue reading →

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Another Voting Rights Act violation alleged

Posted on August 25, 2016 by Charles Kuffner

From Friday: Today, a coalition of 10 groups sent a letter to Carlos Casco, Secretary of State of Texas, requesting that his office take immediate steps to comply with the federal Voting Rights Act of 1985 (VRA) and the Texas … Continue reading →

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State settles birth certificate lawsuit

Posted on July 27, 2016 by Charles Kuffner

Good. After undergoing mediation, the state of Texas has reached an agreement with undocumented families in a lawsuit over its denial to issue birth certificates to children born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants. The state will clarify and expand … Continue reading →

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More on the TCRP voter registration lawsuit

Posted on April 6, 2016 by Charles Kuffner

Here’s the first news story I’ve seen about that voter registration lawsuit that was filed two weeks ago. The lead plaintiff is Jarrod Stringer of San Antonio, who relocated from Arlington in 2014. When he updated his driver license address … Continue reading →

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Lawsuit filed over voter registration problems

Posted on March 15, 2016 by Charles Kuffner

From the Texas Civil Rights Project: In a lawsuit filed this morning in a San Antonio federal court, the Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP) challenged voter registration procedures at the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS). As the Complaint explains, … Continue reading →

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Oral arguments in birth certificate lawsuit

Posted on October 4, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

Here we go. U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman heard oral arguments in a lawsuit filed by a group of undocumented parents and their U.S.-citizen children against the state Department of State Health Services, which has effectively blocked the children from … Continue reading →

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I’m not the only one who thought the state’s response to the birth certificate lawsuit was specious

Posted on July 31, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

Actual legal experts didn’t think much of it, either. The state of Texas can’t hide behind sovereign immunity to escape a lawsuit for denying birth certificates to U.S. citizen children of undocumented immigrants, the director of the University of Texas’ … Continue reading →

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State wants birth certificate lawsuit dropped

Posted on July 24, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

I don’t know about that. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Wednesday asked a federal district judge to dismiss a lawsuit that claims a state agency violated the U.S. Constitution by denying birth certificates to U.S.-citizen children of immigrant parents. … Continue reading →

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Lawsuit filed over state refusal to issue birth certificates

Posted on July 16, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

I’m sure this won’t be contentious at all. For nearly 150 years, the United States, under the 14th Amendment, has recognized people born here as citizens, regardless of whether their parents were citizens. But Texas has other plans. In the … Continue reading →

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Body cameras for HPD

Posted on September 5, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

I’ll be very interested to see how this goes. Houston Police Chief Charles McClelland is asking City Hall for $8 million to equip 3,500 police officers over three years with small body cameras to record encounters between law enforcement and … Continue reading →

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Vaping in jail

Posted on July 27, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

Not sure how I feel about this. As a way to allow some inmates to get their nicotine fix and sheriffs to shore up tight budgets, county jails across the country have begun selling electronic cigarettes. Though the trend has … Continue reading →

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Another lawsuit against Uber and Lyft

Posted on July 26, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

That’s three lawsuits that I know of. A coalition of Texas disability advocates sued ride-share companies Uber and Lyft on Thursday as part of dozens of lawsuits filed around the state ahead of the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities … Continue reading →

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