[JURIST] A three-judge panel of the US District Court for the Western District of Texas [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] Friday that the boundaries of three voting districts violated the Voting Rights Act and the Equal Protection Clause of the US Constitution [texts]. The court held that the districts were intentionally drawn to either splitting Latino communities into different districts or concentrating minority communities into single areas to minimize the impact of their votes. The court concluded that in the southwestern 23rd Congressional district [Govtrack backgrounder] alone, boundary lines were drawn to move more than 600,000 voters between districts, thereby fracturing a heavily Latino county to deliberately lessen minority voter turnout rates. The dissent, on the other hand, concluded that the boundaries were properly drawn on political, not racial, considerations.

Voting rights and gerrymandering have become increasingly important issues over the past year. Earlier in March the US Supreme Court ruled [JURIST report] that Virginia’s redistricting scheme must be examined for racial bias. In January a three-judge panel for the US District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin ordered the state legislature [JURIST report] to redraw legislative district lines by November 1. In January the US Supreme Court blocked [JURIST report] a ruling ordering the redrawing of the congressional district map and special elections to be held in North Carolina. This came after the Supreme Court heard arguments [JURIST report] in racial gerrymandering cases from Virginia and North Carolina in December. In September several organizations filed a federal lawsuit challenging Georgia’s voter registration system [JURIST report]. Last April the Supreme Court unanimously upheld [JURIST report] an Arizona commission’s decisions regarding the redistricting of voting districts in the state.