AAPI voters in Texas are suing the Texas state government over allegedly re-drawing Congressional and state voting maps to create majority white voting districts.
Fair Maps Texas Action Committee v. Abbott, which was filed back in November 2021. A coalition of individual voters and Texas-based advocacy groups filed the suit. According to the Brennan Center, the suit claims that Texas’ Congressional and state voting maps, which were re-drawn in 2021, violate the U.S. Constitution and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
The suit notes that recent U.S. Census data attributed nearly all of Texas’ population growth to people of color over the past decade. Houston Public Media reports that the AAPI population grew by 65 percent.
“You would think logically that, okay, if the people of color communities were the largest portion of the population growth, then the districts at all different levels would reflect that, and that’s not the case,” Deborah Chen, an individual plaintiff in the lawsuit and the civic engagement programs director for another plaintiff, the AAPI advocacy group OCA-Greater Houston told Houston public media.
Instead, the new maps increased majority-white districts, taking voting power away from people of color. In 2020, for example, Congressional District 22 almost elected Asian American, Democratic candidate, Sri Preston Kulkarni. The redistricting has split the AAPI vote among three other district
“Congressional District 22 was really the only chance we would have had to send an Asian American to Congress,” said Nabila Mansoor, executive director of the progressive organization Rise AAPI, told Houston Public Media. “That has now been taken away.”
Houston Public Media reported on August 30 that a court would likely hear the case soon but it was later reported the federal court has delayed the trial.
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