In a sworn declaration that has been submitted as a part of an ongoing federal court case, Kel Seliger believes his party violated the federal voting laws. This senior Republican state senator with quite a lot of redistricting experience claims that the violation took place when it drew new boundaries for state Senate District 10 in the Fort Worth Area.
Kel Seliger Finds The State in Violation of the Voting Rights
In a declaration that was signed in November, Senator Kel Seliger stated that after participating in the Senate Select Redistricting Committee Proceedings of 2011 and 2013 and having perused the prior decision of the federal court regarding SD10, it has been quite obvious that the renewed effort to dismantle SD10 is simply a violation of the Voting Rights Act as well as the US Constitution.
The statement from the Republican from Amarillo did come out this week as part of a dayslong hearing before a three-judge panel considering a lawsuit that claims that the district was intentionally configured to discriminate against most of the voters of color in Tarrant County.
Kel Seliger also mentioned that under the map which was passed by the Legislature controlled by the Republicans, some Hispanic and Black populations that previously existed in District 10 were split into two other districts with majority-white electorates. The Hispanic and Black voters who remain in the newly created District 10, in a few urban areas of south Fort Worth were then lumped in with most of the rural, white counties to the south and west.
Kel Seliger had chaired the redistricting committee of the Senate the previous decade, where the state’s maps were redrawn following the census of 2010 when a similar attempt to reshape the district was thought to be exceedingly discriminatory.
