Texas: Clock ticking toward 2018 as court to mull redistricting questions | The Texas Tribune

A pair of federal court rulings that Texas leaders purposefully discriminated against minority voters in rejiggering congressional and state House boundaries have triggered a slew of pressing questions among politicos here: Will Texas soon see new political maps that are friendlier to Latino and black voters and, in turn, Democrats? If so, who would draw them: the scolded Republican-led Legislature or the courts themselves? Will the maps land ahead of the 2018 elections? A three-judge panel based in San Antonio will start wading through such questions on Thursday as lawyers for each side of the redistricting dispute return to court for a high-profile status conference. “This hearing is a very important event in the sequence of what’s going to happen,” said Jose Garza, an attorney for the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, a plaintiff in the case.

Texas: Dallas Voter Fraud Targets Elderly Via Absentee Ballots | Texas Standard

There’s nothing unusual about a state lawmaker and a mayor being worried about turnout in a local election. But in Dallas, it’s not just low turnout that’s got two local leaders concerned. It’s the cause. Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and State Rep. Eric Johnson have sounded the alarm over potential voter fraud in West Dallas. Many people in that part of the city received mail-in ballots for the county’s May 6th election, even though they didn’t ask for them. In November, some voters from the same part of town were turned away at the polls because mail-in ballots had already been filed for them. Johnson is a Dallas Democrat from Texas’ 100th district, where much of this activity has taken place. He says he first started hearing about the issue a few weeks ago.

Texas: Court: Texas House map intentionally diluted minority votes | The Texas Tribune

Texas lawmakers intentionally diluted the political clout of minority voters in drawing the state’s House districts, a panel of federal judges ruled Thursday. In a long-awaited ruling, the San Antonio-based panel found that lawmakers in 2011 either violated the U.S. Constitution or the Voting Rights Act by intentionally diluting the strength of minority voters statewide and specifically in a litany of House districts across Texas. Those districts encompass areas including El Paso, Bexar, Nueces, Harris, Dallas and Bell counties. “The impact of the plan was certainly to reduce minority voting opportunity statewide, resulting in even less proportional representation for minority voters,” U.S. District Judges Orlando Garcia and Xavier Rodriguez wrote in a majority opinion, adding that map-drawers’ discussions “demonstrated a hostility” toward creating minority-controlled districts despite their massive population growth. In some instances, the judges ruled, map-drawers’ use of race to configure some districts to comply with the Voting Rights Act instead “turned the VRA on its head.”

Texas: Judge looks at issues with Houston area’s disabled voter access | Associated Press

A federal judge has told officials he is considering an independent review of the Houston area’s polling locations to ensure they are accessible to disabled voters. The possible action by U.S. District Judge Alfred Bennett is part of an ongoing lawsuit the U.S. Department of Justice filed last year, the Houston Chronicle reported. The lawsuit accuses Harris County, where Houston is located, of violating the constitutional mandate that voting sites comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. At a court hearing Friday, Bennett discussed the possibility of appointing a special master to oversee the review. No decision has yet been made.

Texas: Minority votes intentionally diluted by GOP-led Texas House redistricting, federal court says | Dallas Morning News

Texas statehouse districts drawn by the Republican-led legislature in 2011 intentionally diluted the votes of minorities, violating the U.S. Constitution and parts of the Voting Rights Act, a federal court ruled Thursday. In a 2-1 ruling, a three-judge panel in San Antonio found that the maps gave Republicans an advantage in elections and weakened the voting strength of minority voters. House Districts in Dallas and Tarrant counties were among those in which the judges ruled minority voters had seen their clout weakened. The ruling is yet another blow to the state in its six-year legal battle over the redrawing of the maps. Last month, the same court found that the state’s congressional maps were drawn with intent to discriminate against minority voters and invalidated three congressional districts. And last week, a federal judge ruled that the state’s voter ID law was written with intent to discriminate.

Texas: Court: House map drawn to dilute minority voters | Austin American-Statesman

Republicans redrew Texas House districts in 2011 to gain partisan advantage by intentionally and improperly diluting the voting strength of minority Texans, a federal court ruled Thursday. In a 2-1 decision, the San Antonio-based federal court panel said “invidious discriminatory purpose” underlies the map that set district boundaries for the state’s 150 House members in violation of the U.S. Voting Rights Act and the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection. “The impact of the plan was certainly to reduce minority voting opportunity statewide, resulting in even less proportional representation for minority voters,” the court said.

Texas: Attorneys Say Texas Might Have New Congressional Districts Before 2018 Election | KUT

Months ago, new Texas congressional maps for the 2018 election seemed like a pie-in-the-sky idea. The federal court looking at a lawsuit against the state’s 2011 map had sat on a ruling for years, and the case had gone unresolved for several election cycles. But thanks to a down-to-the-wire decision last month, attorneys representing plaintiffs in this case say, there’s hope for new districts in time for the next election. Just last year, Gerry Hebert, one of the plaintiff attorneys, said he couldn’t figure out why the U.S. District Court hearing the case was taking so long to reach a decision. “We really have left a lot of the lawyers scratching their heads about what the court is actually doing – if anything – to get this case moving,” he said at the time.

Texas: House committee approves bill to make changes to voter ID law | Dallas Morning News

The House Elections Committee on Monday approved a bill that would make court-ordered changes to the state’s controversial voter identification law, moving the proposal to the House floor under the looming specter of federal action.
Senate Bill 5, written by Rep. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, would give more leeway to people who show up to the polls without one of seven state-approved photo IDs. They would be allowed to use other documents that carry their name and address as proof of identity, such as a utility bill, if they sign a “declaration of impediment” stating why they don’t have an approved ID. The bill would make lying on the document a third-degree felony punishable by two to 10 years in prison. It would also create a voter registration program that sends mobile units to events to issue election identification certificates.

Texas: Judge: voting rights law intentionally discriminates | Houston Chronicle

For a second time, a judge ruled Monday that state lawmakers violated federal voting rights protections by intentionally discriminating against minority voters when they approved a strict law requiring an approved photo ID to cast a ballot.
In a 10-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos wrote that the state “has not met its burden” to prove that Texas legislators could have enforced the 2011 voter ID law “without its discriminatory purpose.” At issue is Senate Bill 14, signed by former Gov. Rick Perry, which requires Texans to show one of a handful of acceptable government-issues photo IDs before they vote, including a drivers’ license, state handgun permit or U.S. passport. The measure, among the strictest in the nation, has for years gone through the federal court system for years. “After appropriate reconsideration and review of the record … the court holds that plaintiffs have sustained their burden of proof to show that SB 14 was passed, at least in part, with a discriminatory intent in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” the judge wrote. “Racial discrimination need not be the primary purpose as long as it is one purpose.”

Texas: Analysis: A law that lets political majorities cheat — and win | The Texas Tribune

Holy cow — now there’s another ruling against Texas election law. Once again, a federal judge has found that the state’s lawmakers intentionally discriminated on the basis of race when they were changing voting rules. If this happens enough times, the state might actually be forced to change its ways. In last month’s redistricting ruling from a three-judge federal panel in San Antonio, and in this week’s ruling on Voter ID, Texas was called out for intentional racial discrimination. The state seems to be doing everything in its power to prove that it cannot be trusted with voting rights. Maybe that’s no surprise. You know what political people are like: They’re the kind of people who bend and stretch the rules to make sure they’ll win. They cut corners when they think nobody is looking. They do every single thing they think they can get away with. The winners get to run the government.

Texas: Voter ID law was designed to discriminate against minorities, judge rules | The Washington Post

Dealing Texas another rebuke over voting rights, a judge Monday again ruled that Republican lawmakers purposefully designed a strict voter ID law to disadvantage minorities and effectively dampen their growing electoral power. It amounted to the second finding of intentional discrimination in Texas election laws in two months. A different court in March ruled that Republicans racially gerrymandered several congressional districts when drawing voting maps in 2011, the same year the voter ID rules were passed. Neither ruling has any immediate impact. But the decisions are significant because they raise the possibility of Texas being stripped of the right to unilaterally change its election laws without federal approval. Forcing Texas to once again seek federal permission — known as “preclearance” — has been a goal of Democrats and rights groups since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the rule in 2013.

Texas: Lawmakers consider election law change for language interpreters | The Texas Tribune

Almost three years after Mallika Das, a naturalized citizen who spoke Bengali, was unable to vote properly because she was not proficient in English, Texas lawmakers are considering a change to an obscure provision of Texas election law regarding language interpreters. Members of the Senate State Affairs Committee on Monday took up Senate Bill 148 by Democratic state Sen. Sylvia Garcia of Houston, which would repeal a section of the state’s election code that requires interpreters to be registered voters in the same county in which they are providing help. The measure will ensure that voters are able “to meaningfully and effectively exercise their vote,” Garcia told the committee. “This ensures that voters have the capacity to navigate polling stations, communicate with election officers and understand how to fill out required forms and answer questions directed at them by any election officer.”

Texas: Federal Judge Says Texas Voter ID Law Intentionally Discriminates | The New York Times

A federal judge ruled on Monday that the voter identification law the Texas Legislature passed in 2011 was enacted with the intent to discriminate against black and Hispanic voters, raising the possibility that the state’s election procedures could be put back under federal oversight. In a long-running case over the legality of one of the toughest voter ID laws in the country, the judge found that the law violated the federal Voting Rights Act. The judge, Nelva Gonzales Ramos of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, had made a similar ruling in 2014, but after Texas appealed her decision, a federal appellate court instructed her to review the issue once more. The appeals court — the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans — found that Judge Ramos had relied too heavily on Texas’ history of discriminatory voting measures and other evidence it labeled “infirm” and asked her to reweigh the question of discriminatory intent.

Texas: Study: Texas voter education campaign failed to prevent ID confusion | The Texas Tribune

Texas’ court-ordered $2.5 million voter education campaign failed to prevent widespread confusion about the state’s identification rules ahead of the 2016 general election, according to a study released Monday. And such a misunderstanding may have kept some eligible voters in key political battlegrounds from showing up to the polls, the University of Houston study found. A federal judge last year ordered the Texas Secretary of State’s office to spend $2.5 million educating Texans about its voter ID requirements ahead of the 2016 elections. The requirements were relaxed after a federal appeals court last year ruled that Texas’ strict 2011 ID law discriminated against minority voters. The education efforts — a mix of television and radio advertisements and online media — fell short, the research suggested.

Texas: Hearing Monday to make lying on Voter ID exemption a crime | KEYE

On Monday, the Texas house Election committee will hold a public hearing on a bill that would make it a crime to lie on a voter ID exemption form. Voting in Texas has not always been easy depending on who you ask. Some people say the process for casting a ballot is too restrictive. While others say it’s too easy for people to vote illegally. Right now Texas requires voters to carry one of seven forms of identification to vote, but with one exception.

Texas: Federal judge says changes to Texas voter ID law won’t affect lawsuit against it | San Antonio Express-News

Proposed legislative changes to Texas’ voter ID law won’t affect a lawsuit’s claim that the law is discriminatory, a federal judge has ruled. U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos, based in Corpus Christi, made the declaration in an opinion that also allowed the Justice Department to withdraw from the case. The opinion follows a hearing in February in which — as directed by a federal appeals court, the U.S. Fifth Circuit — she heard more arguments about whether the law, SB 14, was passed with discriminatory intent. The state argued that lawmakers planned fixes to be made in Austin with a measure called Senate Bill 5.

Texas: Court wants update on Legislature’s redistricting plans | Austin American-Statesman

The three-judge panel overseeing the challenge to Texas’ congressional district maps will meet with lawyers April 27 to get an update on the case, including whether the Legislature plans to take up redistricting to correct problems the panel identified in a ruling last month. The status conference also will discuss a request to prohibit Texas from using the current map of congressional districts in the 2018 election. As of now, candidates expect to begin filing for the primaries in November. The conference will chart the next steps in the case after the panel, in a 2-1 ruling on March 10, found that three congressional districts were drawn by Republicans in 2011 to intentionally discriminate against Latino and black voters.

Texas: Judge allows suit challenging how Texas elects judges to its highest courts | San Antonio Express-News

A federal judge has denied the state of Texas’ attempt to quash a lawsuit that challenges the way the state elects judges to the Texas Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals. Seven Hispanic voters (six from Nueces County and one from El Paso) and a civic organization, La Unión Del Pueblo Entero Inc., allege in the suit that Latino candidates almost always lose statewide elections for judges to the two highest courts in Texas. In an opinion issued Monday, U.S. District Judge Nelva Ramos ruled that all the plaintiffs have standing to bring the suit under the Voting Rights Act.

Texas: She voted illegally. But was the punishment too harsh? | The Washington Post

Rosa Ortega stirred herself awake at the sound of a prison guard yelling in her dreams. “It’s just a nightmare,” Oscar Sherman assured her as the pair rested in his low-slung apartment complex in a desolate part of town. “It’s over now.” “My mind’s not right,” Ortega said later that afternoon. “I have nightmares. I can’t combine foods. I’m always on top of everything, but my brain hurts. It can’t stop thinking about the situation.” The situation is that Ortega, 37, voted illegally and has become the national face of voter fraud, a crime that President Trump and other Republicans believe is an epidemic endangering the integrity of American elections, even though no evidence supports the claim.

Texas: Pasadena officials question voting rights appeal | Houston Chronicle

In a sign of waning confidence in its legal position, the Pasadena City Council voted Tuesday to withhold payment from the law firm that’s trying to prove that the city’s redistricting plan doesn’t discriminate against Hispanics. The 7-1 vote, with Mayor Johnny Isbell absent, exposed the degree to which the mayor has unilaterally pressed for an appeal of a federal judge’s ruling that the plan was discriminatory. Council members complained they don’t fully understand the status of the lawsuit or of the work being done by Bickerstaff Heath Delgado Acosta LLP of Austin.

Texas: Senate Committee approves Texas voter ID overhaul | The Texas Tribune

A Texas Senate panel cleared legislation Monday that would overhaul the state’s voter identification rules, an effort to comply with court rulings that the current law discriminates against black and Latino voters. The Senate State Affairs Committee voted 7-0 to send the legislation to the full chamber. Filed by Committee Chairwoman Joan Huffman, Senate Bill 5 would add options for Texas voters who say they cannot “reasonably” obtain one of seven forms of ID currently required at the polls. It would also create harsh criminal penalties for those who falsely claim they need to choose from the expanded list of options.

Texas: Court asked to block Texas congressional map for 2018 election | Austin American-Statesman

Texas should be blocked from using a map of congressional districts that was found to have been drawn in violation of the U.S. Voting Rights Act, a federal court was told Thursday. The motion, filed with a three-judge panel in U.S. District Court in San Antonio, follows a March 10 ruling that invalidated three districts, including one in Travis County, that the court said were drawn by Republicans to intentionally discriminate against Latino and black voters. That ruling, however, did not mandate or discuss any remedies to correct the problems. Attorney General Ken Paxton has argued that there is no need to redraw the congressional map because the court invalidated districts that were drawn in 2011, while Texans have been electing members of Congress according to a map that the Legislature adopted in 2013. But according to the motion filed Friday, the three districts invalidated in the 2011 map were little changed in the 2013 version.

Texas: Lawmaker pulls bill to change early voting in Texas | Austin American-Statesman

The future of a bill that trims down the early voting period is uncertain after its author withdrew it from committee consideration Monday following logistical concerns from the attorney general’s office and county election officials. House Bill 288, authored by state Rep. Mark Keough, R-The Woodlands, would have shrunk the early voting period from 12 to seven days and pushed it closer to Election Day. Jason Millsaps, Keough’s chief of staff, said the attorney general’s office had concerns with how the bill could impact litigation over the state’s voter ID law. The attorney general’s office was worried prosecutors in federal court could potentially use HB 288 as an example of attempted voter suppression, Millsaps said.

Texas: A backstory on the Texas redistricting ruling | San Antonio Express-News

Last week’s ruling by a three-judge panel in San Antonio that the Texas Legislature racially discriminated in drawing three congressional districts is being hailed as a major civil rights triumph in some legal quarters. “This is a huge victory for voting rights plaintiffs,” wrote nationally recognized elections law expert Richard Hasen in his Election Law blog. He predicted the 2-1 decision was unlikely to be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court because “it closely tracks Justice (Anthony) Kennedy’s views of the issues in this area.”
Kennedy is often the swing vote on the closely divided court. Hasen said the ruling was especially important because it could lead to Texas once again being required to preclear redistricting and other election matters with the Justice Department, as it was before the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013. This is because Judges Xavier Rodriguez and Orlando Garcia found intentional discrimination in the case.

Texas: Groups awaiting latest decision regarding the long-contested voter photo ID law | SE Texas Record

Groups and individuals suing the state recently presented evidence in a hearing to determine whether or not the voting ID law, also known as SB 14, was enacted in 2011 with discriminatory intent. The January hearing was delayed to allow the Department of Justice to review the case with the new administration. Texas and the DOJ sought to delay the hearing again, but was denied the request. The Feb. 28 hearing took place with U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos and is awaiting final decision. SB 14 makes Texas’ voting law the strictest in the country, requiring voters to have a photo ID from a very narrow, specific list allowable IDs. Evidence was presented to courts showing about 650,000 Texans do not have IDs that qualify under SB 14.

Texas: Effort advances to eliminate straight-party voting in Texas | Community Impact

The push to eliminate one-punch voting in Texas is once again alive. A bill proposed by Rep. Ron Simmons, R-Carollton, was voted out of the House Elections Committee Monday evening, 5-2, and will face debate on the House floor. Texas is one of nine states nationally that currently still offers this option to voters on election days. This style of voting has become a popular topic of contention among statewide officeholders because of its nature to vote out less popular office holders with partisan trends. When Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick served in the state Senate, he was one of the leaders behind this charge.

Texas: Analysis: Texas could find itself back in the voting rights penalty box | The Texas Tribune

Texas lawmakers intentionally discriminated on the basis of race when they drew redistricting maps in 2011, according to a long-delayed federal ruling delivered last Friday night. That could eventually force the state to redraw the districts for the 36 members of its congressional delegation. Three districts of those districts are invalid, the judges found, and reworking them could have ripple effects for the districts around them. But that business about “intentional discrimination” could turn out to be much more significant: The courts could order the state to get federal government permission for any future changes to its voting and election laws.

Texas: Voting map ruling has long-term impact | The Star-Telegram

Don’t believe Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton when he says it’s no big deal that a federal court ruled state legislators used racial gerrymandering to draw congressional districts back in 2011. He’s pulling your leg. Paxton is right that the Legislature replaced the 2011 voting map in 2013. He’s not quite right when he says there are “no lines to redraw,” because some of the problem districts have the same lines in both maps.

Texas: Voter ID changes clear Senate committee | Austin American Statesman

A unanimous Senate committee on Monday approved legislation to loosen several requirements while creating harsher penalties in the state’s voter ID law. Senate Bill 5 would codify most of the court-ordered changes to the 2011 law after a federal appeals court ruled last year that it discriminated against minority and poor Texans, infringing on the voting rights of about 600,000 registered voters who lacked a government-issued photo ID.

Texas: Texas lost a ruling over its congressional map. So what’s next? | The Texas Tribune

A three-judge federal panel’s recent ruling on Texas’ electoral maps could shake up state politics and carry national implications. The ruling may initially sound simple enough. Texas intentionally discriminated against black and Latino voters in drawing its 2011 congressional map, the majority found in a 2-1 ruling Friday night. More specifically: Three of the state’s 36 districts violate either the U.S. Constitution or the Voting Rights Act. But little is straightforward about redistricting, the once-a-decade process of rejiggering political boundaries to address the changing population. Friday’s ruling was no exception, simultaneously answering questions and raising new ones. “It’s a gigantic ruling, but it leaves a lot of uncertainty,” said Michael Li, a redistricting expert with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School. “It makes your head hurt.”