State Set Later Date For State Lawmaker Election

WASHINGTON (AP) – Gov. Rick Perry set the election to replace a deceased state lawmaker a week later than he scheduled a congressional runoff election, a Latino group objecting to the earlier voting day said in a document filed with the Justice Department.

The League of United Latin American Citizens is objecting to the Dec. 12 date set for voters in District 23 to decide whether to pick Republican Rep. Henry Bonilla or Democrat Ciro Rodriguez as their U.S. House representative.

Perry and Secretary of State Roger Williams set Dec. 19 for a special election to replace Republican state Rep. Glenda Dawson. Orders for the two elections were submitted the same day.

Scott Haywood, Williams’ spokesman, said the special election to replace Dawson was set at the earliest possible date it could be set under the Texas election code. “Because there are different types of elections, different sets of laws would apply to fill a vacancy,” he said.

LULAC has objected to the date for the District 23 runoff because it falls on the Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe, a religious holy day celebrated by many Catholic Hispanics by attending Mass, holding processions and family gatherings and other events.

The district that stretches from near El Paso to South Texas and takes in several counties on the border has a 61 percent Hispanic voting age population.

“The state representative district is predominantly white-Anglo population and would not be affected by ‘El dia de la Virgen de Guadalupe’,” LULAC national attorney Luis Vera Jr. said in the DOJ filing, using the Spanish translation of the Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

The 23rd district’s voters are “adversely affected by setting it on the holiest of religious holidays. There can possibly be no other reason for the different dates than an attempt to suppress the Latino vote.”

Vera also contends the state could have set the District 23 on a Saturday and that it did not have to be on a Tuesday.

Bonilla faced seven challengers in the Nov. 7 election after the race was thrown open when the Supreme Court ordered the district redrawn. The district had been altered in 2003 in a way diluted Latino voting strength and violated the Voting Rights Act, the high court ruled.

Bonilla won 49 percent of the vote and Rodriguez drew 20 percent, sending them to a runoff. Vera is serving as treasurer for Rodriguez’s runoff campaign.

Because Texas has a history of discriminating against minority voters, it is required to seek approval of election changes and decisions from the Department of Justice.

Vera is asking DOJ not to approve the runoff date unless the state extends early voting to include a Saturday or Sunday and the election date is not on a holy day and a day that provides adequate time for all voters to be notified of the election.

By SUZANNE GAMBOA Associated Press Writer

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

AP-NY-11-30-06 1849EST