TEXAS REDISTRICTING & ELECTION LAW

Updates about ongoing redistricting litigation in the Lone Star State and coverage of election law more generally. This website's goal is to try to make sure the redistricting process and litigation over voting law is as transparent and accessible as possible to the public. Hopefully, it will be of some use to a broad range of interested parties, both lawyers and non-lawyers. Have questions, comments, suggestions, additional content, or a redistricting joke (or two)? Feel free to contact me: Michael Li, michael@beonetexas.com, 214.675.6879. You also can follow me on Twitter: @mcpli

OHRVS?  It stands for ‘Optimal Hispanic Republican Voting Strength,’ as revealed in an email from Eric Opiela, counsel for the GOP congressional delegation, to mapdrawer Gerardo Interiano.

Opiela explains in the email that the metric is used with districts as a means to “pull the district’s Total Hispanic Pop and Hispanic CVAPs [citizen voting age population] up to majority status but leave the Spanish Surname RV [registered voters] and TO [turnout] the lowest.”

The email was released this week as part of the preclearance litigation in Washington. Minority groups contend that the email shows that Texas Republicans intentionally tried to diminish the ability of Hispanics to elect their candidates of choice by creating illusory ability-to-elect districts.