Essay On Redistricting In Texas

Kayla Carter
NCTC Government 2306
Professor Huckaby
October 15, 2014
Graded Assignment 1: Redistricting in Texas Every 10 years after the U.S. census the district lines for the Texas Congress are redrawn. However, during the 78th Texas legislature in 2002 and 2003 the district line were redrawn after they were drawn after the 2000 census. This new district map would favor the Republicans; this of course bothered the Democratic who lost seats within the Texas Congress. This was eventually brought to the U.S. Supreme Court which released its opinion in 2006. In 2001 the Texas Legislature was in a deadlock of a new district map to coincide with the census. Because they were unable to agree on a map the state law requires a Legislative Redistricting Board which includes: the Lieutenant Governor, the Speaker of the House, Attorney General, Comptroller, and the Land Commissioner, to take on the task of creating the district map. The Republicans were seeking a new map increase their control of the State Congress. However, the Democrats felt the minority votes were being diluted by gerrymandering, as well as, violate the Voting Rights Law. In 2002 the Republicans

Supreme Court in 2006. The Democrats were arguing that the revised maps were unconstitutional because they violated the “one person one vote” aspect of the Voting Rights Act as well as using partisan gerrymandering. The Supreme Court heard a similar gerrymandering case prior the Texas’ case their opinion was “political gerrymandering — drawing a map to give one political party an advantage — violates the “one-person, one-vote” principle protected in the Constitution.” (nbcnews.com) the Supreme Court gave their opinion that “entire Texas plan is unconstitutional because the legislature rewrote a previous court-drawn map, three years after the most recent census, out of nothing more than a desire for Republican advantage.”