Voting rights advocates sue Texas over maps redrawn by GOP

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Voting rights advocates are suing Texas again, this time with support from a former U.S. attorney general, over the state's newly redrawn congressional district maps, claiming the maps dilute the vote of communities of color after the growth of nearly 2 million Hispanic residents over the past decade.

The lawsuit was filed Monday by Texas voters and Voto Latino, a Latino voter advocacy organization, in an Austin federal court just moments after Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed the redrawn districts into law.

Texas was the only state to be allocated two new congressional seats earlier this year after U.S. Census figures showed the state's population grew by 4 million people, nearly half of which were Hispanic. More than 9 of 10 of Texas’ new residents in the past decade were people of color, according to census data.

The lawsuit alleges that the new U.S. House maps violate the 1965 Voting Rights Act by not giving people of color a fair opportunity to elect their representatives. The maps do not include any additional districts in which Black or Hispanic voters make up more than 50% of eligible voters.

It comes on the heels of a separate lawsuit filed by the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund this month, which makes similar claims.

Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr., who leads the National Democratic Redistricting Committee and whose affiliate organization, the National Redistricting Action Fund, is supporting the lawsuit, said the maps, which pave potentially safer paths for Texas’ majority GOP incumbents to remain in office, were a “desperate grasp for partisan political power."

Holder said the redrawn districts come as the demographics of the Lone Star State are shifting quicker than the policies of the Texas GOP.

“The map has been...