Monday, November 24, 2008
Gerrymandering in Texas
Gerrymandering is drawing district lines to include or exclude certain groups of voters. Done to significantly help or hurt one party or another. Gerrymandering is suppose to be illegal but is almost absolutely impossible to determine. In 2003 Texas Legislature redistricted breaking Austin into three districts. The three districts that run through Austin which were put in place to break up the strong democratic pull here. Austin is a red dot in a blue state. Some of the districts stretch hundreds of miles to the Rio Grande. District 10 has a nose in Austin then runs to the outskirts of Houston. The new districts of 2003 put five incumbent democrats at risk in the 2004 elections, four of which lost their seats. Texas has clear gerrymandering how can one city be broken into three pieces and it not be gerrymandered. How is a person suppose to be able to represent Austin people and Houston people equally? The two cities are very different, we think differently, and view issues differently as well. Furthermore, how is any representative really suppose to represent anyone outside of their class? We should elect more common people to represent us Austinites.
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After reading your post on gerrymandering, I’m afraid you misunderstood a few points from class. From what I understand, gerrymandering is legal, so long as it does not disadvantage ethnic minorities. After the 2003 redistricting fiasco in Texas, the US Supreme Court determined three things in LULAC v. Perry: 1) States may redistrict as often as they want to, 2) Gerrymandering is legal, and 3) States may not draw districts that hurt minorities. The Court required Texas to redraw District 23 because of minority issues, but the rest of the plan—including the gerrymandered Austin districts—was determined to be completely legal.
However, I would not claim that everything that is legal is right. You could make an argument that gerrymandering should be illegal—that legislators cannot represent different groups equally, it is not fair, etc.—but there will always be a counter argument. Why is it assumed that a man can only understand the needs and desires of someone who looks like him and has a similarly sized pocketbook? On the other hand, every district has either 600,000 or 120,000 people in it, depending on if it is a House or Senate district, respectively. Regardless of how the districts are drawn, how can anyone represent that many individuals, with the hundreds of different groups, lifestyles, and special interests?
I do not claim to have the answers. Politics are messy, no matter how you look at them. Our system is far from perfect, but it is what we’ve got.
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