LCCR Says Texas Decision Acknowledges Reality of Racially-Polarized Voting
Feature Story by Tyler Lewis - 6/28/2006
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the 2003 Texas U.S. House of Representatives' mid-decade redistricting plan was in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA).By a vote of 5-4, the court found that by removing 100,000 Latino voters from Republican Henry Bonilla's district, District 23, the state of Texas violated the VRA because it diminished the ability of the Latino voters in the district to elect their candidate of choice. However, the ruling preserved the other districts created by the Republican legislature in 2003.
Julie Fernandes, senior policy analyst for the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), said, "This ruling does assert that racially polarized voting is alive and well in Texas -- and in some places extreme -- and working to the disadvantage of minority voters" but that the decision has no effect on the reauthorization of the VRA, which stalled last week in the House.
Voting rights experts say that the court's invalidation of District 23 under Section 2 of the VRA demonstrates that the manipulation of minority voting rights cannot be disregarded for political considerations.
"The decision is an important one in the area of redistricting; the Supreme Court has signaled that states must offer all voters the chance to participate in elections and cast a meaningful vote, regardless of race," explained Nina Perales, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund's (MALDEF) lead counsel in the case.
The plan was created and implemented by Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in 2003 in an attempt to cement the GOP's control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
The decision also upheld the right of states to redraw district lines more often than the traditional 10-year plan that is tied to Census figures.
