San Antonio lawyer Rolando Rios is at it again.

Jeorge Zarazua
Express-News

This time he's taking aim at Farmers Branch, a small city outside Dallas that has persisted in its efforts to try to prevent undocumented immigrants from renting apartments.

Nothing draws Rios' attention more than the possibility of voting rights being violated.

And, as it turned out, Farmers Branch makes a perfect target.

The city, which is 37 percent Hispanic, never has elected a Latino to its City Council — the governing body fervently pushing for the ordinance restricting who can rent.

It didn't take much convincing for Rios to proceed with what he has done hundreds of times before. He filed a lawsuit in federal court, arguing that Hispanics' voting rights were being diluted because of the city's at-large voting system.

The lawsuit against Farmers Branch seeks to force a federal judge to implement a Hispanic-majority council district, making it easier for a Latino to be elected.

By seating a Hispanic on the council, Rios hopes that growing anti-immigrant sentiment in the suburb might be diffused.

"They don't have any minorities on the City Council to try to provide a different perspective on what they're doing on this immigration stuff," said Rios, who is 62 and a disabled Vietnam War veteran who credits his young adult years during the 1960s with sparking his passion for civil rights work.

His law firm is on the 16th floor of the Milam Building overlooking the River Walk, the same building where his mother cleaned offices for a living when Rios was growing up.

"Lo and behold, here I am," he said, adding he sometimes feels like his mother's spirit is there.

For Rios, litigation is a way of forcing change in political landscapes where minorities have been shut out. His lawsuits seeking single-member voting districts are credited with improving minority representation on city councils, commissioner's courts and school boards across the state. And he's known for fighting for minority representation on a much grander scale.

He also has his critics.

On some occasions, the San Antonio lawyer wins because defendants choose to settle, avoiding expensive and lengthy court battles, said C. Robert Heath, an Austin attorney representing Farmers Branch.

He points out that his firm has drawn up single-member districts for clients, but argues that the Farmers Branch case is logically flawed.

"Three out of five Hispanics in the area they are looking at are non-citizens," Heath said.

Rios is undeterred when it comes to that lawsuit and his efforts to protect minorities each time the Legislature divvies up the state during the decennial redistricting process. He already is planning for the next nationwide census count in 2010, and for what, he says, will be the inevitable.

"There'll be an undercount," said Rios, who believes the U.S. Census Bureau historically has undercounted Hispanic residents since it first began using tabulating machines in 1890.

His goal, he said, is simple: "It's a matter of minimizing the loss."

"Without a doubt, he's had an impact," said state Rep. Dora Olivo, D-Rosenberg, who first met Rios while volunteering for the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project. "People don't pay attention. They think things just happen, but they don't. People make them happen, and Rolando is one of those who make them happen."

A tough childhood

Rios learned early that government can help when tragedy strikes. "When I was 6, my father was killed," he said. "He was shot in the head five times in Brackenridge Park."

He said the killer had been released from a mental institution in New York City and then traveled to San Antonio, where he hailed a taxi, instructing its driver, Rios' father, Leo, to take him to the park. That was in September 1952.

"They caught him right there in Brackenridge Park, eating hot dogs," Rios said. "He explained that God had sent him there to kill my father. I was left with three older sisters and my mother, who was in her early 40s, and no reasonable means of support."

It was a modest upbringing for Rios, who lived in San Antonio's West Side, but supplemental Social Security helped, allowing him enough money to attend private Catholic schools and graduate from Holy Cross High School. He majored in math at St. Mary's University and earned a bachelor's degree in 1969.

Within 10 days of graduating, Rios said, he received a letter from the Army, drafting him into the Vietnam War. He said he chose to volunteer instead for officer candidate school, becoming a lieutenant assigned to an infantry company in Vietnam.

He returned stateside after a Jeep accident shattered his hip, he said. He underwent nine months of rehabilitation at Brooke Army Medical Center in early 1970. He was medically discharged in 1972.

Rios said he continues to suffer from pain in his hip, but he doesn't let it stop him from being active. He plays basketball at the YMCA, tennis with his daughters, and racquetball with fellow attorneys. Rios and his wife, Susana, married for 18 years, have three children, Claudia, 14, and Maricela, 17, who both attend Incarnate Word High School; and son, Rolando Noé, 23, a senior at the University of Texas at Austin.

For pure relaxation, Rios enjoys a good Arturo Fuente Don Carlos cigar. He's a member of The Humidor, a local cigar shop that boosts about having the largest humidor in the southwest.

After his military service, Rios entered law school at Georgetown University and quickly became involved in civil rights work as a clerk for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund while in school.

Rios graduated from Georgetown in 1978, the same year the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was amended to include Texas. The change made Texas ripe for civil rights litigation, which the budding attorney quickly pursued as counsel for the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project.

He now is considered the state's leading attorney for voting rights matters, having been involved in redistricting litigation for more than 30 years and filing more than 260 lawsuits.

Facing criticism

Rios knows that his work has drawn controversy. He said he's been accused of instigating situations in some cities, as well as filing lawsuits to pad his pocketbook. He is unapologetic. "Yes, I think we provide a good service," he said. "We're making society better and are entitled to get paid for it."

Olivo said she remembers the fight to get minority representation on the Rosenberg school board in Fort Bend County. It had stalled in the mid-1980s until Rios joined the legal battle. Soon thereafter, the school district entered into a settlement, establishing single-member districts.

"There's no doubt in my mind that things are different," Olivo said. "But, not only different, better. It gives us a fighting chance."

Rios points to the Panhandle town of Lamesa as one of his successes.

Sixty miles south of Lubbock, Lamesa was 45 percent Hispanic in the 1980s when Rios filed a federal lawsuit, challenging the election system. Rios said that at that time, no minorities held any of the 18 local elected positions.

Rios won the lawsuit, forcing the town to draw up single-member districts for its school board, City Council and County Commissioners Court.

"Within a period of three years, it went from zero to three on the City Council and three on the school board and one county commissioner," Rios said. "From zero to seven, all simply because of the way the system was set up."

Lamesa City Manager Fred Vera said there was resistance at first, with some arguing that everyone was given an opportunity to vote and that all candidates had an equal chance of being elected.

"They would say, 'People here are happy in Lamesa,'" Rios remembers. "'They are very happy. There are no problems here. These are people coming from out of town and riling up people.'"

Vera said Rios' federal lawsuit was settled out of court, with Lamesa eventually agreeing to have all of its council members represent single-member districts.

"To me what has happened is what I call a period of renaissance, a new spirit of cooperation where everyone is working together for one common cause and that is the community," Vera said.

The right count

When he's not in court, Rios dedicates much of his time to studying the state's changing demographics. He fears the surge in anti-immigrant sentiment will keep many residents in the U.S. from filling out census forms, despite assurances from the Census Bureau that the information is confidential and isn't shared with other government agencies.

"How can you tell someone they're not welcome and then turn around and ask (him or her) to fill out a census form to be counted?" he said.

That's why several cities and counties, from Gregg in far Northeast Texas to Maverick along the southern border, already have turned to Rios, hiring him to ensure their populations aren't grossly undercounted in the census. The bureau plans to open an office in San Antonio later this year and will begin hiring enumerators this fall.

During the last census in 2000, Rios said, about 364,000 Texans weren't counted, nearly 25,000 from Bexar County alone. For every person not counted, Rios said, local government lost more than $1,200 in federal funds.

Rios offers this statistic from the U.S. Census to illustrate the need for an accurate count: Between 2000 and 2010, the state's non-minority Anglo population will grow by fewer than 460,000, or 4.1 percent, while its minority population grows by 3.4 million, or 31 percent.

"Texas is certainly changing," he said.

Karl Eschbach, director of the Texas State Data Center, agrees with much of Rios' argument.

Eschbach said undercounts and overcounts are all part of the census process.

"If you think about the logistics of trying to count 3 million people, there is going to be some that you miss," he said. "There is also an overcount, which also should be interesting to (Rios). So, some people get counted twice and some people don't get counted at all, especially minorities and immigrants and people who rent rather than own homes."

Eschbach also shares Rios' concern about how the current political climate toward undocumented immigrants might negatively impact the upcoming census.

"I think the Census Bureau ought to have that concern," he said. "Certainly there is going to be a climate there that will discourage participation."

Eschbach said the Census Bureau estimates Texas could get anywhere from two to four new congressional seats because of its booming population.

"It could be that the undocumented could put us over the top that will get us that additional fourth seat," Eschbach said.

For his part, Rios already is trying to determine how to ensure that those new congressional districts favor the state's changing face.

He's hoping to use the 2010 census figures to convince lawmakers to carve out additional districts in which minorities have the best shot at getting elected.

"I like seeing the changes that occur," Rios said. "I like seeing that because it's better — better for the community, better for the society."