[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]
|
Status: Not Logged In; Sign In
United States News Title: Court halts Texas redistricting plan A federal court put the brakes on a Republican-drawn congressional map Tuesday, potentially costing the GOP House seats in next year’s election. Because the D.C. District Court on Tuesday refused to sign off on the newest map, which was drawn by a Republican-controlled Legislature and signed by Gov. Rick Perry, the plan won’t be approved in time for the November filing period, said Matt Angle, a Texas Democratic strategist who has been advocating against the plan. In a ruling by a three-judge panel, the court found Texas used “an improper standard or methodology” to determine districts that would represent minorities. The ruling applied to maps for congressional and state House seats. The D.C. court will now conduct a trial to hear testimony on the map. A federal court in San Antonio will be responsible for creating an interim map in time for the Nov. 28 start of filing, Angle said. “Once they hold the elections under the new map, then that map stands as the benchmark to measure against, so the Republicans can’t go back and argue for their old plans,” Angle said. Once the D.C. District court makes a ruling, the Texas Legislature could reconvene next year and retool the map to address the court’s objections, said Texas GOP pollster Chris Perkins. A new map could be implemented in the middle of the election process, even after the primaries, Perkins said. “The San Antonio court will produce the map,” Perkins said. “It’s unclear how long that map will stand.” But Jose Garza, lead counsel for Mexican American Legislative Caucus in Texas, said it’s unlikely that the process will move along quickly enough to allow a second map to be made in time to upend the election. “These sorts of issues and cases do get protracted, and we could be still litigating this two or three years from now,” Garza said. “At the stage we’re in at this time, it’s unlikely that anyting other than the court-ordered plans could be used in the 2012 elections.” Because of the state’s voting history, Texas officials are required under the Voting Rights Act to gain approval from the federal government. Instead of seeking approval through the Democratic-led Department of Justice, Texas opted to take the map to the federal courts for approval. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office pointed out that while the ruling put the map on hold, it didn’t wholly invalidate it, either. “The Texas House and congressional maps actually increase the number of districts where minority voters can control the outcome of an election,” said Lauren Bean, a spokeswoman for Abbott. “The court’s decision today does not conclude otherwise, nor does it reject Texas’s maps — but instead simply requires a trial on the merits of the Texas redistricting map.” The Mexican American Legislative Caucus cheered the ruling. “Today’s ruling supports what leaders of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus have been saying for months — the Republican leadership discriminated against minorities by seeking to grow their political influence in the halls of Congress and the Texas House while ignoring the demographic reality of those responsible for our state’s population growth,” said Texas state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer in a statement.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread |
|
[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]
|