Blog Stage 7: Court shouldn't reject redrawn map

Since, as a class we have completed exam 3 and now have one more exam left, I found this editorial on statesman.com to coincide with what we have recently learned in Texas State and Local Government.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to set aside a congressional map drawn last week by three federal judges, calling the judges' action "judicial activism at its worst."  


According to an editorial on statesman.com titled, Court shouldn't reject redrawn map, The Supreme Court should reject Abbott's request. The map drawn by a three-judge panel in San Antonio was a response to redistricting at its worst and is superior to congressional and state House and state Senate maps drawn this year by the Legislature.


Minority groups challenged the original map passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature, arguing that the Republican-drawn map weakened minority representation, particularly Hispanic representation. Because of the history of racial discrimination in Texas, the Voting Rights Act gives the federal government the authority to approve or reject the state's voting maps.


A Washington, D.C. federal court is scheduled to hold a trial on whether the Legislature's map dilutes the power of minority voters. The D.C. court's decision to hold trial on the issue forced the San Antonio court to create interim districts for the 2012 elections because the filing period for the March 6 primary election began Monday and ends December 15.


Since learning about the redistricting process in Texas I know that both the United States and the Texas Constitutions mandate the redrawing of congressional and legislative districts every 10 years based on the data obtained by the U.S. Census.  This periodic readjustment is necessary to give all the districts approximately an equal amount of people.  If redistricting did not occur, some districts would have more people than other districts, resulting in voters in less populated districts having more influence in a particular legislative chamber or board.  Texas added 4.3 million people between 2000 and 2010, according to the census, and Hispanics made up about 65 percent of that increase.

According to the editorial, Republicans in the Legislature drew a congressional map designed to protect Republican incumbents and increase Republican representation in the U.S. House. They split Democratic votes in Travis County, targeting U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Austin for defeat. They created as few minority districts as possible while still hoping to win approval from the federal government.


Also, Republican lawmakers drew a map favoring Republican candidates in three of the four new districts to increase their representation in the U.S. House from 23 to 26. The court's map makes minorities the majority in 13 of Texas' 36 congressional districts; since minority voters tend to support Democrats, Republicans will struggle to win 26 seats if the court's map is allowed to stand.


The three-judge panel also created interim maps for the Texas House and Senate.  Abbott argued last week that the court's congressional map "ignores the voice of the citizenry."  How is this so when no map ignored the voice of Austin's citizenry more than the Legislature's map, which divided Travis County into four congressional districts leaving all but one of the districts to be won by a Republican.

Although the U.S and Texas Constitutions had place several acts and amendments in place to overcome misrepresentation, or better yet under-representation, such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and then the Legistlative Redistricting Board, it still seems that redistricting is still a major issue.  The whole point of redrawing the map every 10 years is to gain fair representation; however, this is not case as stated in this editorial.  Redistricting is about incumbents protecting themselves and strengthening the party they represent. The focus is not on voters, and districts are not necessarily drawn to follow demographic and political lines.

I agree that in an ideal world redistricting should be in the hands of an independent, bipartisan commission, not state lawmakers especially since the state of Texas is a Republican majority legislature.  If an ideal world were to happen in the state of Texas there would probably be a change in the way the state runs.  Change is good and Texas needs change.