{"id":42407,"date":"2021-11-19T16:47:30","date_gmt":"2021-11-20T00:47:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=42407"},"modified":"2021-11-19T16:47:30","modified_gmt":"2021-11-20T00:47:30","slug":"aapi-allies-join-chorus-against-texas-gerrymandering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=42407","title":{"rendered":"AAPI ALLIES JOIN CHORUS AGAINST TEXAS GERRYMANDERING"},"content":{"rendered":"
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by\u00a0Mark Hedin<\/a><\/span>\u00a0|\u00a0Nov 19, 2021<\/span>\u00a0|\u00a0Redistricting<\/a>,\u00a0Voting Rights<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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New voting maps \u2018crack\u2019 political power of communities of color<\/em><\/p>\n

By Mark Hedin, Ethnic Media Services<\/strong><\/p>\n

A new lawsuit against the recently adopted Texas political district maps alleges deliberate, illegal discrimination against the state\u2019s fastest-growing ethnic population, people of Asian American and Pacific Islander descent.<\/p>\n

Fair Maps Texas Action Committee v. Abbott<\/a>\u00a0is the fifth lawsuit Texas is facing over the new voting district maps approved Oct. 25.<\/p>\n

On Nov. 17, the Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ) hosted a press conference to discuss the new case.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople of color accounted for 95% of the population increase in Texas,\u201d said Noor Taj, SJSC voting rights counsel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis makes Texas one of the most diverse states in the country. But you would not know that by looking at the maps, which purposely crack communities of color throughout the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur lawsuit is complementary and consistent with those already filed over the last couple of weeks, because we\u2019re not only highlighting coalition districts, we\u2019re also uplifting the role of the API community in these coalitions,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Taj and other speakers offered examples of how Asian American and Pacific Islander population centers in Texas\u2019s Fort Bend, Collin, Harris, and Tarrant counties were \u201ccracked\u201d in the new maps.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese egregious, egregious lines,\u201d said Jerry Vattamala, of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, \u201cgo directly through the most concentrated part (of the Asian population), take a small piece and put them with a white population to essentially dilute their vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAcross the state,\u201d he said, where people \u201chave worked so hard for so long to build these communities to have a voice, these lines are essentially silencing them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really hard to come to any other conclusion than that this was intentional racial discrimination.\u201d<\/p>\n

That population growth in the past 10 years documented in the 2020 Census enabled Texas to gain a new level of national power.<\/p>\n

In the census data-driven reapportionment process that precedes redistricting, Texas\u2019s Congressional delegation grows by two seats, to 38 members, while seven other states, including New York and California each lost a seat.<\/p>\n

The new maps divide the state into 31 state senate districts, 150 state house of representatives districts, and 38 U.S. Congressional districts.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll three maps are unconstitutional,\u201d Taj said.<\/p>\n

This year marks the first redistricting process without oversight from the federal Justice Department. Prior to the Supreme Court\u2019s 2013\u00a0Shelby County (AL) vs. Holder<\/a>\u00a0decision, states with a history of racially discriminatory voting laws had to clear new voting rules with Justice before they could take effect.<\/p>\n

Texas\u2019s redistricting process, the suit says, lacked transparency and produced maps intended to dilute the power of communities of color, and Black, Latino, and Asian American and Pacific Islander voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn every decade since the passage of the Voting Rights Act, in 1965 the federal court has intervened to deny Texas\u2019 unlawful racial gerrymandering,\u201d said ACLU attorney David Donatti, who introduced himself as a native of Fort Bend County, \u201cone of the areas we\u2019re suing about.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe state has used some new tools, some old tools, but the discriminatory design is precisely the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a member of one of the fastest-growing ethnic minorities, I had an expectation of more representation from our legislators,\u201d one of the plaintiffs, Amatullah Contractor, said.<\/p>\n

The redistricting committee, another plaintiff, Deborah Chen, a community activist and member of OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates, said, was \u201cjust going through the motions as our rights were literally being taken away.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the middle of COVID,\u201d she recalled, \u201cpeople had to come from across the state to Austin. People flew in from El Paso and had to wait the entire day to speak for their one minute of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is taxpayer money, is what it comes down to. It\u2019s not even just about power. Redistricting decides who gets to make those policy decisions on how our taxpayer funds are allocated and spent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAre they actually being invested in our neighborhoods in our schools, in our hospitals? Who is going to know better than the people who live there?\u201d<\/p>\n

SCSJ brought the case, along with the ACLU of Texas and AALDEF, on behalf of more than a dozen other organizations and individuals, including the North Texas Chapter of the Asian Pacific Islander American Public Affairs Association, Emgage Texas, OCA-Greater Houston, and the Fair Maps Texas Action Committee.<\/p>\n

It will be heard initially in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Austin Division, although it is likely to eventually be combined with the other cases challenging the new Texas maps, Donatti and Taj said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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