In Redistricting, Race is the Limit to GOP Majority
The political maps are out, finally, and this is as good as it gets for Texas Republicans unless they can figure out how to win votes from black and Hispanic voters.
For the Democrats, this is probably the bottom. They have to find more voters or be forced to continue relying on the ethnicity of their voters — and the protections that come with that ethnicity — to protect the seats they still have.
The Republicans have snapped up everything not nailed down by the federal Voting Rights Act.
Redistricting nods to fairness but is actually about power. It allows a Republican ...
Comments (15)
lewis ramsey
It is not about Democrats finding a way to win seats. It is about the Republicans drawing the districts. If it was not for the Voting Rights Act, the Republicans could draw a map to give them 100 percent of the seats, even if 45 percent of the state vote Democratic. Unless and until the Supreme Court puts a leash on gerrymandering, that is the issue. The good news is that as the country becomes less Anglo, it becomes more fair. California, Arizona, and Florida have all gone to more fairer systems.
Christian Truth Revival via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Oh the republicans, and their 'christian' values again. sigh..
Duane Florschuetz via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Unlike the power grab of those who allegedly support personal freedom.
Greg Ellis via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Headline could read the opposite: "Race (or Ethnicity) is the limit to Democrat's chances at a majority." I guess the Tribune didn't notice the majority Hispanic, Republican Congressional District. I believe there are several Texas House districts that are also close to majority Hispanic and voted for McCain in 2008. If Hispanics play their cards right and position themselves as the swing voters they will control the political debate in general elections.
gypsy314 ne
My God democrats this is a red state if you do not like it then move to blue state Illinois has plenty of room for you democrats. A kind warning it is bankrupt and will fall soon to the acts off Greece. I do want to say we have a few Rhinos in the race and Texas votes must see to it they go home.
Anyone BUT Obama and democrats!
Samdavis
I like how this article follows one about using a Bush family member to draw Hispanic voters. Little bit of irony?
gypsy, how can I put it politely? You're an illiterate idiot who needs to confine your postings to sites like FOX News. Rhinos? acts off Greece?
Do you like parading your ignorance?
John Cook
This article is horse manure and Ross Ramsey is the depositor.
Yes they(Democrats) have to find more voters to win, but its not about ethnicity. Its about conservative values and people voting for conservative values.
Previously, for about 150 years, Democrats have controlled everything that happened in Texas and if it wasn't for oil, this state would look like California right now. Also, because the Republicans have taken over the legislature since 2003. This chaps their rear ends to no end . Little play on words there. Sorry!!!
But since 2003, Texas has become one of the strongest Conservative states in the nation, with one of the best economies. We could be like California, but Republicans took over and took over by winning every state wide seat in the state. How do minority districts stop state wide victories. Its the total of every person in the state of Texas including Hispanic. And the last time I looked the Republican Party had some really great Black and Hispanic leadership. But the voters right act doesn't count a Republican as an example of minority races being represented, they have to be Democrat to be a good example of minority values, according to Democrats. Hogwash!!!!!!
State-wide candidates in races have won by 60-70% over Democrat rivals. What has the Voting Right Act have to do with us being a Republican state and we are now in control and Texas is doing so well.
Democrats, I have one thing to say for you," If we are able to get the 50% of Evangelical Christians that do not vote to get off their posteriors and get them into vote like they are supposed to, you will have Hell to pay in Texas"!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mike Openshaw via Texas Tribune on Facebook
This article has got things a bit backward. The problem is that the Democrats have lost so many Anglo voters that it's getting nearly impossible to draw districts to support them. After all, that was what much of the fight was over; drawing districts to protect two Anglo Democrat incumbents.
BTW: it is the GOP that don't need to draw a specific district to elect ethnic minorities, judging them on the content of their character. Just look at the slate elected in 2010.
Marcus Cunningham
The statewide races are as much about voter turnout than anything else. Turnout in 2010 was disgustingly low, as even though the Dems fielded their best gubernatorial candidate in years. As soon as people here start voting, the results will be drastically different. Which is why Republicans are resorting to gerrymandering and voter suppression laws.
Amy R. Eldred via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Currently, Texas is a RED state and votes predominately GOP. That means more districts allocated accordingly. The Voter's Rights Act has turned into nothing more that a tool to perpetrate the racist notion that if you are a minority, you automatically vote Democrat. Many in the minority community share our conservative values of family, hard work, the preservation of life, religious liberty and the right to be left alone by the govt. Thanks to the unnecessary lawsuits, millions of voters have been disenfranchised with no voice in the primary election, every county in the state thrown into a total state of chaos. All because some in our state can't seem to accept the truth.
Barbara James
Maybe there is a different take on this issue? Seems to me folks who used to reside in identifiable ethnic or racial geo-pockets are making different choices about where they live, thus diluting their politico-geographical headcount. If the point of the VRA was political empowerment of minority districts, mobility appears to be the villain here for Dems. The Democratic politicians are the only class that would benefit by a little less success among their faithful voters, a little less upward mobility. Admitedly, there are those that feel their best interests are served by residing in well-defined subsidized geo-pockets. I personally believe it is a good sign for Texas that pockets like these may be getting more difficult to identify, hence the scrabbling and squabbling. Ultimately, it is never a good thing when people remain in a state of dependency, whether by choice or imposed on them via regulation. It didn't work 150 years ago. We can't go back - or have we?
Chris Bazan via Texas Tribune on Facebook
2020 dems will have 1/2 of the legislature and the redistricting will end up in courts and dems will gain at least 1/2 if not more of the congressional seats...hispanics will be the plurality of Texas come 2015
Debbie Mason via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Get out and vote and get people out to vote dem. We can change TX into a blue state.
John Robert Behrman
I personally accept full responsibility for this situation on behalf of my forebearer, James Pope Cole. He and Gail Borden chartered and surveyed, respectively, all those small, square counties. They did so in the hope that Texas would be largely settled by freeholders, not by just a few white planters with a lot of slaves providing them with the economic and political power of titled nobility.
Theirs was a faintly utopian notion that accorded with the evangelical Christiantity of that day. But, it failed: Texas entered and left the Union as a slave state. Texas and the Confederate States of America were offered full support of the British government and the Royal Navy, but could not accept the one parmount condition: abolition of slavery.
Borden gave up on Texas, moved back to New Jersey, and invented condensed milk. He was able to supply the Union army and navy, including those that occupied Galveston Island. Cole continued to charter Baptist Churches for white and black people on Galveston Island and lived to implement the Emancipation Proclamation there.
However, the planters moved from slavery, to prison-farming, to finance, to oil & gas, to river authorities and cotton subsidies, or whatever it took to remain the ruling class -- an educated and propertied elite with pretensions to military nobility and cultural achievement -- in Texas.
The result of failed political geography and defective political institutions is County Commissioners, four per county, in Texas with most having constitencies ranging from a few hundred souls and a few thousand cattle to a few Commissioners with hundreds of thousands of people, voting or not, and with hundreds of billions in landed or registered properties, none of it taxed uniformly.
Use computers to assign each person eligible to vote -- registered or not -- a unique identification number, track their every movement, and credit-score their political participation, then you have what we have today: That would be a bi-partisan concession-tending regime in home-rule cities where the Democratic Party whines about the oppression of a self-perpetuating minority they once were and just aspire to be again.
Universal suffrage, equal represenation of all people in Texas, and uniform taxation of wealth or income are not on the Democratic agenda today. Instead, we are "inclusive" -- whatever that means: We have a latent majority of popular sentiment but not the wit or traditions of republican and democratic political formation, mobilization, deliberation, discipline, and action to develop or exploit that majority.
So, the segregationist-wing of the Democratic Party -- the planters -- now operate as the GOP. They still rule the way they always have with a mish-mash of jingoism, civic religion, legalistic humbug, mass hysteria, and money borrowed with public credit but applied to private purposes, contrary to our quaint, old state constituiton.
If Democrats want to rule in Texas again, we have to use the Home Rule cities where we have voting majorities to impose republican and democratic institutions on political sub-divisions and agencies. THose have to levy and collect taxes fairly and efficiently as well as conduct elections in accord with the Texas Constitution. Race-based federal laws designed or, by now, subverted so as to protect a chain of professional and racial patronage won't do what needs to be done.
Susie Martinez-Dominguez via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Wow, I didn't know that forcing ultrasounds was being 'left alone by the government'. I guess since I'm a democrat I clearly don't value my family OR believe in hard work. The sea of red is directly related to the state of Texas PUBLIC education. Texans need to get their priorities straight.