Garland said the maps disenfranchise African American and Latino voters.
December 6, 2021, 7:46 PM
• 2 min read
Share to FacebookShare to TwitterEmail this articleThe Justice Department is suing the state of Texas over its newly redistricted congressional and state legislature maps, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Monday.
This marks the third time the Biden Justice Department has sued the state, and the second time it has sued over an election-related matter.
Garland said Texas violated the Voting Rights Act by drawing redistricting maps that disenfranchise African American and Latino voters.
"The complaint we filed today alleges that Texas has violated section two by creating redistricting plans that deny or abridge the rights of Latino and Black voters to vote on account of their race, color or membership in a language minority group," Garland told reporters at a press conference on Monday. "The department's career voting law experts have assessed Texas's new redistricting plans and determine that they include districts that violate the Voting Rights Act."
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, recently signed the 2021 redistricting maps into law based on the 2020 Census, which gave the state two more congressional seats.
Vanita Gupta, the associate attorney general, told reporters growth in the state's minority populations was not represented in the redistricting maps and that several districts "were drawn with discriminatory intent."
The state was also criticized for its redistricting process.
"Texas' 2021 redistricting plans were enacted through a rushed process with minimal opportunity for public comment, without any expert testimony and with an overall disregard for the massive minority population growth in Texas over the last decade," Gupta said, reflecting one of the claims in the suit that blamed the "compressed timeline" of a special session that spanned just over a month between when it began and when redistricting legislation was signed.
"The Congressional redistricting process was truncated because of the special session. Only three weeks passed between the unveiling of the initial proposal and the final passage of the conference committee map," the suit says.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates
