Patterico's Pontifications

5/10/2008

Latino Groups Sue Texas Democratic Party

Filed under: 2008 Election,Politics — DRJ @ 12:32 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

LULAC of Texas and the Mexican-American Bar Association of Houston have sued the Texas Democratic Party in federal court claiming the Texas Two-Step primary/caucus process unfairly dilutes Hispanic votes by allocating them fewer delegates than the votes alone would yield:

“Texas Democrats distribute the state’s 193 delegates using both a primary and a caucus, but the distribution favors state Senate districts that had high voter turnout in the most recent presidential and gubernatorial elections. That meant that on March 4, predominantly Hispanic districts, in which turnout was low in 2004 and 2006, got fewer delegates than others, particularly urban, predominantly black districts. Latino districts generally favored Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton; black districts favored her rival, Barack Obama.”

The groups also allege the Democratic Party failed to seek clearance required by the U.S. Justice Department for the process. The lawsuit does not seek to unseat the Texas delegation. Democratic Party leaders responded that Texas delegates would not be finalized until the June Convention and groups are free to argue their claims until then.

I’m not impressed with caucus systems because they seem to favor entrenched interests, but obviously many states and both parties use caucuses. The two-step process used by Texas Democrats seems especially difficult and strange, but maybe that will change because of this election.

— DRJ

4 Responses to “Latino Groups Sue Texas Democratic Party”

  1. How can they have a right to sue the party? The party makes its own rules. Unless they can show it’s intentional racial discrimination, what’s their cause of action?

    I suppose the government will pay their attorney fees, though.

    Patricia (f56a97)

  2. Now its time for all those illegal aleins to consiter returning to where they came from and forget these stupud lawsuits

    krazy kagu (40bcdd)

  3. Kagu, Illegals are not permitted to vote in Dem primaries (yet). They aren’t the ones suing.

    Daryl Herbert (4ecd4c)

  4. Daryl,

    In Texas, are you all that sure that the illegals AREN’T ENCOURAGED TO VOTE USING FRAUDULENT REGISTRATIONS provided by Democrat Activists like ACORN and LULAC?

    PCD (5c49b0)


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