Robert Draper, my former colleague at TEXAS MONTHLY, has written a piece about redistricting in the current issue of the Atlantic. One of the main characters in his story is Tom Hofeller, the former redistricting director of the Republican National Committee, now a paid consultant and a master of the dark arts of cartography.

Draper, the grandson of Watergate special prosecutor Leon Jaworski, delves deep into the mysteries of redistricting, focusing on Texas, with some attention paid to North Carolina, California, and a few other states. The problem for Republicans in Texas, as readers know, was that the state’s population grew by 4.3 million over the last decade. Hispanics accounted for 2.8 million of this growth and African-Americans for another half-million. The growth rate for Anglo Texans was a paltry 4.2 percent. Draper writes:

“In other words, without the minority growth, Texas–now officially a majority-minority state–Texas would not have received a single new [congressional] district. The possibility that a GOP map-drawer would use all those historically Democratic-leaning transplants as a means of gaining Republican seats might strike a redistricting naif as undemocratic. And yet, that’s exactly what the Texas redistricting bosses did last year.”

Many readers will recall the discussions that took place when the numbers became known. Should the new districts be divided evenly between R’s and D’s? Should Republicans, as the majority party, be entitled to three of the four seats? Draper says, “… The Texans produced lavishly brazen maps that resulted in a net gain of four districts for Republicans and none for minority populations.” This is, of course, incorrect. The actual result was that Republicans got three seats, the Democrats one, a majority-minority district that merged predominantly Hispanic west Dallas County with predominantly African-American east Tarrant County and is likely to elect Marc Veasey, an African-American Democrat in November–an outcome that seems fair to me, given the relative strength of the parties.

Draper quotes Hofeller as saying that the Texas redistricting process should serve as “a cautionary tale of how a remap effort can go wrong.”

“The new horror story will be Texas, which stood, this past cycle, as a powerful example of how reckless a redistricting process can become,” Draper writes.

Apparently, relations between the state and the RNC’s redistricting experts did not go well. Draper quotes an unnamed GOP legislative leader as saying Hofeller and Republican National Committee counsel Dale Oldham “created an adversarial relationship” and “rubbed raw” the Legislature’s bigwigs. Texas instead used inexperienced staff and legislative point men, Draper says.

U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., the House GOP campaign committee’s vice chair overseeing congressional remapping efforts for this cycle, told Draper the state’s legislative leaders solicited no advice. “Well, the Texas Legislature basically told me, ’We’re Texas, and we’re gonna handle our maps,’” Westmoreland said. “You know, I’m just saying that when you have a population increase of 4 million, and the majority of that is minority, you’d better take that into consideration.”

* * * *

It’s pretty clear what happened. Hofeller, Oldham, and Westmoreland met with the staffers who were entrusted with drawing the maps and warned them not to overreach. So what did they do? They overreached. “We’re Texas and we’re going to handle our own maps.” Yes, that sounds exactly like what our boys would say. “We don’t need no stinkin’ help from Washington.” I don’t know who the  “bigwigs” referred to in the story were, but they got what they deserved: a federal court ruling that the Texas maps engaged in intentional discrimination. This is what happens when the attorney general acts like a politician rather than a lawyer. It was evident from the moment the map for the Texas House of Representatives came out that the scheme ignored Hispanic growth. Why Abbott thought they could get away with it is a mystery to me.

Well, the Republicans have had their fun. With continued growth among minorities, and no prospect for growth among Anglo Texans, 2011 is likely to be the last time Republicans will control the redistricting process in Texas.

Tagged: redistricting

Matt Mackowiak tackled the issue in the Statesman, in an opinion piece headlined “Redistricting doesn’t need fixing.” He writes:

With the primary elections in a redistricting year now in the rearview mirror, the predictable lament of losing candidates is to blame the district lines.

If only the process were fair!

Elected officials don’t own the voters. They don’t own their districts. They are allowed to rent them, for two-, four- or six-year periods, contingent upon review by the voters.

Incumbents have all the advantages — official staff, travel budget, favors to offer, ability to raise money, high name recognition.

If you are an incumbent, and you lost, you have no one to blame but yourself….

* * * *

Of course, that is not a true statement. If you are an incumbent in the minority party, you are at the mercy of the majority. In a one-party state like Texas, the majority has all the advantages in redistricting. It controls the process. If you are an incumbent in the minority party and you lost, all you can do is to blame the majority party, and that will get you nowhere. They drew the map that generated the district lines that defeated the losing candidates. Back to Mr. Mackowiak:

While this harsh reality escapes some, a new debate, which is revisited every 10 years, has emerged. Should we take redistricting out of the hands of the Legislature? Should we change the process in place for decades? The U.S. Constitution requires that the state governing body is responsible for reapportionment every Census period. It does not say “judges” or “independent commissions.”

What Mr. Mackowiak misses here is that in almost every redistricting cycle, the issue IS taken out of the hands of the Legislature. The Constitution may not say “judges,” but in every redistricting cycle that I can recall, the constitutionality of the maps has been ultimately decided by the courts, not the Legislature. This year was no exception. The D.C. court determined that the Legislature’s maps were drawn with discriminatory intent. In most redistricting cycles, if not in every redistricting cycle, the final say belongs to the courts, not to the elected officials. If I were in the minority, I would trust the courts to be fair long before I would dream of relying on the hope of receiving fair treatment at the hands of the people’s representatives. Mr. Mackowiak is entitled to believe that the best way to achieve fairness in redistricting is by applying the collective judgment of the Legislature, but past experience records that the courts do a far better job of protecting the rights of the minority. Indeed, that is one of the reasons why we have courts.

Tagged: redistricting

The outcome of this case was predestined. For months, the D.C. court warned that Texas’s failure to provide Hispanic opportunity districts when there were huge Hispanic population gains could be construed as evidence of intentional discrimination. There was no way a fair court could ignore the facts in the case: that Texas qualified for four new congressional seats due almost entirely to Hispanic growth, and yet the Legislature provided no new Hispanic congressional seats. The same could be said for state House districts.

The failure must be laid entirely at Greg Abbott’s door. It was Abbott who tried to make an end run around the Department of Justice by choosing to take his case to the D.C. district court. It was Abbott who kept insisting that the Texas maps were legal. The D.C. court also sniffed out the shenanigans the state was employing to weaken districts where minorities were concentrated by moving out the most active voters and replacing them with less active voting populations–with the connivance of the Speaker of the House, in CD-23. I am sorry to report that I never had a moment’s doubt that Abbott, and Texas, would lose the case.

This is a permanent black mark on Abbott’s record: guilty of intentional discrimination. That won’t soon be forgotten. It is possible, of course, that the Supreme Court could rule in his favor on appeal, but to do so they would have to ignore the finding of intentional discrimination by the D.C. Court of Appeals, one of the most respected courts in the federal system.

It is going to be interesting to see what Abbott and Perry do next. Will they seek to redistrict in the 2013 session, as there were rumblings they might do? The problem for the Republicans is that they cannot draw maps that don’t betray discriminatory intent. They can redistrict, but they can’t get a court to bless their work.

UPDATE: Several readers have raised the issue that it was unfair of me to claim that Abbott is himself guilty of intentional discrimination and to place the blame for the maps solely at his feet. They are right, which I acknowledge below in the comments. I certainly understand what the attorney general’s role and duties are in moving the maps through the preclearance process and defending them under Section V of the Voting Rights Act. But overall, the ruling from the D.C. court does claim that the maps, as drawn by the state’s leaders and subsequently defended in the D.C. court, discriminated against minority voters, which was my main point.

Tagged: greg abbott, redistricting

“Senate District 10 partners victorious in preserving&strengthening ’08 district. Lege damage repaired. Thanks to all who supported&believed.”

[tweeted @ 1:33 p.m.]

* * * *

Just pointing out the obvious: The saving of Davis’s seat could take on added significance if senators choose the successor to Lieutenant Governor Dewhurst.

Tagged: david dewhurst, redistricting, Senate District 10, wendy davis

Nothing prevents the Legislature from drawing new maps. Redistricting is no different from any other bill, and it doesn’t have to be limited to the session after a census. That said, I don’t see the point of going through the exercise. So what if Republicans endorse a referendum to re-redistrict in 2013, as the state party chair promised last December? The intent of those pushing for “re-redistricting” is clearly to restore Republican dominance, which is threatened by the current maneuvering in San Antonio and in the District Court in Washington. To attempt to do so, however, raises all of the issues that are currently in play. The Legislature’s bill will still have to go through preclearance (unless the Supreme Court strikes down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act in the meantime); it will still be vulnerable to a court’s determination that the Legislature’s map is tainted by discriminatory intent.

The state’s legal team may find itself in the same position a year from now that it is in today: trying to defend maps that ignore Hispanic population growth. The issue comes down to this: Do Republicans (a) want to redistrict so they can correct the flaws in the current plans? Or do they (b) want to redistrict so that they can suppress minority voting strength? We all know the answer. Unless there is a sea change in the attitude of Republicans, a re-redistricting session is likely to end up costing the state a considerable amount of money–just to lose again. Until Republicans come to terms with the reality of demographics, another exercise in ignoring them will only produce the same result.

Tagged: redistricting

This is quite remarkable. The San Antonio court that drew the redistricting maps for Congress, the state House, and state Senate issued a supplemental order that amounts to a defendant’s brief on its own behalf. With no prompting from a higher court, the district court launched into an explanation of what it did in the Texas redistricting case and why. I haven’t spent a lot of time in courthouses, but I have never heard of judges mounting anything like this to cover a certain part of their anatomy. There’s nothing wrong with what the court did, but it certainly suggests that the majority is feeling a lot of heat. (I am indebted to Michael Li’s comprehensive website on redistricting for much of the information that follows.)

From txredistricting.org:

The opinion provides both additional legal reasoning and considerable detail about how the court drew districts in Dallas, Harris, Tarrant, and Nueces counties.

Responding to criticism that it improperly created additional African-American or Hispanic districts, the court explained, “the court has not intentionally created any additional minority districts.  Rather, any additional minority districts resulted from neutral districting principles and demographic changes.”

In Harris County, for example, the court explained that the combined minority population over the last decade “increased by over 700,000 while the Anglo population decreased by 82,000. Thus, over 89% of the population growth in Harris County was due to minority  growth.  Because of the significant minority growth in Harris County, it is inevitable that a neutral approach could produce an additional minority district.”

Similarly, the court noted that “the black population in Dallas County increased by more than 97,000 and the Latino population increased by more than 243,000, while the Anglo population declined by almost 200,000.”

The court majority also responded sharply to arguments by the state and dissent that it had created a ‘runaway’ plan that blindly ignored the state’s plan, explaining:

[T]he Court drew its plan for the Texas House after considering all of the parties’ proposed plans. For many districts, the Court considered the configuration in the State’s enacted plan, and for others the Court attempted to stay true to benchmark configuration, at least as much as possible.  The Court was mindful of the various legal challenges to the State’s enacted plan and attempted to avoid the same legal challenges to the court drawn map. The Court took a cautious approach to drawing the map, ensuring that the existing minority opportunity districts were preserved to avoid Section 2 and/or Section 5 violations. The tremendous population growth caused many changes in district lines. In drawing the lines, the Court tried to avoid splitting county lines unless those concerns were trumped by constitutional concerns.   See Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 584 84 S.Ct. 1362 (1964) (“When there is an unavoidable conflict between the Federal and a State Constitution, the Supremacy Clause of course controls”).  The Court ensured that all districts were contiguous and reasonably compact.  It also attempted to avoid the division of municipal boundaries and broader communities of interest. The Court tried to avoid pairing incumbents – out of 150 House districts, incumbents were paired in seven (7) districts, assuming those representatives wish to run for re-election. And finally, the Court attempted to adhere to the historical or benchmark configuration of the districts as much as possible. These neutral criteria served the Court well in drawing up a plan that may not be perfect but certainly conforms to all legal requirements.

* * * *

My comments: The district court is on solid ground when it speaks to demographics. The Legislature ignored the demographic changes that had taken place in this state during the last decade, and which made it extremely difficult to draw new maps without upsetting longstanding residential patterns. The Hispanic population, which is responsible for most of the growth in the state since 2000, is dispersed throughout metropolitan areas, making it difficult to reproduce traditional districts. I believe that the courts will eventually find that the maps drawn by the San Antonio court are legal maps that reflect the reality of the population growth in the state, and do not amount to prohibited racial gerrymandering. I have felt from the beginning of the redistricting process that the issue was whether the courts had to recognize what groups are responsible for the population growth, and whether the Legislature was obligated to acknowledge that these populations deserved representation that they had been denied in the past. Sooner or later, the Republican majority has to come to grips with the reality of the 21st century Texas. I’m betting it will be later.

Tagged: michael li, redistricting

Let me see if I understand this. First, Abbott wants to avoid submitting the Texas redistricting maps for preclearance at the Department of Justice. He tells everybody that he has figured out how to bypass the DOJ by going to the D.C. Circuit and moving for summary judgment from Republican-friendly judges. Then, to quote a certain prominent presidential candidate, “Oops!” The D.C. court denies summary judgment and orders a three-judge panel for the Western District of Texas to draw the maps. But the panel’s state House and Senate maps aren’t as GOP-friendly as the maps drawn by the Lege. All of a sudden Abbott’s strategy doesn’t look quite so clever, and legislators, particularly in the House, are screaming bloody murder. So what does Abbott do? Having previously bypassed the DOJ, which could have gone through its preclearance routine by now had Abbott submitted the state’s maps in a timely fashion, he criticizes the DOJ for “dragging its feet” in the approval of the original maps. Not surprisingly, the DOJ has returned fire and placed the blame squarely on Abbott, referring to the state’s “inexplicable litigation decisions.” It seems clear to me that Abbott tried to have his cake and eat it too. Well, he’s going to end up eating something all right, but I don’t think it’s going to be cake.

Tagged: department of justice, greg abbott, redistricting

The story ran in The Hill, which, as many readers are aware, is a daily newspaper devoted to coverage of Congress. An excerpt from the story:

“They do not want Anglo Democrats representing any part of Texas,” Doggett said. “They went after [former Democratic Reps.] Martin Frost and Chet Edwards, and I’m the third one they have sought to eliminate.

“They’re trying to complete the task that [Republican former House Majority Leader] Tom DeLay’s staff set out for them.”

DeLay infamously pushed state lawmakers to redraw Texas’s lines in 2003, which helped Republicans take a majority of the state’s House seats. There were 10 White Democrats in the state’s delegation in 2002. Doggett and Green are the only two who remain.

* * * *

I wrote something similar during the 2003 redistricting. It was obvious that DeLay’s idea was to get rid of the white Democrats. Some will remember the infamous memo by a DeLay aide–I think it was Jim Wilson–who kept saying ha-ha-ha about the Democrats who were marked for annihilation (Frost, Edwards, Doggett). DeLay’s map eviscerated seats that had been Democratic for eons, including the old Wright Patman district in northeast Texas and the Charlie Wilson seat in the big timber country around Lufkin. Republicans really don’t care if minority Democrats hold congressional seats. The R’s can be fairly certain that, this being Texas, minority politicians will  seldom have influence outside of their districts–of course, there are exceptions, like Barbara Jordan. (more…)

Tagged: lloyd doggett, redistricting, tom delay

Murray, the University of Houston political science professor and pollster (although he says he doesn’t do much political polling any more), spoke yesterday at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. I asked him beforehand about the Thibaut-Murphy race. (His son is a consultant for Thibaut.) He said that it was going to be very close, but Thibaut might have a slight edge because the Anglo population in the district has been declining by around 2% per election cycle.

Murray began his talk by describing himself as a moderate Democrat. He addressed the difference between the one-party Democratic state that existed when he arrived here in the sixties, and the one-party Republican state that exists now. “The problems are more serious with the current one-party system than with the one-party system of the sixties,” he said. “The voters in the Democratic primary were more representative of the state as a whole than the voters in the Republican primary are today.” This is true. The Republican party did not hold primaries in most counties. Texans were conservative, but they were conservative Democrats. The Democratic party was split between liberals and conservatives, so that a broad spectrum of opinions was represented in the primary. Almost everybody voted in the Democratic primary, including the small number of people who identified themselves as Republicans.

Murray addressed the subject of Hispanic voting. Hispanic registration, he said, was 21%, but Hispanic voter turnout was only 12%.

The Anglo vote will keep going down, he said. This decade will see 400,000 to 500,000 more Anglos coming to Texas — but 4 million “other.” Anglos will be 10% of the total increase.

Republicans have competed for the Hispanic vote, Murray said. They have competed well, but Murray foresees a significant reversal.

(more…)

Tagged: harris county, jim murphy, kristi thibaut, redistricting, richard murray

My colleague and friend Patricia Kilday Hart has written an excellent story about the speaker’s race that appears in the November 28 issue of the Texas Observer. (We will have competing stories, as I have “written” one that will appear in our January issue. You will see why “written” is in quotes when the issue comes out around a week from now.) In her story, Hart writes, “Now Democrats are poised to win back control of the House at the close of the decade, just in time for the next round of legislative redistricting.” This made me wonder: Are the Democrats “poised to win back control of the House?” Or are they approaching their high-water mark?

Here’s the list of all House seats won by Republicans, with district number, opposition (U = unopposed, L = libertarian only, D = Democrat only, DL = Democrat and Libertarian), and percentages of R and D candidates. Races in bold-face indicate potential swing districts. My comments follow the list.

2 — Flynn, L
4 — B. Brown, DL, 63.61 – 35.17
5 — Hughes, U
6 — Berman, L
7 — Merritt, L
8 — B. Cook, U
9 — Christian, DL, 62.75 – 35.39
10 – Pitts, L
13 – Kolkhorst, U
14 – F. Brown, L
15 – Eissler, U
16 – Creighton, U
17 – Kleinschmidt, DL, 53.99 – 42.84
18 – Otto, 65.43, D, 68.54 – 31.45
19 – Hamilton, DL, 63.92 – 33.98
20 – Gattis, DL, 64.70 – 30.52
24 – Taylor, L
25 – Bonnen, L
26 – C. Howard, U
28 – Zerwas, DL, 60.22 – 38.02
29 – Weber, D, 60.47 – 39.52
30 – Morrison, U
31 – Hunter, DL, 50.13 – 46.79
44 – Kuempel, L
53 – Hildebran, L
54 – Aycock, L
55 – Sheffield, DL, 53.92 – 43.38
56 – Anderson, L
57 – Orr, DL, 70.54 – 26.21
59 – S. Miller, DL, 61.64 – 35.80
60 – Keffer, D, 76.76 – 23.23
61 – P. King, DL, 72.52 – 24.19
62 – Phillips, D, 68.40 – 31.59
63 – Parker, DL, 72.97 – 22.65
64 – Crownover, DL, 56.95 – 39.39
65 – Solomons, L
66 – McCall, L
67 – Madden, L
68 – Hardcastle, U
70 – Paxton, L
71 – S. King, L
72 – Darby, L
73 – D. Miller, DL, 69.43 – 25.96
81 – Lewis, L
82 – Craddick, DL, 62.12 – 35.30
83 – Jones, U
84 – Isett, U
86 – Smithee, DL, 78.68 – 18.26
87 – Swinford, L
88 – Chisum, U
89 -Laubenberg, U
91 – Hancock, DL, 61.27 – 35.91
92 – T. Smith, D, 63.72 -36.27
94 – Patrick, L
97 – Shelton, DL, 55.33 – 42.57
98 – Truitt, DL, 70.42 – 26.64
99 – Geren, DL, 64.79 – 32.41
105 – Harper-Brown, DL, 48.72- 48.67 (still undecided)
108 – Branch, D, 60.60 – 39.39
112 – Button, DL, 56.06 – 39.64
113 – Driver, D, 58.50 – 41.49
114 – Hartnett, U
115 – Jackson, L
121 – Straus, L
122 – Corte, DL, 66.03-29.89
126 – Harless, DL, 59.40 – 38.41
127 – Crabb, DL, 65.64 – 32.29
128 – W. Smith, U
129 – Davis, D, 58.51 – 41.58
130 – Fletcher, L
132 – Callegari, L
135 – Elkins, DL, 58.39 – 39.94
136 – Woolley, L
138 – Bohac, D, 59.00 – 40.99
144 – Legler, D, 51.15 – 48.84
150 – Riddle, DL, 64.34 – 33.53

The most important thing about this list is that 40 of the 76 Republican seats were uncontested by Democrats.

Of the 36 contested seats, Republicans won 23 of these with more than 60% of the vote. This means that 63 of the 76 Republican seats are safe seats, unless something unforeseeable occurs, such as a scandal.

This leaves the Democrats with 13 seats to work with. Let’s take a look at them:

(more…)

Tagged: bohac, button, crownover, davis, driver, elkins, harless, house democrats, house republicans, hunter, juan garcia, kleinschmidt, legler, linda harper-brown, redistricting, sheffield, shelton, texas house of representatives