Wendy Davis has been awarded $260,000 in a re-districting lawsuit from 2011. She had requested $478,000. I previously wrote about her lawsuit, along with lawsuits by various civil rights organizations here. A few politicians and a few civil rights groups won their lawsuit alleging that the Texas legislature discriminated against minorities when they revised various maps. The League of United Latin American Citizens was awarded $93,000 in attorney fees. See San Antonio Express News report. LULAC had requested $100,000. As I mentioned before, in federal court, the victor in a civil rights lawsuit is almost always awarded attorney fees. It is a way to help civil rights lawsuits.
Greg Abbot’s Attorney General office has already filed a notice of appeal, a frivolous appeal indeed. It is standard to award attorney fees. No doubt, the Attorney General filed this appeal for political, not legal reasons.
Our Attorney General has indeed wasted a lot of taxpayer money on weak lawsuits and frivolous defenses to meritorious lawsuits.