In 2011, Texas Republicans put forth a redistricting plan that a federal court in Washington, D.C., concluded was intentionally designed to dilute the strength of African-American and Hispanic votes. Purposeful — not merely incidental — discrimination. As a result, it was blocked under the now-neutered Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. A series of highly revealing emails between Republicans about the redistricting process, which included redrawn maps for state legislative districts as well as congressional districts, were unearthed in the ensuing litigation and proved fatal to their case.
This comes as no surprise, and it’s happening in every red state in one form or another. Now if we can only use the Civil Rights Act to target the… oh wait. Never mind.