President Pigfucker Perry...has been accused of Distorting Congressional Map as Texas Trial Begins
Laurel Brubaker Calkins - Sep 6, 2011 5:30 AM PT
Texas governor and U.S. presidential candidate Rick Perry faces allegations in a trial today that he intentionally distorted congressional districts with the help of Republican lawmakers to prevent Latinos from winning office in the state.
Texas gained four seats in Congress after adding almost 4.3 million new residents since 2000, according to the 2010 U.S. census. Hispanics, who have historically voted more often for Democrats, accounted for about 65 percent of the increase. Republicans hold 23 of Texas’s current 32 congressional seats.
State lawmakers “employed gerrymandering techniques such as packing and cracking of minority communities” to limit the odds that Latinos would win the new seats, according to criticism summarized in a ruling last week by the three-judge panel that will hear the nonjury trial in San Antonio.
SNIPS ~~
City and County
The city and county were splintered under the redistricting plan. Hispanic voter-rights organizations also joined the case.
“The congresspersons contend the plan unnecessarily splits politically cohesive minority groups, and is designed to minimize or cancel out minority voting strength, both now and in the future,” U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia in San Antonio wrote in a Sept. 2 order allowing most of the racial gerrymandering claims to go to trial.
If the new map is approved, “the legislature’s blatant racial gerrymandering will effectively prevent minority voters from having any meaningful impact on congressional elections for the next 10 years,” lawyers representing Austin and Travis County said in court papers.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said critics can’t draw a better map. ‘Shows Conclusively’
“The evidence shows conclusively that the dispersal of population across the state makes it impossible to draw additional congressional districts consisting of a majority of Latino or African-American voters,” Abbott said in court papers.
Abbott also said that to set aside the map opponents must prove “the state acted with specific intent to discriminate on the basis of race and not, for example, on the basis of political affiliation.”
At a pretrial hearing last week, state Assistant Attorney General David Mattax told the judges they will have to draw their own map if they reject the one created by the legislature. He said lawmakers can’t reconvene in time to devise a new plan without delaying a November filing deadline for candidates.
____________________
Fight Over Redistricting
Texas Democratic Party Deputy Executive Director Anthony Gutierrez said in a statement today that the trial “is about a lot more than Republicans and Democrats fighting over district lines.”
“Republicans are trying to illegally use redistricting to predetermine who makes policy for the next decade,” Gutierrez said.
The case is Perez v. Perry, 11-cv-00360, U.S. District Court, Western District of Texas (San Antonio).
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
