Although the biggest news related to state level politics is the recall in California, many of us recognize that the recall attempt is part of a larger pattern. The activities in Texas, where the Republicans in charge of the state legislature are attempting to redraw the political lines for the Texas Congressional delegation, are plausibly related. A colleague of mine asked me in the locker room last week whether I thought race had anything to do with the Texas redistricting attempt--which looks like it'll soon be a reality, given the return of Texas 11. Off the top of my head, I said no.
Here I am a SPECIALIST in race and politics...but I couldn't have been more wrong.
The way that the Republicans are going to get an extra six seats or so is relatively straightforward. All they have to do is redraw the district lines so more democratic voters are packed into fewer districts, and then split the rest of them so they'll be small minorities in the rest of the districts.
Question. What populations are easiest to pack into super-democratic districts?
Answer? The segregated populations. Black and Latinos.
In the short term what this does is give black and Latino politicians the opportunity to pick up more seats in the Texas delegation. And this is a good thing. But what it also does is create the opportunity for the Republicans to establish almost perpetual control over that state delegation. Kuff quotes from a Beinhart article that notes a similar dynamic. I noted earlier that the reason the Reagan Democrats BECAME Reagan Democrats was because they associated the Democratic Party with Black people. Norquist, Delay, and the White House would LOVE to see that dynamic played out in Texas. I can easily imagine a situation in which the majority of the state's population would be non-white and Democrat, while the majority of the state Congressional delegation would be white and Republican.
Posted by at September 20, 2003 11:07 AM | TrackBackThere's nothing new about redistricting for political purposes. What is new in Texas is that the Republicans are the ones doing the redistricting. That makes it news. Check out the comments to this post for some back and forth on redistricting from both sides.
Posted by: Sophorist at September 27, 2003 12:30 PMI didn't say there was anything new about redistricting. What is new here, and I could be wrong, is the speed of redistricting. It is customary to redistrict once every ten years with the census. Texas JUST redistricted....and they are doing it again. THIS is new...and it appears to be driven by concerns that the growth of non-whites is happening faster than elites thought it would.
Posted by: Lester Spence at September 29, 2003 08:43 PM
Polically everthing or one is fair game .Race has always been a contributing factor in district allignment;mainly because of segregated housing.The district are allign alledgedly with the census,sounds like oneupmanship to me.
Posted by: Tootsie at September 22, 2003 10:29 AM