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Texas State/Congressional Redistricting Update

Dorothy Mundy and Victoria Zudak | Published on 9/24/2021

Redistricting  Process

 

Proposed State Senate Map: Democracy Alerts - Texas Releases Proposed State Senate Map - Democracy Docket https://www.democracydocket.com/alerts/texas-releases-proposed-state-senate-maps/

Texas Civil Rights Project tweeted: The TX Senate released its proposed redistricting map. In keeping with the Texas’ record of drawing discriminatory maps, the proposed map does not give new representation to the exploding communities of color in Ft. Bend, Brazoria, Tarrant, & Collin counties.  Instead, it violently rips apart these communities to decrease their representation. Over the past year, Texans have voiced the demand for fair maps. The TX Senate needs to do better than this.


Congressional Districts:

 

Dave Wasserman tweeted: TEXAS: it's redistricting week. Here's my rough expectation for the GOP's congressional map:

  • 25R-13D (up from 23R-13D now)
  • a new hyper-blue Austin seat
  • ·one blue seat in the RGV made a lot redder
  • all 23 R incumbents shored up
  • Fletcher & Allred packed w/ Ds

 

We’ll see.

 

Proposed redistricting map of Texas


 

SD 16 Redistricting Update (Dorothy Mundy)

In the US voters are supposed to choose their legislators and representatives – not in Texas.

In Texas the legislators draw the maps and because they know everything about every single voter in every house they can guarantee whether a district will elect a democrat or a republican. They can even make sure they make a little jag to keep the incumbent in his or her district. With computers they can pack and crack the districts so that even when they only have a slight majority the outcome is completely skewed to a single party.

Want to know what they did to the Park Cities? They reached deep into Dallas county from SD- 12 to pluck them out and then expanded into Wise county -population 73,384 (Dallas county population is 2,647,850) and removed a bunch of Denton county from it. What do the residents in a couple of affluent suburban areas close to downtown Dallas have in common with the residents of rural Wise County? Nothing, nada, not a thing. The old SD 16 now looks like a convoluted barbell and reaches from one side of Dallas all the way across to the other side because of course Irving/Grand Prairie are the same as Mesquite and Balch Springs. The town of Richardson seems to be split between 3 different senate districts.

Nathan Johnson the State senator for SD-16 in the regular session proposed a constitutional amendment to establish an independent redistricting commission that would be required to maintain “communities of interest” and may not unfairly favor any political party on a statewide basis. Given what these districts look like it is far past time to institute his plan.

Voters deserve better.

 

Old districts:

Old map of Dallas County districts

 New districts:
Proposed map of Dallas County Districts

 

Links to district viewer- https://redistricting.capitol.texas.gov/

Nathan Johnson’s original bill- https://legiscan.com/TX/text/SJR54/id/2330123


Lawsuits

Ken Paxton asks judge to block lawsuit over redistricting, saying it's 'wrong about Texas law' https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ken-paxton-asks-judge-to-block-lawsuit-over-redistricting-saying-its-wrong-about-texas-law/ar-AAOwu70

 

Other Articles:

Texas redistricting begins Monday at start of third special session https://www.texastribune.org/2021/09/20/texas-redistricting-special-session/

Texas Senate drops first redistricting map, causing Democrat to cry foul https://www.texastribune.org/2021/09/18/texas-senate-redistricting-map/

FTVA Fact Sheet*: The Freedom to Vote Act https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/freedom-vote-act 

* FTVA does not require independent redistricting boards but does include other redistricting reforms, including prohibiting partisan gerrymandering and enhanced judicial remedies to ensure discriminatory or gerrymandered maps can be quickly challenged in court.