Voting Rights
Safeguarding the Voice of Latino Voters
From our first major national victory in a 1970 Supreme Court case that struck a blow at racial gerrymandering and at-large redistricting systems to our most recent victory in a federal Voting Rights Act case that led to a new Kern County, California Board of Supervisors districting plan that will respect Latinos’ right to elect candidates of their choice, MALDEF has a long history of voting rights work. We were the driving force behind the 1975 expansion of the federal Voting Rights Act to include Latinos. And MALDEF won a landmark federal voting rights lawsuit against the County of Los Angeles Board of Supervisors that led in 1991 to the creation of the first Latino-majority district, after a federal judge ruled that the county had unconstitutionally gerrymandered districts to exclude Latinos from gaining representation.
More recent cases include victories in Texas requiring changes to redistricted election maps to increase Latinos’ ability to elect candidates of their choice. In a 2006 ruling in LULAC v. Perry, a lawsuit brought by MALDEF, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Texas Legislature’s 2003 redistricting plan denied Latino voters the opportunity to elect candidates of their choice, in violation of the Voting Rights Act. In 2017, a federal court judge ruled that the City of Pasadena, Texas, illegally and intentionally sought to dilute Latino voting power when it changed the system used to elect its city council members. The ruling marked the first time a jurisdiction was ordered by a court to submit to federal approval of its electoral changes since the 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision gutted a key law that determined who was subject to preclearance.
MALDEF led litigation, advocacy, and education to stop the U.S. Commerce Department from adding a question on citizenship to the 2020 Census. MALDEF argued in a federal lawsuit that the decision to add the question was the product of a conspiracy by Donald J. Trump, former White House advisor Steve Bannon, then Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, and other Trump administration cabinet members and government officials to decrease participation in the Census by immigrants and communities of color.
Voting Rights
MALDEF STATEMENT ON APPELLATE COURT RULING IN VRA CHALLENGE
LOS ANGELES – In a 2-1 decision, a federal court of appeals panel today ruled that private parties do not have the ability to sue under Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act (VRA). The decision came in a case out of Arkansas and will apply in the eight states in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.
TIMELINE OF TEXAS’S VOTER SUPPRESSION LEGISLATION SB1
Following the 2020 Presidential election dozens of states began passing bills with provisions that restricted voting rights. Texas was one of those states. The voter suppression legislation known as SB1 imposes new ID requirements on elderly and disabled mail voters, prevents election officials from reigning in unruly partisan poll watchers, limits community-based voter outreach, and makes it more difficult for voters to use the assister of their choice.
Federal Court Blocks Washington State’s Discriminatory Maps That Denied Latino Voters in Yakima Valley an Equal Voice
MALDEF STATEMENT ON HOW SUPREME COURT REDISTRICTING RULING WILL AFFECT TEXAS CHALLENGE
MALDEF REACHES AGREEMENT WITH ILLINOIS REGARDING FEES IN LEGISLATIVE MAPS LAWSUIT
CHICAGO – A Latino civil rights organization has reached a settlement regarding attorney’s fees in a lawsuit against Illinois state election officials and leaders of the state legislature over the use of redistricting plans that relied on population estimates rather than 2020 Census data, according to papers filed in federal court last week.
CIVIL RIGHTS GROUP SUES ARIZONA OVER VOTER PURGE LAW
FEDERAL COURT RULES ARKANSAS STATUTE ON VOTER ASSISTANCE VIOLATES FEDERAL VRA
TEXAS MUST TURN OVER RECORDS OF STATE VOTING PURGE PROGRAM TO VOTING RIGHTS GROUPS
CIVIL RIGHTS GROUPS CHALLENGE MISSOURI VOTING RESTRICTIONS IN COURT
VOTING RIGHTS GROUPS SUE TEXAS FOR FAILURE TO DISCLOSE RECORDS RELATED TO VOTER PURGES
AUSTIN, TEXAS – Today, MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund), the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Texas (ACLU Texas), Campaign Legal Center (CLC), DĒMOS, and Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law filed a lawsuit asking the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas to order Texas’ Secretary of State to produce records responsive to their previous requests seeking information about a state program that threatens to remove naturalized citizens from the voter rolls.