Greg Abbott would rather disrupt our elections than allow Democrats a fair shake

By law the justices were required to 'ignore the legislative intent behind the original' map. The map was intended to minimize Latino votes. Greg Abbott is an ass.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court over new redistricting maps could throw state primary elections into disarray, warn Latino voting rights groups.

The Texas Latino Redistricting Task Force was largely responsible for scuttling the Legislature’s 2011 House and congressional redistricting maps. Leaders of the Task Force gathered at the state Capitol on Monday to condemn Abbott’s request for a stay of interim redistricting maps. The group argued that any further delays in redistricting maps could jeopardize the State’s March 6 primaries.

Earlier Monday, Abbott filed an emergency application to the Supreme Court to halt the use of a Texas House map drawn by a federal panel of judges in South Texas. Abbott previously intimated that he would file a similar stay against the use of a Congressional map drawn by the same panel.

In his appeal, Abbott called the House map “both unprecedented and truly extraordinary” in that it “went out of its way” to ignore the legislative intent behind the original. A Washington, D.C., panel of judges has not yet ruled on whether the Texas maps meet the standards for pre-clearance based on the Voting Rights Act.