By Frank X. Moraga / Amigos805
Frank X. Moraga
While the song goes “The Eyes of Texas are Upon You,” it’s more of a case that the eyes of Hispanics nationwide is upon Texas and a pending decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on voting districts.
In a story by Drew Desilver of the Pew Hispanic Center, the court “heard arguments in a Texas case that challenges the way nearly every U.S. voting district – from school boards to Congress – is drawn. The case asks the court to specify what the word “person” means in its “one person, one vote” rule. The outcome of the case could have major impacts on Hispanic voting strength and representation from coast to coast,” Desilver wrote.
Since the 1960s, districts have been drawn with “as nearly of equal population as is practicable … However, the appellants in the Texas case, Evenwel v. Abbott, argue that districts instead should be drawn to have equal numbers of eligible voters.”
That is a major difference in the interpretation of those previous court rulings.
“Districts with nearly equal total populations can have dramatically different numbers of eligible voters (that is, U.S. citizens ages 18 and older).”
The Pew Hispanic Center founds that districts with the fewest eligible voters have large Hispanic populations and are represented by Democrats.
“Of the 25 districts (out of 435 U.S. House district nationwide) with the highest Hispanic population shares, 19 also are among the 25 districts with the lowest eligible-voter share. This is because so many Hispanics aren’t eligible to vote, either because they’re not U.S. citizens or because they’re younger than 18. By our calculations, only about 46 percent of the nation’s more than 55 million Hispanics are eligible to vote,” Desilver wrote.
The Texas appellants have already lost at the district-court level. However, if the Supreme Court rules in their favor, “districts with relatively few eligible voters would be redrawn to include more of them – which could mean bringing more whites and Republicans into what are now largely Hispanic, Democratic-voting districts, or combining such districts to bring up the eligible-voter population. And that, in turn, could affect Hispanic representation in the House, which has risen from five in 1973 to 17 in 1993 and 28 in 2013.”
The League of United Latin American Citizens has come out with a statement on the issue — “The case of Evenwel v. Abbott is extremely important to Latino communities across the country. The U.S. Constitution requires congressional districts to be allocated based on census population data, ensuring that everyone is counted. Rejecting this constitutionally mandated approach in favor of one that only counts voter population would result in significantly fewer Latinos being counted. The impact of such an approach is clear: there would be a serious reduction in valuable resources to high-need communities and less Latino political representation. We call upon the Supreme Court to maintain the present system which is both constitutional and fundamentally fair.”
“Children are the largest group of ineligible voters, and these are the people Ms. Evenwel is seeking to exclude from redistricting. In Texas, children and two-and-a-half times as large as any other group of ineligible voters,” Nina Perales, vice president of litigation for Mexican American Legal Defense Education Fund (MALDEF), was quoted in Latin Post. Also quoted was Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, who said the case sends a message to millions of Americans that they do not count — “We should encourage folks to participate in the electoral process, not strip them of their representation. Those pushing this case support changes that contradict the Constitution and the spirit of our democratic process. Everyone counts in this nation, and our election laws should reflect that.”
Whether it is requiring last-minute voter identification changes at polling places prior to elections, or now the possible redrawing of voting districts, the message is clear — If Latinos want to have a meaningful say so in our elected government, they must raise their collective voices against such changes, register to vote and actually take the time to turn out in large numbers at the voting booth. Otherwise, it will be the return to the “Good Old Days” for some, and generally the bad old days of underrepresentation for others.
— Frank X. Moraga is editor/publisher of Amigos805. He has served as business editor, director of diversity and general manager of a bilingual publication at the Ventura County Star, and as a reporter in the community editions of the Orange County Register and Los Angeles Daily News.