The Texas gerrymander case wants to return to the Democrat gerrymander of old

LA Times:

Civil rights groups descended on a San Antonio courthouse Monday to challenge the constitutionality of the state’s current redistricting maps and accuse Republican legislators of deliberately drawing them to dilute the voting power of minorities.

The trial is only the latest round in a long-running Texas saga over gerrymandering and race.

Voting rights advocates have long accused Texas Republicans of working to undermine the growing political clout of Latino and African American voters by intentionally — and unfairly — cramming them into districts or splitting them up so they are outnumbered. Republican legislators still control roughly two-thirds of State House and Senate and congressional seats.

The legal battles began in 2011, when the Texas Legislature drafted new state and congressional boundaries.

The state had to redistrict because it earned four additional seats in Congress based on the 2010 census, which showed immense population growth. Most of that growth was from a massive influx of Latinos and African Americans.

Texas’ Latino population grew from about 6.7 million to 9.5 million between 2000 and 2010. Non-Latino whites now account for less than 43% of the state population, and Houston is the most racially and ethnically diverse metropolis in the nation.

After civil rights groups filed a lawsuit challenging the redistricting, Texas officials were forced to delay primary races in 2012. For the last few years, the state has been using temporary court-ordered maps made in 2013.

In a pair of rulings this year, a panel of three federal judges — the same ones looking at this latest challenge — found that 2011 maps violated federal law.

In March, the panel ruled in a 2-1 decision that Texas lawmakers drew three U.S. congressional districts to weaken the influence of Hispanic voters, writing in an opinion that legislators demonstrated “a hostility to minority districts, and a willingness to use race for partisan advantage.”

The next month, the judges found that lawmakers redrew state House districts to intentionally dilute the power of minority voters in a string of counties across the state.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs say the 2013 maps should be blocked because they include portions of the 2011 maps that the court found to be in violation of the Voting Rights Act or the 14th Amendment.

But attorneys for the state argue there is no evidence that Texas legislators intentionally discriminated on the basis of race. They also argue legislators cannot be held responsible for any racial discrimination in the 2013 maps as they were ordered by the court.
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Before the redistricting, Texas suffered under the Democrat gerrymandering which gave Democrats a majority of congressional races despite the fact that the state -wide races showed Republican domination.  Democrats want to return to this old unfair redistricting so they can impose their bad policies on the state and in Congress.

They are not really concerned about Hispanics.  Hispanic Republicans are winning races in Texas.  They want to create Democrat districts where Hispanic Republicans will be at a disadvantage.

The March decision was an absurdity based on a map that was no longer in use.