What does the Voting Rights Act of 1965 have to do with redistricting? Well, if you listen to all the lawyers, congressmen, and special interest groups (NAACP, GI Forum, etc), “minority voters in Texas are denied an equal opportunity to participate effectively in the political process.”
I looked into this for you. Actually, it was more work than I expected. In fact, I still haven’t found the text of Public Law 89-110, even on the Library of Congress web site (the search times out). The best I could find was various descriptions. What the law did was eliminate the poll tax and literacy tests as prerequisites for voting. I remember this vaguely from my youth, as well. I was 12, and just returned from living overseas. It seemed a bit odd to me, which is why I remember it. I thought it only logical that you should be able to read if you wanted to vote. How else could you understand the ballot? I didn’t understand that this was used to exclude blacks from voting, because every black person I knew could read and write, some better than I.
To my knowledge, the law doesn’t prescribe rules for defining congressional districts or quotas for minority representation in Congress. So, what these Democrats are now saying is that if you are black or hispanic, your vote only counts if you abandon all interests which do not relate to the color of your skin. Groupthink.
I detest the concept of groups. I believe in individuality. This is the crux of the argument in this case, and for many other issues in this country. The plaintiffs here are being patronizing and condescending toward people who have a common ethnic or racial background. What they are saying is, ‘You must vote with others of your group or your vote is meaningless.