Judges
have crucial role in the judicial power to solve any disputes both categorized
as civil and criminal cases. In the mid-nineteenth century, the process of choosing
state’s judges had metamorphosed from appointive system into election. This
transformation explicitly explained the hope of states toward judges to truly
represent their community (Ifill, 1998). However, this hope becomes only a will
in Texas. According to the data of total judges in 2014, it noted that 77% of
Texas’s judges were whites although the population of African American combined
with Hispanics reaches 50% in this States (Texas Politics 2015, 7.10). This
condition leads to representation gap between whites and minority group.
In 2011, federal judges found some
cases indicated as discriminatory intend towards minority group in Texas. One of
the examples is redistricting area or usually called as gerrymandering. While
drawing the 23rd congressional district, Texas lawmakers deceived Hispanic’s
district by taking over the district of active Hispanic’s voters and change it into
Hispanic who tend to be apathetic towards voting. This widened the chance of
whites to win the election. Furthermore, lawmakers had also intentionally reduced
the number of minority’s districts in congressional seats. According to census
of 2010, Texas’s population has increasing rapidly which dominated by 65% of
Latino and resulted on gaining more representatives in Congress. However, although
14 districts claimed as Latino’s, Texas lawmakers only registered 10 of them. As
the result, Latino had limited power to vote their representatives. The issue
became even worse when minority groups had complicated requirement to get their
voter-ID. They need to go to state Department of Public Safety Office and pay
for high cost to get the required document. Most of African American as well as
Hispanic who was more likely poorer compared to white had difficulties to
afford it (Beckett & Lee, 2013).
The above cases reflect a great
strategy done by lawmakers to weaken the Voting Rights Act among minorities; they
made transparent all the needs of this Act to benefit whites. Although these
cases can be considered as civil case, however, it remains debatable to make
sure that redistricting will trigger a party sue another party since both
Democrats and Republicans usually done it together for the sake of their own
party. Therefore, none of them will sue one another. Before 2000, state courts have
right to regulate redistricting process although today it becomes the
responsibility of federal judges (Boatright, 2001). Yet state judges still play
important role in investigating the issue. In the past, the condition was not
balance where whites or Republicans become more powerful rather than minority
group especially African American who belongs to Democrats in almost all
governmental branches. If Democrats party intended to sue Republicans, they
would mostly fail due to the inexistence of their supporting power in state’s
government. When they tried to rely on fairness value towards states court
nonetheless, they would not get succeed either due to limited number of their
representatives in judicial branch. In so doing, people are concerned on the
issue of having equal representative in state courts exceptionally state trial
courts.
State trial courts have lower level
compared to appellate courts since every dispute will be brought, proceed, and decided
in trial courts before appealing process in appellate courts. For that reason, trial
judges become intimately close with the disputes both for understanding the
root of the cases as well as analyzing certain circumstances that will affect their
decision (Ifill, 1998). Since people rely on them to represent their community’s
values, many highly personal disputes asked them to find a solution. Hence, any
subjectivity could not be ignored. In the United States, racial discrimination
does still exist although not as extreme as in 1880s or 1990s. This becomes
such a tradition in this country as well as downgraded into each states
including Texas.
The
racial discrimination is such provincialism; never be objective in valuing any
objects and issues. If this applies in trial courts, trial judges will only struggle
for cases of people with the same race; zero chance for another race to win the
case. As the consequence, when minority groups’ representatives absent on this
judicial offices, minorities’ voice will mostly be neglected. Therefore, more
minorities should hold judicial offices. If this happens, Texas will able to
eliminate redistricting issues as well as any other issues and make fairness
truly implement among its citizens regardless their race.
Bibliography:
The
Texas Politics Project. (2015). Texas
politics (2nd ed.). Retrieved from http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/textbook
Beckett,
L., & Lee, S. (2013). Five ways
courts say texas discriminated against blacks and latinos voters. Retrieved
from https://www.propublica.org/article/five-ways-courts-say-texas-discriminated-against-black-and-latino-voters
Ifill,
S. A. (1998). Judging the judges: racial diversity, impartiality, and
representation on state trial courts.
Boston College Law Review, 39(1), 95-149. Retrieved from http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2086&context=bclr
Boatright,
R. G. (2001). Judicial independence and partisan politics. A Paper for the Brennan Center Conference on Judicial Independence, The University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved
from http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/rboatri1/brennan.html
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