Opinion: The Lone Star State’s Redistricting Is Constitutional, Legal, and Necessary

Concerning the redistricting in Texas, state legislators there are trying to correct what the Justice Department correctly called “unconstitutional racially based” gerrymanders.

Their fix will ensure the over 2 million new residents of Texas receive what they are entitled to in Congress: fair representation.

This from patriotpost.us.

Contrary to fair Congressional representation, however, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is accusing the Republicans of trying to “steal the midterm elections.”

And the claim that engaging in mid-decade redistricting is somehow illegal is complete nonsense. No federal or state law, constitutional provision, or court precedent limits states to redistricting just once every 10 years. More frequent redistricting is simply rare because it often results in brutal political fights and years of litigation by those unhappy with the results. Not only that, but Texas is acting to bring its districts in line with federal law and court decisions.

On July 7, Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights at the U.S. Justice Department, sent a letter to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton informing them that four Texas congressional districts drawn in the state’s 2021 redistricting—TX-09, TX-18, TX-2, and TX-33—are now “unconstitutional racially based” gerrymanders that “must be rectified immediately” by the state Legislature.

This warning is based on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ 2024 decision in Petteway v. Galveston County, in which the court reversed a 1988 precedent and held that so-called coalition districts are not protected under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Unlike majority/minority districts in which a single racial minority group constitutes over 50% of the voters, thus giving the group the ability to elect its candidate of choice, coalition districts combine two racial or ethnic minority groups—such as blacks and Hispanics—to reach the 50% threshold.

In Petteway, the appeals court said while majority/minority districts are protected under the Voting Rights Act, coalition districts are not. The court held that the law was not intended to protect political alliances of different racial groups, and that it had wrongly decided back in 1988 that such districts were covered by the Voting Rights Act.

The new ruling means when Texas drew its coalition districts in 2021, it impermissibly used race and ethnicity as the predominant factor in drawing the boundary lines. That makes those four districts unconstitutional because they violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, the “one person, one vote” standard—meaning they must be redrawn.

And that was not the only problem with the 2021 redistricting.

In 2022, the Census Bureau admitted it had made major errors in the 2020 census and had undercounted the population of Texas by over half a million residents, or close to 2%. Not only that, but Texas has had one of the fastest-growing populations in the country over the five years since the census, adding over 2 million residents to the state.

Congressional districts must be as equal in population as possible under applicable Supreme Court precedents. Yet the census mistakes and the huge population growth have distorted the state’s 2021 congressional districts since they do not take those factors into account.

As a result of all of this, a new redistricting plan has been drawn to fix these problems. That plan also happens to favor the GOP in five new congressional seats.

Bear in mind that political gerrymandering, as opposed to racial gerrymandering, is perfectly constitutional and has been occurring since Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry first engaged in such behavior in 1812.

A vote on the new map was scheduled for Aug. 4 in the current special legislative session, but the “AWOL” legislators in the state House fled the state to avoid the necessary two-thirds quorum for the Legislature to conduct business.

Their behavior represents the very antithesis of the democratic process: They are preventing the legislative body that represents the voters of Texas from being able to fix the racial discrimination that occurred four years ago when the Legislature thought it had to draw up coalition districts to comply with the Voting Rights Act.

Probably the best comment on the shenanigans of these Leftist legislators is Abbott’s chastisement for fleeing the Lone Star State: “Real Texans do not run from a fight.”