The Texas Attorney General’s Office has sued Harris County election officials for get-out-the-vote efforts targeting Black and Latino voters in the Houston area.
The lawsuit, filed in Harris County District Court, argues that a social media ad campaign by the county constitutes reverse racism because it encourages members of historically disenfranchised racial groups to head to the polls. Harris County is one of the most diverse counties in Texas, according to U.S. Census data.
“By specifically directing voting advertisements to these and many other racial or ethnic ‘detailed targeting’ terms, it is readily apparent that Harris County is attempting to increase the likelihood that only certain racial and ethnic groups — but not all — will vote,” the lawsuit reads. “In any event, there can be no legitimate reason for Harris County to intentionally target voter advertisements toward this peculiar assortment of African American, Asian, and Latino ethnicities, cultural interests, and countries, but not toward any European ethnicities.”
The suit asks the court to order that the ads be pulled or reconfigured to remove all tags targeting Black, Asian and Latino voters. Those tags include interests such as African-American literature, Latin music, Hispanic kitchen, East Asia, 27 different countries and several foreign cities, including Bangkok, according to the Texas Tribune.
The petition argues the Harris County clerk’s office acted unconstitutionally by using ad targeting that prioritizes people of certain ethnicities but not others. The ads, which encourage voters to make a plan to vote, began running in late September.
The parties involved in the lawsuit reached an interim agreement Friday to pause the ads until after Election Day, the Tribune reports.
Harris County already stopped running the ads on Thursday, and Paxton — who’s running as the Republican nominee for Texas’ contested U.S. Senate seat — has recused himself from the lawsuit, even though he serves as the state’s attorney general.
Both sides treated the interim agreement as a legal victory.
“Ken Paxton is clearly grasping at straws, trying to remain relevant and manufacture distractions. The agreement is a win for Harris County, ensuring the Attorney General’s preposterous and baseless claims do not take away time and resources from critical county operations — Paxton’s thinly veiled political stunt has taken enough of our time,” interim Harris County Attorney Abbie Kamin said in a statement to the Tribune.
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