SIMON BALDERAS, ET AL. Vs. STATE OF TEXAS, ET AL.; This Filing Applies to: All Actions
NO. 6:01CV158
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS, TYLER DIVISION
2002 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 25470
May 17, 2002, Decided
May 21, 2002, Filed, Entered
* Together with No. 94-806, Lawson et al. v. Vera et al., and No. 94-988, United States v. Vera et al., also on appeal from the same court.
Before the court, in cases challenging congressional redistricting and involving voting rights and the state house of representative, were the state defendants' motion to amend the court's earlier order on attorneys' fees and their motion under Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e) to alter or amend the court's order on attorneys' fees.
The state urged that plaintiff congresswomen had not prevailed, but if so, then the court needed to scale down their fee application. The court reiterated that the congresswomen had prevailed in the litigation because they succeeded on the merits of their discrete agenda--preserving the minority nature of their districts. The state had failed to draw any congressional plan and the state's positions could have been viewed as using the existing minority districts to leverage the remaining districts into a politically palatable plan. The congresswomen were entitled to recover their fee requests, unencumbered by any reduction for partial success. As for plaintiff state house challengers, the court again rejected the argument that they had not prevailed or that their success was limited. An enforceable judgment was rendered that altered the legal relationship between the parties. The court had heard similar testimony and took much of the same proof into account in remedying, again, the state's failure to draw a legal plan. Those facts reinforced the court's decision that the challengers had prevailed. The court was not persuaded to reduce the awards.
The court denied the requests to amend the fee order. The court awarded fees and costs in the amount set forth in the order to the parties named in the order.