TX Observer: “The worst may be still to come. Due to delays with the U.S. Census, lawmakers will reconvene this fall for a special session to redraw the state’s political districts.
Over the course of a decade, people move, population ebbs and flows, and demographics change. In theory, lawmakers redraw state political districts every 10 years to rebalance the scales and ensure adequate representation for voters. In practice, it’s more sinister.
Since Reconstruction, redistricting in Texas has been wielded by the powers that be—namely conservative Anglos—to entrench, extend, and expand their control and undermine the political clout of the state’s non-white communities. From the conservative Democrats who ran the state for most of the 20th century to the conservative Republicans who have dominated state politics for nearly three decades, the racial rigging of Texas political maps is a time-honored tradition.
In 2011, the Republican-controlled Legislature drew aggressively gerrymandered maps that maximized their power by deliberately discriminating against minority communities. The state’s population had grown by more than 4 million—almost entirely people of color—during the 2000s, and Texas was in turn awarded four new congressional districts. Yet Republicans drew three of those new seats in predominantly white areas, full of GOP voters. The party’s mapmakers largely excluded Democratic lawmakers from the process as they drew districts that strategically diluted the electoral power of Black and Hispanic voters. …
This means the GOP enters this redistricting cycle with the least legal restraint of its reign, while the political incentives to push the partisan limits of its maps are immense. While the party remains dominant at the state level, the power of its predominantly Anglo, rural base has diminished. The state’s big cities have become increasingly Democratic strongholds; the once ruby-red suburbs now range from fuchsia to lavender. As the state grew and demographics changed this past decade, the strength of the gerrymandered maps faded; Democrats flipped over a dozen legislative and congressional seats in 2018. (The maps were still powerful enough to hold back a big Democratic push for Congress and the Legislature in 2020, however.)
Now, GOP leaders want to refresh the maps in ways that further extend the political shelf life of their pale, aging, and disproportionately rural electorate while clawing back recent Democratic gains. Thanks to another decade of population growth, the GOP will also have two new congressional seats to play with.”