GRIT vs. MALDEF on Retrogression
By Bill Burch
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas It seems that the Mexican American Legal Defense & Education Fund (MALDEF) argues against retrogression when it suits their needs as seen in the House debates on the state House redistricting but supports retrogression when it does not. This will give you an easy to understand comparison between the Grass Roots of Texas (GRIT) Congressional redistricting map and those presented by MALDEF.
To begin with a simple explanation of what retrogression is Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act has been called the retrogression standard. Using the most recent court approved redistricting map as the baseline the proposed new map compares the newly drawn Districts to the baseline to determine whether a minority group has been made worse off by the changes.
In the case of Miller v. Johnson the U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that the Department of Justice (DOJ) cannot apply additional standards to determine whether or not to give preclearance to a redistricting plan.
There are currently ten (10) Texas Congressional Districts that are protected under the Voting Rights Act. Of these Districts 9 18 and 30 are protected for Black voters.
GRIT has almost no deviation for these Districts and there can be no charge of retrogression against the GRIT map for these Districts. All three currently vote Democrat and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. MALDEF has made no attempt to address these areas.
The Texas Congressional Districts that are protected under the Language Minority provision are Districts 15 16 20 23 27 28 and 29. The maps may be viewed on the Texas Legislative Council District Viewer site (
http://gis1.tlc.state.tx.us/). In using the site go to "Select Plans" then to Base Plan" then select the plan you wish to view. The GRIT Plan we are using is PLANC112.
The two MALDEF plans are PLANC108 and PLANC109. To get the reports got to Download" while your map is still up and select the report you wish to view.
I used three criteria to make a determination of retrogression in the three maps. They were:
- Hispanic Voting Age Population (VAP)
- Spanish Surname Voter Registration (SSVR); and
- Hispanic Citizen Voter Registration (CVR)
The first two were reports released early by the Census Bureau and the last was from the American Community Survey by the Census Bureau that was released the day after the Texas State House voted on their redistricting bill.
The Districts that have come into question as a result of this analysis are 15 23 27 and 28. These Districts are ALL retrogressive under the MALDEF maps with deviations ranging as high as almost twenty-one percent (20.9).
It is also of interest that MALDEF a supposedly non-partisan organization that prides itself on its non-partisan positions has chosen to go after" these four conservative Districts. Districts 23 and 27 voted in a Republican Congressman in the last election. By MALDEFs own admission District 15 is at the edge of being Republican (they have it as a Republican District). District 28 is also a Republican District under the GRIT map.
Under the Hispanic Citizen Voting Age Population report the courts have determined that a 57.4 or greater is in compliance. If this holds true again then the MALDEF moved District 28 from being in compliance to being out of compliance.
Furthermore all of the four (4) Districts had a deviation of more than five percent.
So why did MALDEF get away with pressuring the Republicans into some of their proposed changes? The answer is partially because one of the reports was not available and the rest is because no one seems to have looked.
Well someone has looked now.
Based on the numbers it is evident that the GRIT map should pass preclearance where as the MALDEF maps are not legal and should not be given any consideration.
Mr. Bill Burch is Chairman of G.R.I.T (Grass Roots Institute of Texas).
