On December 1, 2021, non-profit civic engagement organization Mi Familia Vota and individual voters filed an amended complaint in federal court in Texas to further address the unlawful new voter suppression law recently enacted by the State Legislature. The plaintiffs filed the complaint jointly with Houston Justice, Houston Area Urban League, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and The Arc of Texas. The Mi Familia Vota plaintiffs are jointly represented by Free Speech For People, a nonpartisan legal advocacy nonprofit dedicated to defending our democracy; the law firm of Stoel Rives; and the law firm of Lyons & Lyons. The Houston Justice plaintiffs are jointly represented by the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc., the Arc of the United States, Inc., and Reed Smith LLP.

In September, the Mi Familia Vota plaintiffs filed a lawsuit arguing that the new voter suppression law, SB1, violates the First, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The amended complaint consolidates these claims with similar claims made by the Houston Justice plaintiffs and seeks federal court intervention to strike down the new Texas law and protect the fundamental right to vote.

A portion of the complaint reads as follows:

“The burdens of SB 1—like other Texas laws that limit access to the polls—singly and together fall disproportionately on Black and Latino voters…SB 1 will burden those same voters who have been historically and repeatedly disenfranchised. From all-white primaries to poll taxes, from literacy tests to annual re-registration requirements, Texas has repeatedly adopted one law after another, for the purpose and with the effect of making it harder for voters of color to vote. SB 1 is yet another attempt to continue that tradition of discrimination.”

Read the full amended complaint here.