Across the South of the United States one thing continue’s not matter how much chatter about Donald Trump….
Big cities and their suburbs ARE Democratic or?….On their way there….
With the countries new House seat maps about to be drawn?
Texas Republicans are giving things their last try to hold on….
An especially atrocious Texas legislative session came to a close at the end of May. Republicans passed radical laws that ban nearly all abortions and allow permitless carry of handguns, and are working to further restrict access to the ballot.
The worst may be still to come. Due to delays with the U.S. Census, lawmakers will reconvene this fall for a special session to redraw the state’s political districts.
Over the course of a decade, people move, population ebbs and flows, and demographics change. In theory, lawmakers redraw state political districts every 10 years to rebalance the scales and ensure adequate representation for voters. In practice, it’s more sinister.
Since Reconstruction, redistricting in Texas has been wielded by the powers that be—namely conservative Anglos—to entrench, extend, and expand their control and undermine the political clout of the state’s non-white communities. From the conservative Democrats who ran the state for most of the 20th century to the conservative Republicans who have dominated state politics for nearly three decades, the racial rigging of Texas political maps is a time-honored tradition.…
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Now, GOP leaders want to refresh the maps in ways that further extend the political shelf life of their pale, aging, and disproportionately rural electorate while clawing back recent Democratic gains. Thanks to another decade of population growth, the GOP will also have two new congressional seats to play with.
Civil rights advocates insist those new seats be drawn to ensure the state’s Hispanic, Black, and Asian communities that fueled most of the population growth have commensurate representation in Congress. Dallas-Fort Worth is the state’s only metro without a district where Hispanics could determine the outcome, even as the Latino population there has surged to more than 2 million.
The big question is how far Republicans are willing to go….