Three Latino voters will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to consider their challenge over how council members are elected in Farmers Branch, a Dallas suburb that's trying to oust illegal immigrants through a series of ordinances, their attorney said Wednesday.

The plaintiffs plan to seek an appeal before the nation's highest court after a federal appeals court affirmed a ruling against their voting-rights lawsuit, said one of their attorneys, Domingo Garcia.

Valentine Reyes, Irene Gonzalez and Gary F. Garcia alleged the at-large City Council system in Farmers Branch diluted minority votes. They wanted to create single-member districts, in which a council member is elected to represent a specific section of the city.

Their attorneys argued before a federal court in Dallas that Hispanic citizens of voting age would form a majority of the voters in one of the proposed districts. On appeal, they contended that citizenship wasn't a requirement in showing Latinos of voting age would make up the majority in the proposed district.

This story continues below
Advertisement

A three-judge panel at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the argument. In a ruling Tuesday, the New Orleans-based panel insisted that the number of minorities of voting age in a proposed district must be citizens and needed to account for a majority of the total population of the district's voting-age citizens.

"That's really a change of how voting rights law has been interpreted in the past and would make a very bad precedent if it was adopted," Garcia said.

City officials were pleased with the decision.

"We thought it was a correct and very good opinion," said C. Robert Heath, one the city's attorneys.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of after the City Council in Farmers Branch approved banning illegal immigrants from renting homes in the city, a rule that's never been enforced because of lawsuits and a ruling preventing it. The plaintiffs said if the single-member district method had been in place, at least one Latino candidate would have previously been elected to the council and could represent the ethnic group.

Since 1970, Farmers Branch has changed from a small, predominantly white community to a city of almost 28,000 people. U.S. Census Bureau estimates show about 48 percent of Farmers Branch residents are Hispanic. The city's mayor and city council are all white.