Burnt Orange Report

Republican Redistricting Logic

By Byron LaMasters

Usually, I'll reply to my comments in the comment threads, but this comment to Redistricting Politics was worth its own entry.

AHEM, Tarrant County, with just slightly more population now, is divided into three Congressional districts (Granger, Barton, and Frost). The latter's district is especially gerrymandered on blatanly racial lines, so that I could drive from my high school in East Fort Worth (Stop Six Dunbar HS), south on 820 loop into Barton's district, than back up north to Granger's. The division of Travis County that you claim to be so egregious is routine in more Republican parts of the state.

Now, the comment was written by TX Pundit, a usually reasonable Republican blogger (and UT student, I'm guessing), whose site I visit on occasion. Yeah, I have several Republican bloggers on my blogroll, because, quite frankly, Democratic political masturbation, and liberal groupthink sites like the Democratic Underground get tiresome after awhile. It's good to see what the other side is up to every now, and then.

But, this is just a perfect example of Republican lies, and flawed logic in redistricting.

Let's get started:

According to the 2000 U.S. Census, Tarrant County has a population of 1,446,219, whereas the Travis County population is 812,280. Well, I guess it all depends on what your definition of "slightly" is. 633,939 people may be slightly if we were comparing the size of Texas to New York (i.e. Texas is slightly larger than New York), but when it comes to county size, well "slightly won't cut it. Tarrant County is nearly twice as large (ok, 78% larger) as Travis County.

So, lets do some more math. The average Congressional district in Texas has 651,619 people. Thus, Travis County should have 1.25 congressional districts, which it does. It has Lloyd Doggett's district representing the heavily Democratic eastern and central parts of the county, and the western half of the county is represented by part of Lamar Smith's district. Doing our division for Tarrant County tells us that it should have 2.2 congressional districts. Which, guess what? It does, well, maybe:

"[Tarrant County is] divided into three Congressional districts (Granger, Barton, and Frost)."

Almost. Actually it's four. Granger, Barton, Frost and Burgess (3 Republicans, 1 Democrat in a 60% Republican county, and you're still complaining). Hmm, next:

But, it's not. Tarrant County is fairly represented. It has parts of four congressional districts, and three of them are Republican in a county that is 60% Republican. Would you rather two Democrats? Didn't think so. Would you rather have only three congressional districts in Tarrant County? Redistricting won't do it. Because the King plan would have five congressional districts (one whole, four part) in Tarrant County, with five Republican congressmen. How fair... How unconstitutional. It violates the Voting Rights Act by retrogressing minority voting rights. Under the Republican plan, Blacks and Hispanics in Tarrant County would no longer have the opportunity to vote for the Congressman of their choice. Their votes won't matter as their communities are divided into lockstep Republican districts.

"[Martin Frost's] district is especially gerrymandered on blatanly racial lines"

And you're saying that the King plan is better?? Take a look 9th district in the King plan. Or the 15th. Or the 30th. Talk about racial packing. Good lord. Martin Frost's current district is a very reasonably shaped, compact district, representing communities of interest. The district is a minority opportunity district. A plan to eliminate his district and create a new Hispanic majority district in the DFW area would probably pass the constitutional test, but the King plan doesn't come close.

As for the "egregious division" of other Republican counties. The one most frequently mentioned is Williamson County (North Austin suburbs) which is divided into two congressional districts despite a population of only 249,967. Well, I think that if Republicans were really concerned about communities of interest as opposed to partisan politics, then Williamson county could easily have its own district that John Carter would be happy to represent, and Chet Edwards would be happy to shed. Republicans in northern Williamson County complain that they're represented by Chet Edwards, but in fact, those voters are the reason that, even without redistricting, it's unlikely that Chet Edwards will make it through the decade without defeat. Without the northern Williamson County precincts added in 2002, Chet Edwards could easily (ok, maybe not easily) cruise through the next decade in congress, but because of their addition to his district, he'll be a top target every two years.

Anyway, TX Pundit, I enjoy reading your site, and your comments, but this was too hard to resist. By the way, you ought to add comments to your site. I see that you wrote about me last week...