failed to establish "first-class" colleges and universities elsewhere in the state. Looking to avoid further embarrassing suits, the legislature passed the South Texas Initiative to improve University of Texas System schools in Brownsville, Edinburg, San Antonio, and El Paso, and Texas A&M University System branches in Corpus Christi, Laredo, and Kingsville. The Border Region Higher Education Council helped pass the legislation and monitored the program's progress. Today the situation has somewhat improved, though UT Austin still receives a disproportionate share of funding. In 1974, president of MALDEF, Vilma Martinez, created the Chicana Rights Project (CRP). The project focused on Mexican-American women's unique legal issues. It lasted until 1983 when funding ran out. MALDEF, along with the ACLU, sued Los Angeles County in 1981, accusing the county of arranging voting districts to frustrate Hispanic political power. Considerable changes in the district lines resulted. To get a fair share of school funding for downtown Los Angeles schools, MALDEF filed a lawsuit in 1992 against the Los Angeles Unified School District. In GI Forum of Texas v. Perry, MALDEF successfully challenged the Texas redistricting plan before the U.S. Supreme Court. The New York Times described it as "the most important voting rights case of the decade, rejecting the statewide gerrymandering claim brought by…other plaintiffs while accepting the Voting Rights Act challenge in Southwestern Texas, brought by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund." The case resulted in new lines drawn for Texas' 23rd Congressional District and a special election (where another MALDEF suit opened the polls early) resulting in the Latino community having the opportunity to elect its candidate of choice to Congress. In 2010, the fund strongly opposed Arizona SB1070, the toughest and broadest anti-illegal immigration measure seen in the U.S. in generations. The fund said it might challenge the constitutionality of the law. On October 27, 2010, MALDEF achieved another victory in Gonzalez v. State of Arizona, striking down an Arizona law that restricted voter registration by requiring proof of American citizenship. MALDEF had challenged the 2004 law, also known as Proposition 200, on grounds that it was unconstitutional and in violation of federal law because it forced voters to meet onerous new identification requirements at the polls and imposed unnecessary paperwork requirements on those seeking to register to vote. Staff On March 26, 2009, MALDEF's president and general counsel, John Trasviña, was announced as President Obama's nominee to be