Wednesday, May 15, 1996

Roscoe voting system upheld against LULAC lawsuit

By ANTHONY WILSON
Staff Writer

Roscoe's at-large scheme of electing school trustees does not discriminate against Hispanics, a federal judge ruled Tuesday, vindicating one of the few districts that has dared to fight such claims in court.

U.S. District Judge Sam Cummings in a seven-page opinion deemed the claims of the League of United Latin American Citizens groundless and refused to alter Roscoe's at-large elections.

As it has in scores of other lawsuits, LULAC claimed the at-large system was aimed at defeating Hispanics' preferred candidates. But contrary to most cases, Roscoe refused to settle the lawsuit by adopting single-member districts or cumulative voting despite the hefty costs of a court fight.

Though the district's attorney called Tuesday's ruling a vindication of trustees who agreed to fight the suit, Superintendent Monte Barnes disagreed.

"To 99 percent of the people in Roscoe, we didn't feel we had to be vindicated," Barnes said. "This is not a win. It's just putting something behind us. We'd like to go on and have school and stop listening to lawyers, but I don't expect Mr. Rios (the plaintiffs' lawyer) to allow that. He hasn't made anything out of it."

The defendants have accused San Antonio attorney Rolando Rios of blackmailing Big Country cities and schools into settling similar suits. Most governments have yielded to LULAC's demands to avoid six-figure court fights.

Roscoe's legal bill, Barnes reported, is "pushing $200,000."

"(Roscoe trustees) are the most courageous clients I've ever had because they had to risk that much money and their reputation to prove they were right," said Chuck Jones, Roscoe's attorney. "We're very glad the judge found what we believed all along - that there is no discrimination."
But Rios, though flabbergasted by the ruling, was conceding nothing. He assured the ruling will be appealed.

"That's pretty sad," he said of the judgment. "We were right. We think the court's wrong."

During a four-day trial in March, LULAC called voting rights experts to the stand who testified that whites in Roscoe voted as a bloc to defeat Hispanic candidates. They proposed carving the tiny Nolan County district, whose 1,800 residents are concentrated in a three-mile square, into seven districts, two of which would be mostly Hispanic.

Roscoe's own expert said conclusions reached by LULAC's witnesses were flawed. Cummings called his testimony "much more persuasive."

The Lubbock judge noted LULAC's claims that a Hispanic can't defeat Anglo candidates have been disproven by board vice president Jose Villafranca, the only Mexican-American to ever win election to the board. Villafranca won in 1991 and '93, and is seeking a third term.

"The most that can be said is that the evidence is inconclusive," Cummings wrote.

The defendants have maintained the suit was not born from a skewed election system but from the 1994 assignment of six Hispanic boys to an alternative school for sexual harassment.

Barnes explained trustees' desire to fight the suit was fortified early when they listened to lawyers at a school board convention assure them such cases were winnable.

"Rios depends on financial fear to win cases, not facts," the superintendent said.

Jones said he hopes Roscoe's victory will encourage others to fight frivolous voting rights cases.
"They must make LULAC prove their case," he said. "No one walks away from a settlement they don't believe in feeling good about the entire system of justice."

Earlier this month, LULAC succeeded in blocking a trustee election because the district did not get federal preclearance in 1995 when it reverted from a numbered place system to a purely at-large election. Now that trustees have Cummings' ruling, they will discuss getting the approval from the U.S. Justice Department and possibly rescheduling the election.

"I hope after this is all over with, Roscoe can continue to be the type of community it has been in the past where people elect the best candidates," Jones said. "That's exactly what it needs to do."