Five Hispanic residents of Pasadena (Texas) filed a lawsuit against their City Council in federal court yesterday because of the redesign of the city's municipal districts which, according to the plaintiffs, dilutes the Latino vote.

After the U.S. Supreme Court released Texas and its sub-jurisdictions from federal oversight of voting changes in June 2013, the Pasadena City Council passed a measure in August of last year to include a proposition in the November 2013 ballot regarding the redesign of the districts.

Proposition 1 had been promoted by long time Pasadena Mayor Johnny Isbell and was narrowly adopted by the voters of Pasadena by a margin of 79 votes out of 6,429 votes cast.

The effect of the redesign was that Pasadena changed from eight individual municipal districts to six individual districts and two at-large.

According to the plaintiffs María Mari Cruz, María del Rosario Martínez, Patricia Gonzales, Alberto Patiño y Rodolfo Tenreiro, all of whom are members of the Texas Organizing Project (TOP), the change to six individual districts and two at-large is detrimental for the Latino electorate because Anglo voters would be more influential in the at-large races.

"Anglos are still the majority of voters in Pasadena even though the Hispanic population is 62 percent. When you look at citizen age voting population, which is this group that is eligible to vote, Hispanics are at 43 percent, and the Hispanic (voter) registration is slightly lower than that," said Nina Perales, Vice President of Litigation at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), which is representing the plaintiffs.

"So, when you hold an election citywide Anglos are going to be in the majority. They will decide the outcome of the election. Even if all Hispanics vote together, there are still more Anglo voters than there are Hispanic voters. So, anything that is shifted to a citywide election is essentially shifting it to Anglo control," argued Perales, for whom "by moving two seats to at-large (positions) you are moving two of those seats to be elected on by the whole city, which means you are taking two seats and putting them into Anglo control. For as long as Anglos comprise the majority of voters in the city, they will control those two seats."

"I feel like my rights are being violated. I don't think it's right, not only for myself, but for Latino voters in the city of Pasadena. The Hispanic population is growing in my city, and it doesn't make sense to take away our representation," said Gonzales in a statement delivered at the Bob Casey Federal Courthouse, in downtown Houston.

For Patiño, as the majority in Pasadena, Hispanics "need to have more representation on City Council." "I just don't think it's fair that our voices have been taken away," he added.

According to Perales, the goal of the lawsuit is to "bring back a fair system. We are asking the judge (for)... a system that's fair that gives Latinos an equal opportunity to exercise their political strength".

"If we convince the judge that this new system is discriminatory, the judge will order them to do that", added Perales in reference to the possibility the Pasadena City Council will have to redraw the districts in order to, for example, go back to an eight individual district format. According to the lawyer, the City of Pasadena has about 30 days to prepare a response to their lawsuit.

The next municipal election in Pasadena is scheduled for May 2015.

Mayor Isbell didn't respond to the Chronicle's request for comment on the lawsuit.