The Texas Attorney General's Office has sued Harris County election officials over get-out-the-vote ads that target Black and Latino voters in the Houston area. The lawsuit was filed in Harris County District Court. It argues that the county's social media ad campaign amounts to reverse racism because it encourages members of historically disenfranchised racial groups to go to the polls. The suit asks the court to order the ads pulled or changed to remove targeting tags for Black, Asian and Latino voters. According to the Texas Tribune, those tags included interests such as African-American literature, Latin music and East Asia. The petition argues that the Harris County clerk's office acted unconstitutionally by using ad targeting that favors some ethnic groups over others. The ads, which encourage voters to make a plan to vote, began running in late September.
The parties reached an interim agreement on Friday to pause the ads until after Election Day, the Tribune reported. Harris County had already stopped running the ads on Thursday. Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee in the U.S. Senate race, has recused himself from the lawsuit.
Interim Harris County Attorney Abbie Kamin said in a statement that the claims are baseless and that the lawsuit took time and resources away from county operations. Both sides described the interim agreement as a legal victory.