Redistricting Texas Part 1

Possibly the most important piece of business that the state legislature will address when it convenes in January is redistricting since the decennial census results will be distributed early next year. If the election results have been good to Democrats in the state house; 2021 will be the first opportunity Democrats have had in more than 20 years to have some say in how state senate, state house, and congressional districts are drawn and more important the process that draws those districts.

Once each state has been allocated its congressional seats state legislatures or other state based bodies are required to draw lines for each congressional district which are required to contain the same number of residents in each district plus or minus a small percentage. Notice I said residents, not voters or citizens. The constitution says in Article I, section 2, clause 3 “Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed." As the population of Texas has grown substantially over the last decade while some state have been stagnant or seen declines we’re likely to gain 3 more congressional districts.

Gerrymandering refers to drawing districts in such a way that it favors one party or group of people over another. There are two types: racial and partisan. Racial gerrymandering was outlawed by enactment of the VRA in 1964. Partisan gerrymandering is still allowed. The problem is that race and partisanship often go hand in hand, in other words elections are racially polarized in our state. White people usually vote one way, and minority groups will vote the other. This means that partisan gerrymandering easily turns into racial gerrymandering. And, Texas is a repeat offender when it comes to discriminating against minority groups in our election maps, and both the Democrats and Republicans have been found guilty. Partisan gerrymandering has been ingrained in our political system since our country’s founding. In 1812 the Boston Gazette published a story on such redistricting using an illustration of a salamander and referring to a beneficiary, Elbridge Gerry, naming it gerrymander.

We live in Congressional District 15 which is around 287 miles north to south and State Senate District 21 at around 221 miles end to end. Then there’s Congressional District 35 running from south Austin to east San Antonio through a narrow strip on 1-35 that often contains nothing but the highway. All these districts are drawn to pack Democratic voters in the fewest possible districts so that more districts can be drawn with Republican majorities, it’s called packing.

Packing is when a political party concentrates opposition party’s voters into a few districts in order to reduce the opposition’s voting power. This creates districts that are heavily in favor of the opposition’s party, reducing that party’s representation in other districts.

Cracking is when a party dilutes supporters of the opposing party by spreading them across many districts. This denies the opposition’s supporters a chance to have group representation in their district.

Gerrymandering is about politicians picking their constituents rather than constituents picking their elected officials. Since politicians routinely abuse the process voters in some states have taken the process out of their hands. Both parties in Texas have gerrymandered districts when in power and have suffered it when not in power. Now might be a good time for both parties to consider creating a non-partisan process so they’ll never be on the short end of the stick again. I’ll talk more about this next week.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - November 4, 2020

No Taxation Without Representation Redux

The slogan "No Taxation Without Representation" summarized a primary grievance of the American colonists during the 1750s and 1760s and was one of the major causes of the 1776 revolution. The lack of representation was more obvious 242 years ago but it is nevertheless true today. Modern Americans suffer the same plight due to extreme partisan gerrymandering.

When voters aren’t able to choose their representation fairly it’s the same as not being represented at all so they are taxed without representation. In addition many of their other concerns are left unmet or even opposed unjustly.

Texas is a prime example of gerrymandering, our state has 36 congressional districts. In the 2016 election the vote split for president was approximately 55% to 45% so you’d expect that Republicans would hold about 20 seats and Democrats 16 but our state is gerrymandered such that Republicans hold 25 seats and Democrats 11. Numerous other states suffer similar unsupportable distribution of seats for the same reason.

Elected officials drawing the district maps use sophisticated analysis to create districts that favor one party or another. Packing refers to drawing districts in such a way as to maximize the number of disfavored voters in the fewest possible districts. Cracking refers to a technique that splits disfavored groups of voters into districts with majorities of the favored party’s voters so that they’re unable to amass a majority in any district therefore blocking them from selecting a representative of their choice. Both techniques are outlawed by the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and a number of states and smaller jurisdictions including Texas were once required to get approval from the Justice Department before finalizing redistricting due to prior bad behavior. Unfortunately the Supreme Court overturned Section IV of the VRA which covered pre-clearance in 2013 and parties in power in many states let fly with bad behavior that had previously not been permitted.

Last summer a three-judge panel of a federal district court ruled 2-1 that the drawing of two Texas congressional districts, the 27th and 35th, violated both the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act. The panel issued a similar ruling on maps for the Texas state House of Representatives. In early September the Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling issued a stay of the order which means that this year we’ll again use the unconstitutional maps for our elections.

The Supreme Court currently has three gerrymandering cases from Wisconsin, North Carolina and Maryland before it. In the case of Maryland it’s the Democrats playing dirty. We can expect decisions in these cases by the end of the current term this summer.

Even if the Supreme Court rules against the states which have gerrymandered districts the ruling won’t have any effect until 2020 and by then many voters will have gone nearly a decade without fair representation. Worse yet, unless the court invokes a portion of Section 2 of the VRA known as bail in, which would require offending jurisdictions to once again submit redistricting for pre-clearance, we’ll just go through the same decade long legal stand-off all over again after the 2020 census invokes redistricting in 2021.

There is a solution to all this, Texas could follow Austin’s lead and create a citizens redistricting commission which would be tasked with creating fair district maps without regard to partisanship. Common Cause Texas proposed such a bill last session and it was filed by Representative Victoria Neave but the Redistricting Committee chair failed to even call a meeting the committee so neither it nor any other proposal even got a hearing. Hopefully the Texas legislature does better in 2019.

John Kuempel Touts Distractions From Real Issues

Recently our state representative John Kuempel mailed out a flyer touting he presumably considers accomplishments from the recently completed 2017 legislative session. In this piece of tax payer funded propaganda Kuempel expounds on the value of SB 263 which substantially lowers the cost of handgun license as assisting lower income folks in their quest to take advantage of their Second Amendment rights. I won’t argue the meaning of the Second Amendment or its value in a modern society. Instead I would ask if reducing the fee by over $100 leaves other tax payers subsidizing the cost of administering the licensing program? If it doesn’t, then why were we being gouged by the state in the first place?

On “Election Integrity” Kuempel claims that the smattering of marginal issues addressed in several house ethics related bills is somehow meaningful reform. In reality one of the bills he touts, SB 5 which is another attempt by the legislature to pass a voter ID bill was immediately challenged in court where U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos found it was passed with discriminatory intent and is therefore invalid. The legislature made no attempt to deal with redistricting even though both the state House map and the Congressional district maps have both been found to have been drawn with discriminatory intent. There was a bill filed which would have taken the entire redistricting process out of the hands of the state legislature and put in the hands of every day people but Republicans couldn’t even be bothered to give it a hearing.

Public Education has been considered a top priority of the state since it was enshrined in the state constitution in 1845. Once again Kuempel and his Republican colleagues gave it short shrift. Admittedly they did right by shoring up the retired teachers’ health care plan known as TRS Care but the pittance the provided for educating our precious children barely covers the increase in enrollment across the state. Once again many districts across the state will fund their public schools on the back of property taxes. The problem is that no all districts have the same average taxable real estate values so kids in low taxable value districts don’t get the best teachers or facilities.

Kuempel’s pro-birth stance belies the fact that the legislature placed an undue burden on women whose pregnancies fail by forcing them to pay for burial or cremation services instead of disposing of the remains the same way as an amputated foot or arm. The same bill no forces women to purchase separate coverage for abortions that were once covered by their regular health plans. Regardless of how you feel about abortions most Americans understand that there are some medical circumstances involving either the health of the mother or the viability of the fetus where the only safe thing to do is to abort and now those mothers who haven’t recognized the need for a separate policy will be forced to pay for the procedure out of pocket.

All the purported advances in Kuempel’s missive simply distract from his failure to actually do something to improve the lives of his constituents or in some cases made them worse off. Texan’s whose homes suffered damage in the recent hurricane and haven’t filed a claim with their insurer yet lose some of their rights to compensation due to legislation he voted for. Texas has the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world and no substantive action was taken to address it. I don’t think John Kuempel has much to be proud of, do you?

Published in the Seguin Gazette, September 29, 2017

HJR 118 is best for all Texans

Do you believe that some people’s votes should count more than others? Do you think Senate District 21 which runs from Starr County which is an hour south of Laredo on the Mexican border northeast to Guadalupe County then north to Travis County is a sensible district? Do you believe in gerrymandering for partisan gain? Do you believe legislators should get to pick their constituents instead of voters picking their legislators?

If you answered no to those questions you probably should support Victoria Neave’s bill HJR 118 which would change the way Texas creates state legislative and congressional districts. Today state law gives legislators from the party in power the right to create the district maps in their own interests. Since they’re drawing the maps they make sure that their seats are safe and that two incumbents of their party aren’t put into the same district. Essentially they are picking their constituents in order to insure re-election.

Those hyper-partisan maps have triggered numerous lawsuits and cost Texas over $2 million just in the current decade. Texas is losing the current lawsuit but it is still battling so taxpayer dollars continue to be spent.

In 2013 Austin used an Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission to draw its 10 city council district boundaries in compliance with federal and state requirements through an open and transparent process that enabled full public consideration and comment. The volunteers on the commission held a series of public meetings over four months to gather public input.

The Commission worked to ensure that the districts were geographically contiguous and compact, minimizing the impact on local neighborhoods or communities of interest, used existing election precinct boundaries, and had geographically identifiable boundaries.

HJR 118 would create a non-partisan Citizens Redistricting Commission which would consist of 14 voters who aren’t elected officials, lobbyists or major campaign donors. They would be tasked to create district maps that are both compact and respect communities of interest. The process would include input from community members around the state. Equally important they would be expected to draw maps without regard to partisan makeup or where incumbents live.

If you’re a Republican you just might be OK with the current hyper-partisan maps but remember if Democrats ever retake control of the legislature under current law they could and likely would return the favor. It’s in the best interest of every Texan that a non-partisan Citizens Redistricting Commission as called for in HJR 118 draw the maps after the 2020 census. If nothing else it should dissuade many of the current plaintiffs from suing the state again.

The Redistricting Committee has yet to meet and hold a hearing on this bill. If you believe as I do that no politician should have the right to choose their own voters call Representative Cindy Burkett at (512) 463-0464 and urge her to hold a hearing on HJR 118.

Published in the Seguin Gazette March 24, 2017