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Redistricting and Gerrymandering

Redistricting determines what district people live in, and decides which political party controls those districts. It plays a major part in national, statewide, and local voting. Censuses help legislators redraw their district boundaries by providing them with information on the districts’ demographics. Without information from the censuses, legislators cannot redistrict, since they lack information about the population in a demographic. Gerrymandering is a process that legislators use to gain an advantage over another party. Political gerrymandering occurs when political parties pack supporters of the opposing political party into each district, so the opposing political party receives less House seats. Redistricting differs from gerrymandering in that redistricting is a fair way of representing the population, while the process of gerrymandering is used to manipulate the outcome of elections.

The 2020 census will help legislators determine the new districts affecting national, state, and local voting. Redistricting is expected to be challenging, with the recent population changes due to COVID-19. Based on the census, in 2022, Texas will gain two new congressional seats due to the increase in population. Legislators predict republicans will hold the majority of Texas seats for the next 10 years, holding 23 out of 36 seats.

In 2013, the Voting Rights Act was repealed, freeing the state from preclearance and possibly leading to an increase in gerrymandering. The Voting Rights Act was established 50 years ago to prevent legislators from gerrymandering. However, The Supreme Court ruled in Shelby County v. Holder that the act was unconstitutional and was removed (110). The Voting Rights Act required Texas legislators to bring any redistricting changes to the Supreme Court for permission, to reduce gerrymandering. I believe that repealing the act could lead to increased gerrymandering, since there is no way to restrict legislators from manipulating the districts in favor of him or her.

Due to the pandemic, the census was delayed approximately 4 months. Even with the census delay, the 87th Texas Legislative session was held on schedule, however, redistricting did not take place. Special legislative sessions were held afterwards to complete redistricting, but legislators are worried the 2022 election cycle might be affected by the census delay. In 2012, the deadlines were moved for potential election candidates. The setback doubled the length of campaigns and caused chaos for fundraising and the election. Legislators fear that history might repeat itself in the coming election.

As a Texas citizen, I believe that politicizing districts to garner votes from specific types of people is unjust. I think the government should reflect the population, and gerrymandering districts to gain votes is causing Texan legislators to not exemplify the residents of the districts they are representing. Congressional District 35 has been a leading example of gerrymandering in Texas, seeking out the places highly populated with Hispanics, and redistricting the county boundaries to envelope those areas. Dogget (D) raised the Hispanic population of CD-35 to 50% in an attempt to keep the district on the Democratic side.

My overall thought on redistricting and gerrymandering is that redistricting is necessary to evolve districts to reflect its residents, and gerrymandering prevents legislators from accurately representing the population. Without accurate representation in the House, Texas residents will not be able to influence decisions made in the House. However, I do not believe politicians should be taken out of the redistricting process since there needs to be fair legislators. Removing the legislators from the redistricting process would prevent residents from seeing which legislators want to represent the people, or care about publicity. I do believe there should be a process that the redistricting changes must go through before becoming final, such as a Supreme Court review process.

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