Texas: Judge to sort out math, race disputes in Irving ISD trial (white voters vs ineligible voters)

Dallas Morning News ^ | July 20, 2014 | AVI SELK

[Cincinatus' Wife]

The trial over Irving ISD’s election system ended Wednesday after three days of testimony about race, math and the right to vote.

U.S. District Judge Sidney Fitzwater must now decide whether Irving ISD’s setup illegally blocks Hispanics from electing their favored candidates. If he does, he could force the district to rewrite its election system for the second time in two years.

Fitzwater ruled against the same plaintiffs—failed school board candidate Manuel Benavidez and his law firm, Bickel & Brewer—when they first sued Irving ISD in the late 2000s. The judge found that Hispanic residents were too few and far between to create a school board seat for which they controlled the vote.

“This time, plaintiffs have the data they need to prevail,”attorney Jesse Okiror told Fitzwater in his closing statement Wednesday.

Since the 2000s, new census data shows the Hispanic population—citizens and non-citizens—booming across North Texas. And that has changed the legal landscape. Two years ago, after a trial that largely paralleled the one this week, Fitzwater forced the city of Farmers Branch to create a Hispanic-majority voting city council district.

The school district hopes it differs enough from Farmers Branch to avoid the same fate.

Irving ISD tried to avoid being sued again by voluntarily converting five of seven school seats to individual voting districts in 2012. These included a district in central Irving where about three quarters of the population is Hispanic.

“The school district did the right thing,” attorney Robert Heath argued at the end of the trial. “They analyzed the census and decided to abandon the at-large system.”

Bickel&Brewer lawyers spent much of the trial trying to prove that the so-called Hispanic voting district doesn’t exist. Few of its residents are eligible to vote, they say, which leaves white voters in control of a school board that governs very few white children.....

[Wingy]

If I read the story correctly, the Hispanics are upset because, while they make up the majority of the district, they are mostly illegal, hence unable to vote. This makes it too difficult to vote in a Hispanic to the school board. Is that right?

The world has gone mad.

[dsrtsage]

Because you can’t get quality candidates unless you vote by ethnicity

[Cincinatus' Wife]

WHITES NEED NOT APPLY: Black Leaders In Fresno Oppose White ‘Cultural Studies’ Teacher ..............."The protesters are unhappy because the school has chosen to hire Peter Beck, a person with white skin, over other, unidentified candidates, The Fresno Bee reports.

Beck will teach African-American studies, Latino studies and Southeast Asian studies.

On Monday morning, a small band of activists showed up in front of the sparkling new school at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Church Avenue. The local press was also there.

“We’re just saying what the community wants,” said Rev. Karen Crozier, one of the activists. “We didn’t fight for a white male or female teacher to educate our babies.”.......

[Ben Ficklin]

If I read the story correctly, there's a lot of Hispanics in Texas, Dallas County, and Irving.

Somes be legal, somes be illegal and it is difficult to portray then as separate and distinct groups.

Or, as it was previously considered in earlier times, Mexicans are Mexicans. Some have just been here longer than others.

[Liz]

THE FACTS ARE THESE: every lawyer is an officer of the court, and should know that the US justice system is not amenable to dispensing justice to litigants w/ "unclean hands"---a legal term meaning those who have committed crimes.

Crimes most probably include (1) falsifying official documents, (2) giving false info to US authorities, (3) stealing SS nos, (4) faking multiple identities, (5) receiving govt monies under false pretenses, (6)falsifying tax returns to get EITC refunds, (7) money-laundering via remittanced to homelands, (8) colluding w/ criminal drug cartels to violate US borders...perhaps aiding and abetting by carrying drugs into the US.

Any lawyer or law firm that gives legal advice to an illegal (unindicted felon) should be reported to the state bar association for eventual disbarment.....and should have his/her license to practice law challenged.

[scrabblehack]

Also the Dems have resisted asking people whether they are citizens or legal residents on the census forms. I would think that not having that information makes state senate and house districts invalid under Reynolds v. Sims.

[VRW Conspirator]

Few of its residents are eligible to vote, they say, which leaves white voters in control of a school board that governs very few white children.....

Need...more...duct...tape...to wrap around my head to keep it from exploding.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Sort of how it hit me - read it over, again and again and was dumbstruck.

[uncommonsense]

"If I read the story correctly, the Hispanics are upset because, while they make up the majority of the district, they are mostly illegal, hence unable to vote."

The problem is race-based antagonizers not having the means to bastardize the local education system to their specific agenda - which is to pander to illegal Hispanics, dumb down the curriculum, focus on social issues versus tangible facts-based knowledge, more "free stuff", protect incompetence, promote pigment over performance, and so on...

[Jabba the Nutt]

First, local school boards are a joke, they have little if any control over what actually happens in their schools. This is the phony democracy we have in our country today, elections do not matter.

Second, the article inadvertently shows how illegal immigration is affecting our country. You have a district, where few people are eligible to vote. Where's the democratic oversight and control of government?

Third, maybe the people paying for the schools should get to elect the board members rather than people, who don't pay.

[GeronL]

Illegal aliens want to be able to control the government institutions, is anyone surprised?

We have been invaded and colonized.

[GeronL]

exactly

[MaxMax]

Just yesterday I saw three CA plates in about a five mile drive here in Plano.
Lots of Obama stickers still on them.

[GeronL]

Their lawyers?

[MaxMax]

Irving is full of CA transplants also. They brought their politics with them
because it just wasn't done right in CA, so they're trying it again somewhere else.

Of course their votes caused the Crime and problems in CA but they
do not recognize that.

[GeronL]

Irving has an awesome mayor... the rest... blech

Beth Van Duyne rocks