A panel of federal judges in San Antonio has set April 27 for the latest hearing on Texas’ Congressional redistricting maps.
In March, federal judges ruled that the boundaries for three congressional maps drawn by the Legislature in 2011 were meant to discriminate against Latino and African-American voters. Those districts at issue include seats currently help by Rep. Lloyd Doggett who represents an area from Austin to San Antonio, and the district represented by Rep. Will Hurd. It stretches from San Antonio southwest to the border.
Judges summoning both sides back to court want to determine whether the maps can be corrected before the 2018 election cycle.
State Rep. Rafael Anchia, a Dallas Democrat, is the chair for the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, one of the plaintiffs in the case. He says Republicans designed the maps to break up traditional minority voting districts in Texas.
“Whether they adopted in some areas of the state as a packing technique, that packed minorities into districts to dilute their voting strength or they cracked them in a way you would like a wagon wheel, where you take a concentrated community and you break it up in multiple districts.”
The Texas Attorney General’s office says the maps were not drawn with the intention to discriminate against any group.
