just anyone can vote?! Outrageous legislative overreach!

Greg Abbott is taking the position in the Texas redistricting case that the Texas GOP is discriminating for partisan purposes which is okay in his opinion http://www.nationalmemo.com/texas-attorney-general-texas-didnt-discriminate-against-minorities-only-against-democrats/

Texas’ defense does not deny that Texas engaged in discrimination, but it does deny that it did so on the basis of race.

Greg Abbott backed up Texas, explaining: “In 2011, both houses of the Texas Legislature were controlled by large Republican majorities, and their redistricting decisions were designed to increase the Republican Party’s electoral prospects at the expense of the Democrats.”

In other words: The state’s Republican Party was trying to water down Democratic votes, not those of minorities.

From the brief filed by the state:

DOJ’s accusations of racial discrimination are baseless. In 2011, both houses of the Texas Legislature were controlled by large Republican majorities, and their redistricting decisions were designed to increase the Republican Party’s electoral prospects at the expense of the Democrats….The redistricting decisions of which DOJ complains were motivated by partisan rather than racial considerations, and the plaintiffs and DOJ have zero evidence to prove the contrary.

Got that? Texas wasn’t trying to discriminate against racial and ethnic minorities; Texas was simply trying to discriminate against racial and ethnic minorities who vote for Democrats.

In other words, Texas’ defense is that state policymakers were trying to crush the Democratic vote, and this led to inadvertent discrimination against African Americans and Latinos. As such, the argument goes, Texas was motivated by crass partisanship, and not racism, so the discrimination doesn’t really count.