Even though Texas lawmakers deliberately discriminated against minority voters the last time they drew congressional and state district lines, the Texas Legislature will create new maps in 2021 without the safety net of federal oversight.
A panel of three federal judges on Wednesday shot down a request from voting rights groups arguing that Texas’ lengthy and recent history of racist voting laws should require the state to clear its next round of maps with the feds. Legal experts say the ruling, another loss for plaintiffs in the state’s marathon redistricting lawsuit, underscores how in recent years the courts have gutted the power of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, striking down a provision that had long been considered the crown jewel of the civil rights movement.
Under the Voting Rights Act, Texas and several other states with a history of race-based discrimination (most of them former members of the Confederacy) were once required to seek federal approval, so-called preclearance, whenever they changed their voting laws. That ended in June 2013, when the U.S. Supreme Court dismantled that key plank of the law. In his opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote at the time that preclearance was no longer needed because, “Our country has changed.”
