SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS – The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas has issued an opinion in Perez v. Abbott, a case challenging Texas’ 2011 statewide redistricting plans, finding that districts drawn for the state House of Representatives intentionally discriminated against minority voters. The case has been pending since 2011 when the Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ) and co-counsel challenged the Congressional and State House redistricting plans on behalf of the Texas NAACP and three individual Texas voters. The Court issued its opinion on the 2011 Congressional plan on March 10, 2017.
Allison Riggs, Senior Voting Rights Attorney for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, who litigated the case, issued the following statement about the Court’s decision:
“Today a three-judge panel in Texas ruled that the state’s 2011 redistricting plan for State House districts was intentionally racially discriminatory, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Voting Rights Act. The state failed to draw districts that reflected the explosive growth in minority population, and, indeed, fragmented those populations in order to avoid creating new minority opportunity districts. Plaintiffs will be in front of the court on April 27 to discuss next steps in ensuring that these violations are corrected before the 2018 elections.”
The opinion in the case can be found at http://bit.ly/TexasRedistricting
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