A federal judge has tossed a lawsuit challenging Keller Independent School District’s election system, ordering the plaintiff to pay the district’s legal fees and signaling possible sanctions in a ruling the district’s leaders say vindicates them after what they describe as months of costly lawfare.
A U.S. District Court judge on January 15 dismissed with prejudice a lawsuit brought by Keller ISD resident Claudio Vallejo, finding his claims under the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution to be “frivolous, unreasonable, or without foundation,” and granting the district’s request for attorney fees after roughly a year of litigation.
The case, Vallejo v. Keller Independent School District et al., was filed in the Northern District of Texas, Fort Worth Division, and challenged the district’s at-large method of electing its seven-member school board.
Vallejo, a Hispanic parent with children in Keller ISD schools, alleged the system diluted Hispanic voting strength in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act as well as the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. He sought to replace the at-large system with cumulative voting.
Chief United States District Judge Reed O’Connor rejected those claims, ruling that Vallejo failed to meet the Supreme Court’s required legal standards for vote-dilution cases.
In the written opinion, the court found that Vallejo conceded Hispanic voters could not form a geographically compact majority-minority district, a threshold requirement under long-standing precedent, and that his proposed remedy amounted to unlawful proportional representation.
The ruling went beyond dismissal.
O’Connor granted the district’s motion for attorney fees and ordered Vallejo and his attorneys to explain by February 5 why they should not be sanctioned for bringing the case.
The opinion stated: “Because the Court finds Vallejo’s arguments frivolous, unreasonable, [and] without foundation, it GRANTS Defendants’ Motion for attorney’s fees.”
Keller ISD officials estimate the lawsuit cost taxpayers about $250,000 to defend.
Chris Coker, a Keller ISD trustee named as a defendant in his official capacity, said the decision confirms what board members argued from the outset.
“It costs the taxpayers, it costs the school district around $250,000,” Coker said in a January 20 interview with The Dallas Express. “That’s money that could have went to teachers and to the better education of students.”
Coker said he supports the court’s consideration of sanctions, responding “100%” when asked whether he backed that step. He described the lawsuit as an example of political disputes being shifted from the ballot box to the courts.
“If a politician isn’t doing something you want, you don’t sue them to force them to do it. You just don’t elect them again,” Coker told DX.
In a January 19 Facebook post, Coker highlighted the court’s language, writing that the dismissal “WITH prejudice” and the award of attorney fees showed the case “never had any legitimate legal basis to begin with,” and noting the order requiring Vallejo and his lawyers to show cause why sanctions should not be imposed.
Vallejo’s attorneys disagreed with the ruling and said an appeal is planned.
In a statement provided after the decision, attorney William A. Brewer III said, “We respect Judge O’Connor and the Court; however, we strongly disagree with the decision,” adding that the lawsuit was intended to address what he described as inequities affecting students of color.
The court, however, found no evidence of discriminatory intent or effect tied to the at-large election system, the board’s past discussions about district boundaries, or the racial makeup of the board itself.
The opinion emphasized that the Voting Rights Act guarantees equal opportunity to participate in the political process, not guaranteed electoral outcomes.
Coker said the broader impact is a warning that unsuccessful lawsuits can carry consequences beyond dismissal, particularly when courts conclude they are untethered from established law.
