(AP) The future of Texas’ voting districts is again in question after a federal court Tuesday found evidence of discrimination in new district maps approved by the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature last year.
The U.S. District Court in Washington wrote in a 154-page opinion that the maps don’t comply with the federal Voting Rights Act because state prosecutors failed to prove that Texas lawmakers did not draw the new congressional and state Senate districts “without discriminatory purposes.”
The ruling applies to the maps originally drawn by the Legislature in 2011, and not interim maps drawn by a San Antonio federal court that are to be used in the upcoming elections this November. The Washington court’s Tuesday decision is most likely to impact the maps that will be used in the next election cycle in 2014.
