LULAC Lawsuit

Commentary supports this. Here is from the Chron today:

The League of United Latin American Citizens on Monday filed its long-anticipated lawsuit against the city of Houston, seeking to get rid of at-large City Council seats it says leave Hispanic residents with insufficient representation at City Hall.

The group, one of the largest Hispanic civil rights organizations in the country, first announced plans to take legal action against the city in January.

While 45 percent of Houston residents are Hispanic, Robert Gallegos of District I is the only Hispanic person holding a seat on the 16-member body, even though the city previously created two other Hispanic-opportunity districts, H and J.

The federal lawsuit aims to replace the city’s five at-large seats, which represent voters citywide, with single-member seats dedicated to certain geographic areas. Houston’s current election system has created barriers to Hispanic representation and deprived hundreds of thousands of minority Houstonians of their voting rights guaranteed by law, the complaint says.

“The Latino voters of Houston have waited for fair redistricting plans. They have waited for years for the city of Houston to end its long relationship with ‘at-large’ districts that dilute the electoral strength of Hispanics,” the lawsuit says. “The time has come to replace this old election system that functions solely to dilute the power of Houston’s Latino voters.”

And this:

In a statement issued by his office, City Attorney Arturo Michel defended the existing council structure, as well as the new redistricting maps. 

“The city believes its system of 11 single-member districts with 5 at-large districts has benefited its residents,” he said. “At-large Council members are engaged in and advocate for district issues.”

Here is the entire read:  LULAC files lawsuit to rid Houston of at-large councilmembers (houstonchronicle.com).

Arturo is dead wrong.

Commentary said this a few months ago:

Some local Latino activists and a LULAC organization have been meeting and strategizing on how to remove the at-large positions of the H-Town City Council and go with 16 districts. We currently have 11 single member council districts and 5 at-large council positions.

Since we went to the hybrid single member and at-large system that took effect for the 1979 elections, 38 individuals have served as at-large council members. Only 2 of the 38 have been Latino and Latina. Former Council Members Gracie Saenz and Orlando Sanchez.

Since you asked.

15 of the 38 have been African American.

13 have been female.

1 Asian American.

I don’t know if there is an upside for continuing with at-large council members. If you are a Democrat or a Democratic Party affiliated organization, can you justify supporting at-large positions? What is your rationale for keeping the current system?

Look at it this way. If we went to an all-single member district system, every member on City Council will pretty much have to go door-to-door to get elected. That is a good thing in my book.

Before the 1979 municipal elections, we had an all at-large system. We agreed to a hybrid system because it had the single member district component. That was 43 years ago. It is time to move on to an all-single member district system.

2 Latinos? Come, on!

Where is the Harris County Democratic Party on this.

Talk about Democratic Party outreach to the Latino community.

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If you like Christmas tunes and have the SiriusXM app, you can listen to Billboard’s Top 112 Christmas tunes. You will likely disagree with the rankings. They have Dean Martin’s “Let it Snow” at number 9. Ok.

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My Beatles wall calendar for the month of December has two photos of the four and a commemoration of the 1969 release of Abbey Road. George, John, and Ringo have full beards, Paul is clean shaven.  The other calendar has a photo of the four from 1964 holding toy musical instruments. George is holding a bugle, John a harp, Paul a tambourine, and Ringo a drum.

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From the Astros yesterday:

Jose Altuve, Yordan Alvarez, Ryan Pressly, Kyle Tucker, Framber Valdez, and Justin Verlander were selected to the All-MLB team presented by Arm & Hammer and OxiClean. Altuve, Alvarez, Valdez, and Verlander earned First-Team honors, and Pressly and Tucker earned Second-Team honors.

Players were selected to the team based on voting from fans, media members, broadcasters, former players, and other officials throughout the game.

Congrats!

There is no way we were going to pay Verlander $86 million for two years. It was nice having him. Good luck!

BTW: JV and the Mets visit The Yard June 19-21 where I guess he will be presented with his World Series ring.