SAN ANTONIO––Minorities in Texas are facing uphill battles in getting proper representation in the state as the Legislature continues passing laws that are biased toward them, according to witnesses for civil rights groups challenging the state's 2013 political boundaries.

Allan Lichtman , a social scientist and history professor at American University, analyzed patterns in the state, including events leading to the 2013 special session that resulted in the latest congressional and state House maps.

Though Republicans have admitted that prior "redistricting decisions were designed to increase the Republican Party's electoral prospects at the expense of the Democrats," Lichtman testified that his analysis shows that isn't true.

"What was done here was to knowingly and intentionally impede the opportunity for African Americans and Latinos to elect candidates of their choice," Lichtman testified. "What we see here is intentional discrimination."

Adjusting political boundariesis done after each once-a-decade census based on population changes.

Partisan gerrymandering is not illegal, one point state lawyers have argued in their defense of the maps during a redistricting trial in San Antonio. But Lichtman was among a series of experts to testify Wednesday for minority groups who are trying to convince a three-judge panel that the state House maps and congressional maps the state adopted in 2013 carried similar discriminatory intent as the 2011 maps and diluted minority voting strength. The state denies there was discriminatory intent.

This spring, the same San Antonio-based panel - Judges Orlando Garcia and Xavier Rodriguez, both of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, and Judge Jerry E. Smith of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals - ruled that Republicans racially gerrymandered some congressional districts to weaken the growing electoral power of minorities when it drew its 2011 maps.

The panel also ruled in April that Texas lawmakers in 2011 either violated the U.S. Constitution or the Voting Rights Act by intentionally diluting the strength of minority voters statewide, and specifically in some House districts including Harris, Bexar, El Paso, Nueces, Dallas and Bell counties.

Among the congressional districts the judges pointed to are Congressional District 23, which stretches from San Antonio to El Paso, covers much of the Texas-Mexico border and is represented by Republican Will Hurd of Helotes; Congressional District 27, represented by Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi; and Congressional District 35, which stretches along Interstate 35 from Austin to Bexar County and is represented by Lloyd Doggett , D-Austin.

In examining CD 23 during Wednesday's testimony, St. Mary's University political science professor Henry Flores testified that Hispanics' candidate of choice, Democrat Pete Gallego , lost his bid to regain the seat in 2016 - despite a stronger Latino turnout than when he won in 2012 - because of an apparent rise in racial polarization at the polls.

"Gallego performed more (among Latinos) in the 2016 election but still lost," Flores said. "There was a drop in non-Latino support from 2012 to 2016 for Mr. Gallego."

The state's lawyers argue that the 2011 maps are moot because it took interim maps drawn by the panel ahead of the 2012 primaries, and implemented them during the Legislature's 2013 special session.

But the plaintiffs argue that there was little to no change in some of the questionable districts, and the discrimination from the 2011 maps carried over to the 2013 maps, which are still in use. Lichtman also testified that although Latinos and blacks contributed nearly 90 percent of the state's explosive growth in recent years, they remain under-represented by nearly four congressional districts. Anglos, whose population decreased, are overrepresented by 5½ districts, Licthman said.

Another plaintiff witness, Orville Burton , a historian from Clemson University, testified that Texas has had a history of discrimination in passing laws detrimental to minorities that has yet to stop. He prepared a report amid a redistricting cycle in 2003 and had similar conclusions.

"The racial discrimination in laws in Texas has continued since my 2003 report," Burton testified. The actions "make it more difficult for minorities to vote and participate in the electoral process. ... The courts have found that in every redistricting cycle, the Legislature left minorities at a disadvantage."

The testimony magnified statistics in a graphic Luis Vera , legal counsel for the League of United Latin American Citizens, showed the court: Despite contributing to most of Texas' explosive growth that resulted in the state gaining four new congressional districts, Latinos today control only 16.7 percent of congressional districts in Texas - the same percentage they held in 1970.

In other action, the panel ordered lawyers for the state to turn over to the plaintiffs about half of 113 documents related to redistricting that recently came into dispute.