Group of Texas Democrats asks DOJ to investigate Texas over possible voter rights violatio

A group of Democratic state lawmakers on Friday asked the U.S. Justice Department to investigate potential violations of federal law and civil and voting rights related to Texas state leaders’ recent voter roll purge, raids of Latinos’ homes in connection to alleged election fraud, probing of voter registration organizations and ongoing scrutiny of groups that work with migrants.

“Collectively, these actions have a disproportionate impact on Latinos and other communities of color, which is sowing fear and will suppress voting,” twelve Texas senators wrote in the letter. “We urge the DOJ to investigate Texas … and to take all necessary action to protect the fundamental rights of all Texans and ensure all citizens’ freedom to vote is unencumbered.”

The request for federal authorities to intervene is the latest escalation in response to what Texas leaders have often described as efforts to secure elections.

The efforts, however, have just as often provoked condemnation and worries from civil rights groups and Democrats that the state is violating Texans’ rights and trying to scare people away from the polls.

The League of United Latin American Citizens, a large Latino civil rights organization founded in 1929, made a similar plea to the feds earlier this week. Several of the group’s elderly members were the targets last week of search warrants related to an investigation into alleged election fraud being conducted by Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office.

Paxton’s office has said little about that probe other than it pertains to allegations of election fraud and vote harvesting. Affidavits for warrants obtained by The Texas Tribune show that investigators were looking into allegations that a Frio County political operator had illegally harvested votes for multiple local races.

LULAC leaders have blasted the investigation as an effort to intimidate voters.

In the letter requesting a civil rights review, they wrote about Lydia Martinez, an 80-year-old grandmother with 35 years as a LULAC member who was woken up at 6 a.m. by armed authorities who interrogated her for hours and confiscated her devices, personal calendar and voter registration materials.

“These actions echo a troubling history of voter suppression and intimidation that has long targeted both Black and Latino communities, particularly in states like Texas, where demographic changes have increasingly shifted the political landscape,” the letter states. “The right to vote is fundamental to our democracy, and LULAC stands firm in its commitment to defending that right for all Americans, regardless of race or ethnicity.”

The Justice Department had received LULAC’s letter, a spokesperson confirmed Friday but declined to comment further.

In their letter Friday, the Texas Senate Democratic caucus pointed to the raids targeting LULAC members and a series of other actions that, they wrote, raised “serious concerns” that Paxton and other state leaders might be violating federal civil rights and voting laws.

The group highlighted the opening of an investigation last week by Paxton’s office into voter registration organizations following a debunked claim by a Fox News host that migrants were registering to vote outside a state drivers license office near Fort Worth.

The claim was disputed by the Department of Public Safety, a local Republican county chair and the local elections administrator — all who said no evidence supported it — but Paxton opened an investigation anyway, the lawmakers wrote.

They also said that DPS, which manages the state’s drivers license offices, has since prohibited groups from registering people to vote outside their offices — ending a decades-old practice the agency had allowed “without issue.”

“Voter registration organizations seek to improve civic engagement in a state that has one of the lowest voter turnout rates in the country,” the letter states. “Many of them now are concerned they will be the next to be harassed and targeted.”

The Democratic lawmakers also expressed concern that the removal of more than a million people from the state’s voter rolls might have included legitimate voters and that Texas might be violating a federal law that prohibits states from conducting such routine voter roll maintenance during a 90-day period ahead of an election — echoing a coalition of watchdog and voting rights groups that this week shared the worry.

The Senators lastly pointed to ongoing state efforts targeting nonprofits and nongovernmental entities that work with migrants and immigrants along the U.S.-Mexico border and beyond.

Those examinations began after Gov. Greg Abbott in 2022 directed Paxton’s office to investigate the role of such groups “in planning and facilitating the illegal transportation of illegal immigrants across our borders.”

The reviews are one piece of Texas’ response to record migration that Abbott and other state leaders say is the fault of the “open border policies” of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president.

Through a border security initiative called Operation Lone Star, the state has deployed thousands of Texas National Guard troops and DPS troopers to patrol the border and arrest migrants on state charges. Meanwhile in courts, Paxton’s office has repeatedly challenged the Biden administration's immigration policies.

“Although the burden to address the ongoing border crisis should not fall to Texas, the federal government has failed to take action to address this problem,” Abbott wrote to Paxton in the letter, adding he “appreciate[d]” the suits. “But as the facts on the ground continue to change,” Abbott added, “we must remain vigilant in our response to this crisis.”

In response, Paxton’s office has sought to depose the leaders of at least two organizations that provide humanitarian aid to migrants and tried to shut down two other groups.

Texas state judges have mostly rejected these Paxton initiatives, which have accused the groups of violating human smuggling laws and in one instance accused a group of violating rules that govern nonprofit’s political involvement.

But Paxton has continued fighting.

In perhaps the most high-profile case, Paxton’s office tried to shutter a migrant shelter network, Annunciation House, that it accused of violating laws prohibiting human smuggling and operating a stash house.

After an El Paso judge denied the effort, Paxton appealed directly to the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case. On Friday, the state’s highest civil court scheduled oral arguments for the appeal in mid-January.

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This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2024/08/30/texas-voter-rights-violations-investigation-request/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.