Five Ways Courts Say Texas Discriminated Against Black And Latino Voters

Oral arguments begin today in a Supreme Court case challenging Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act as out of date. SCOTUS blog is reporting that "a majority of the Court seems committed to invalidating Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act."
In August, a panel of federal court judges ruled that new district maps drawn by Texas' Republican-controlled legislature weakened the influence of Latino voters and in some cases evinced "discriminatory intent" against both Latinos and African Americans. Two days later, another panel of federal judges unanimously struck down a voter-ID law passed by the legislature in March 2011, arguing that it would disproportionately harm African-American and Latino voters. The judges did not address whether there was discriminatory purpose behind the legislation, but they noted that the legislature failed to pass amendments that would have mitigated the law's discriminatory impact.

More