Mid-Decade Redistricting Worked Out So Well Last Time; Let’s Try It Again!
The White House is hoping the Lege will redraw congressional lines to make them even more divorced from demographic and political reality. What could go wrong?
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Thursday, June 12, 2025
Everyone 22 years old or older lived through Texas’s mid-decade redistricting in 2003. It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. Mostly, it was the worst of times. And now, with luck and the imperial commands of the Orange Mad King and Our Only Governor, we may get to do it again.
Mid-decade redistricting is a contradiction in terms. The Constitution requires a census and, as soon as practicable after the census is completed, a reapportionment of congressional seats. (The U.S. Supreme Court, in its wisdom, also requires redistricting of any “legislative” office – state houses and senates, county commissioners, city councils, etc.)
The theory is that, once the new lines have been drawn, we leave them alone for the rest of the decade. After all, there’s not going to be any superseding information to help us draw even better boundaries, right?
Wrong. Sometimes critical changes are occurring, even if not to the population whose districts are being drawn. That was the case in 2003, when the Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives seemed in danger of losing their majority. And so Majority Leader Tom DeLay – a former pest exterminator from Texas known affectionately as “The Hammer” – dragooned the Texas Legislature into drawing new congressional maps. The then-current Texas congressional delegation was 17 Democrats and 15 Republicans. DeLay was certain they could do better. The state’s Big Three leaders – Perry, Dewhurst, and Craddick, all Republicans for the first time since Reconstruction – said, “Sure, why not?” and tried to pass a redistricting bill in the last month of the regular session. To prevent that, a critical mass of House Democrats fled to the unappetizing wastes of Ardmore, Oklahoma, breaking the quorum and preventing the House from doing business. The redistricting effort failed for the regular session, and the returning Democrats were greeted as liberators.
The reprieve was only temporary, as Governor Rick Perry promptly called a special session devoted to the topic of redistricting. This time it was the Democratic senators’ turn to deny a quorum in the senate. Having heard of the charms of Ardmore from their legislative colleagues, the Dems decamped to Albuquerque, New Mexico. There they remained for 45 days, until one of their number kissed Jesus on the cheek returned to Austin, rendering the absence and resolve of the others meaningless. They, too, returned, where the GOP-led Legislature passed maps that gave Republicans a 21-11 advantage.
To punish him for his perfidy, the voters of Houston eventually elected the turncoat mayor. And whatever happened to The Hammer, Tom DeLay? He was last heard from flunking out of “Dancing With the Stars.”
(Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be … this.)
That summer, I was the chief of staff to a Democratic state senator. The GOP majority’s frustration with their absent colleagues was so great that they discussed suspending the pay of Democratic sensate staffers, on the theory that since their bosses were shirking their jobs there was no need to pay them. In the end, the settled for banning Democratic staffers from parking on the Capitol grounds. However, the Texas AFL-CIO cleared its parking lot for Democratic staffers, and every morning some Republican staffers would pick up a few Democrats and drive them unobstructed onto the Capitol grounds. A modern “Berlin Airlift,” so to speak.
Once again, the GOP majority in the U.S. House is razor-thin and in danger of being extinguished in a wave of anti-Trump voting in 2026. So, Texas is being called upon to pad their numerical lead by further marginalizing Democratic voters.
The 2021 redistricting was, as Garret Morris might say, “berry, berry good” to the Republicans. Because of population growth, Texas added two seats to its congressional delegation, to a total of 38. But although people of color made up 95% of the state’s population growth in the 2010s, neither of the new seats were “majority-minority.”
In fact, two decades since Tom DeLay wrenched 21 GOP seats out of the 2000 Census, Texas has added 8.3 million people and six congressional seats. 7.6 million (91.6%) of those additional Texans are people of color, but they are only able to decide the victor in two of the six seats.
And now, because the congressional Republicans cannot get their act together, have a Bible-thumping weakling for a Speaker and a certifiably insane person for a President, the Texas maps will have to be made even more lopsidedly partisan.
Unless, or course, Texas leaders stand up to this nonsense and refuse to convene in special session to make the congressional maps even more unfair for minority voters in Texas.
"Oh, what tangled districts we weave when first we practice to deceive.” Apologies to Mr. Scott, but the meaning is the same as the original quote.
Taking away parking privileges from Dem staffers (while simultaneously taking away representation from citizens)?? It's the petty little cherries served on top of their fascism pies that make the Texas GOP so special.