The Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed a lawsuit against Texas over its new electoral map plans, saying that they violate the Voting Rights Act.
The DOJ said that Texas’ maps make it more difficult for minority voters, especially Black and Latino voters, to elect their preferred candidates.
In Texas, minority voters make up a whopping 95 percent of the 4 million population growth in the state over the past decade. Despite this reality, the state has willfully neglected to draw up new majority-minority districts in its newest plans.
In October, the state legislature, which is controlled by Republicans, approved new congressional districts following the census performed in 2020. A census tracks the population change over the past decade, making this the first opportunity that the 4 million new mostly minority voters have been taken into account for redistricting.
Due to its population growth, Texas even gained two seats in the House of Representatives in the past decade. But the new voters were not taken into account in order to protect them equal opportunity, but it seems directly to deny them it.
Republicans control the redistricting process, and as such drew the lines in their new maps in order to shore up blatant advantages across the state. Experts have said that this redistricting is in order to give the GOP a hold on a majority of the congressional seats, 15 out of 38 to be exact.
Having a majority of the congressional seats is an obvious advantage for the Republicans in the state, who have been pushing through sweeping conservative policies lately, including aggressive and controversial anti-abortion measures, as well as loosening gun regulations.
The US DOJ has said the redistricting violates section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which is in place to prohibit voting practices that are racially discriminatory. The lawsuit says that Texas created plans that deny or abridge the rights of both Latino and Black voters.
2022 is a midterm election year, so Texas is one of many states introducing bills about voting rights. Voter restriction bills are becoming common across America, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. All of this came following the 2020 presidential election, and Trump’s supporters entirely baseless claims of widespread voter fraud.
Despite there being zero evidence of widespread voter fraud, Republicans are trying their hardest to tighten voting laws.
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