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Local state representative isn't shocked about DOJ suing Texas over political maps

Rep. Hugh Shine (R) says this happened the last time Texas went through the redistricting process and the court redrew the map.

TEXAS, USA — The United States Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the State of Texas for it's redistricting maps -- claiming the state is violating Section Two of the Voting Rights Act.

This isn't the first lawsuit filed over Texas' redistricting maps but the one filed Monday by the DOJ consolidates all the lawsuits filed into one.

"The department's career voting law experts have assess Texas' new redistricting plans and determined that they include districts that violate the voting rights act," U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a press conference Monday.

The lawsuit alleges that Texas denied or abridged the right of Latino and black voters to vote on account of their race, color or membership and language-minority group. 

"Our complaint also alleges that several of those districts were drawn with discriminatory intent," U.S. Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said at a press conference Monday.

Texas State Representative for district 55 Hugh Shine says (R) he isn't surprised by the lawsuit. He told 6 News het thought it would happen sooner.

He says this happened back in 2011 too when Texas was going through the redistricting process. Shine tells 6 News three judges decided what Texas' political map would look like and he suspects that will happen again this time around.

"Looking at what took place and it was very obvious in a number of cases that we have probably drawn some lines to keep the numbers," Shine said about the current redistricting map that Governor Greg Abbott signed back in October.

Shine says regardless of what the political lines look like or who approves them -- an item this controversial and complicated always ends up getting push back.

"It's not a difference if the Democrats are in control," Shine said. "The Democrats controlled the process, if they were in leadership position -- we would have the same discussion, the same argument except for different reason."

Shine wants Central Texans to know that this could impact your political leaders down the road and it might be out of the your representatives control.

"This can trickle down and have an impact on the state legislature races as well but I think initially it's going to impact the congressional side," he said. "Two years from now we'll probably be dealing with districts that look a little bit different than what they do right now."

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