Mexican-American group sues over redistricting

[NewYorkerfromMass]

"The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund has jumped into the court fight over the newly enacted Republican congressional redistricting map.

MALDEF filed a lawsuit Tuesday in federal court in Victoria on behalf of the American GI Forum of Texas, a group devoted to securing equal rights for Hispanics. The lawsuit contends the new redistricting plan does not create another Hispanic district.

"The newly-enacted congressional redistricting plan for Texas does not accurately reflect Latino voting strength in the year 2003," said Nina Perales, MALDEF regional counsel and lead attorney in the court case...."

(heh heh, this thing is DOA folks...heh)

The battle is joined

[MoonAndSun]

1. All right, maybe more groups will join the lawsuits against this crap!!

stop the repukes.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

2. from the article there are already 2 others

"At least two other legal challenges have been filed since the Legislature gave final approval Sunday to the new congressional districts."

also: "Democrats are asking a federal court in Tyler to stop the state from implementing the new plan for the 2004 election cycle. That court challenge -- a motion filed in a previous redistricting lawsuit -- alleges that using the new map would be disruptive because it moves more than 8.1 million Texans into new districts and that there are strong arguments that the map violates federal law..."

[goforit]

3. Ohhhh....Now you care about voting!!!...........A little late!!!

?

[Gman]

4. Had lunch yesterday with an aid for a Texas legislator...

and the thinking is that Tom Delay is too cocky. The thinking is that he likely has already greased the skids in the DOJ as well as appeals courts and gotten committments to uphold the plan. Once the cases get to appeals courts they don't have a chance.

Yes, this is absolutely disgusting.

[tlb]

5. Do the skids need grease at all ?

Objectively I haven't seen any cause to think the redistricting won't be upheld as a matter of course. If the reports are correct that two new democraticly leaning minority districts are created along with the republican districts, the racial prejudice argument slips away.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Did you miss this, from the article

(snip) Although the Republican plan "purports to create an additional Latino majority district in South Texas, in fact it eliminates one district and adds another, with no net increase in electoral opportunity," Perales said. (snip)

[NewYorkerfromMass]

7. the bottom line is the arguement thatthis is meant to represent Texas

in a more accurate way is complete BS. it is meant to represent more Republicans. Period. They already gave away the game- a long time ago too.

[sonias]

8. The lawsuits will continue for at least a year

MALDEF, NAACP, LULAC, Democrats, maybe even ACLU. Our best hope in Texas is a fair court. There is no doubt that the repuke drawn map violates the Voting Rights Act. We know Asscrack's DOJ won't lift a finger to stop it. How quickly and fairly the courts respond will be extremely important. I think the disturbing thing about the comments in the Houston Chronicle article from the day before is that the Tyler court that drew the current valid map probably won't act quickly to put the repuke map on hold. That's the local federal court where the Dems filed the first challenge. If this map isn't stopped quickly then it will be the map that's in place for the '04 election.

Sonia