The Independent View: Lawyers Committee Files Voting Rights Act Lawsuit

A Lawyers Committee has file a Voting Rights Act Lawsuit Challenging the composition of the Texas Supreme Court and Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

Case 2:16-cv-00303 Document 1 Filed in TXSD on 07/20/16

The Supreme Court of Texas (“Supreme Court”) and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (“Court of Criminal Appeals”) are the courts of last resort in Texas. They are the final authorities on questions of Texas Civil and Criminal law, respectively. Together, the two courts render enormously consequential decisions that profoundly affect the lives of all Texans.

According to the 2010 Census, Latinos, a significant and rapidly growing racial group, constitute 37.6% of Texas’s total population and 26.5% of Texas’s citizen voting age population. However, Latinos have been prevented from participating fully in the election of Texas’s High Court Judges because of the way those judges are elected. That election method, in which all judges for both courts are elected in at-large statewide elections, unlawfully dilutes the voting strength of Latino citizens and prevents them from electing their candidates of choice.

The Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals each has nine members. Because voting is racially polarized, that is, white voters as a group and Latino voters as a group consistently prefer different candidates, the at-large method of election functions to deprive more than one quarter of the State’s eligible voting age population from electing judges of their choice to any of the eighteen seats on the two courts.

The Latino population and citizen voting age population are sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in at least two fairly-drawn single-member districts; the State’s Latinos are politically cohesive; and the State’s white citizen voting age majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it usually to defeat Latino voters’ preferred candidates. Because of these circumstances, as well as the historical, socioeconomic, and electoral conditions of Texas, the at-large election method for the Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, 52 U.S.C. § 10301 ("Section 2"). Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30 (1986).

For these reasons, plaintiffs respectfully pray for this Court to issue:

(1) A declaratory judgment that the use of at-large elections for the Supreme Court of Texas and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

(2) An injunction against the further use of at-large elections for the Supreme Court and the Court of Criminal Appeals.

(3) An order requiring future elections for the Supreme Court and the Court of Criminal Appeals to be conducted under a method of election that complies with the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act.

(4) An award of costs and reasonable attorneys’ fees to plaintiffs, including expert witness fees.

(5) And such additional relief as is appropriate.

CLICK HERE to read the 14 page lawsuit.