Redistricting UPDATE: Texas District Map Making

Populations shifting D.C.s watching how climates & Johnson-Era Laws affect Texas By Mike Asmus Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas Posting a population gain approaching 20 from 2000 to 2010 Texas is set to definitely gain three likely four U.S. House seats during the upcoming redistricting process. As total House membership is a set figure (435 voting members) congressional districts are reapportioned from states losing population to states gaining people. By & large scraper-less and posting one of the healthiest state economies among the 50 Texas is the most prominent growth notch in the sun belt.   I started out in Wisconsin a truly beautiful state with surprisingly short and fleetingly warm summers. My trek southward was in part a decidedly unscientific pursuit of bona fide climate change: when I reached a region where ice scrapers were no longer sold I could stop. My trip was hardly unique; several thousand did the same thing just today and several thousand more will do the same tomorrow. And if the sun belts thermometer alone doesnt lure people away from their scrapers the regions economic barometer often seals the deal for those in places of fiscal flux Detroit or California for instance. Eight mostly northern states are expected to each lose a seat through reapportionment; New York will likely lose two. As designed by the Founders states gaining seats will gain in influence; states losing seats...well you grasp the ramifications. State legislators are the map makers during the decennial redrawing of state house and senate boundaries. State lawmakers also set the shapes of U.S. House districts working into account any expansion or contraction of gained or lost seats in their Washington delegation. Now a map of 32 U.S. representative pieces the Texas redistricting puzzle will have up to 36 pieces each to be within close population count to the other. Thats the population driver in redistricting; heres the DC connection. Washington has as you might expect a sizable rule book for the states to follow with respect to congressional redistricting. The legislatures of the 50 states can largely go about their business when drawing up state-level legislative districts with state review panels in place to resolve any boundary differences that cant be ironed out in a statehouse. In Texas the aptly-named Legislative Redistricting Board is the resolving body. But with the U.S. House being a federal legislative body Washington keeps a watchful eye on congressional redistricting and plays an active part in settling boundary disputes. On top of this oversight Texas along with several other states and areas of the nation has an added set of federally-enforced rules to comply with. Its roots tracing to Reconstruction the National Voting Rights Act of 1965 was advanced by the Johnson Administration and passed by Congress under the auspices of eradicating practices thought to curtail the participation of minorities in elections. The act applied to states (and certain townships counties and cities) purported to be using such tactics and in which fewer than 50 percent of the eligible voting population was in fact registered at that time. Amended several times since original passage the act was extended in 2006 for 25 years. Two prime movers of the Voting Rights Act dovetail with the two prime movers of the Fifteenth Amendment. Ratified in 1870 the 15th Amendment (along with the 13th and 14th) was designed to help speed the re-bonding of a nation splintered during fighting among the states. Militarily the war had ended five years earlier; civilly some matters were as yet unresolved. While most public law is long on wind the U.S. Constitution gets right to the point as do its remarkably few amendments including the 15th:

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race color or previous condition of servitude.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Consider Section 1 the law and Section 2 the order. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act keys off the law of the 15th Amendment by enacting a general prohibition on voter discrimination. Proof of intentional discrimination is not required; at bottom is this litmus test:

• Do all voting age citizens have equal access to the voting booth?

The 19th Amendment ratified in 1920 bars gender-based voting discrimination finally giving women the vote. The hows and whys of such a longstanding injustice are outside this columns scope and the authors powers of insight. Section 5 of the voting act serves as the 15th Amendments order invoking a pre-clearance procedure under which the U.S. Attorney General must first approve any changes to the voting process proposed by a city county or state falling under the acts purview. As noted this purview is fairly extensive touching all or parts of 15 of the nations 50 states. The 15th Amendment was drafted largely with African Americans in mind. Correspondingly the Voting Rights Act envelops:

1. Virginia
2. South Carolina
3. Georgia
4. Mississippi
5. Louisiana
6. Alabama and
7. portions of North Carolina.

The act also adds protection for language minority groups including native Alaskans American Indians Asian Americans and people of Spanish descent. This additional coverage is essentially what brings Alaska Arizona Texas and counties in South Dakota California and Florida into the fold along with certain townships in Michigan and New Hampshire. Under the voting acts pre-clearance requirement covered cities townships counties and states must submit proposed voting process changes to the Department of Justice. (The District of Columbia is also covered by the act and submits its changes to a federal court.) A change could involve any number of circumstances including how a voter registers what sort of I.D. a voter needs at the polls how a ballot is cast how ballots are counted. Perhaps no change is as graphically prominent as redistricting. And so the maps drafted by the Texas Legislature this coming year for the state legislative seats state school board and congressional districts will be sent to Washington. The Justice Department has up to 60 days to review the plans. The DOJ can request additional information extending the review time another 60 days from receipt of the new data. Texas lawmakers or members of the Legislative Redistricting Board (whichever group has jurisdiction at this juncture) must satisfy any objections raised by the DOJ before a redistricting map can be put in play. Texas has had a fair amount of interaction with the DOJ over the course of the Voting Rights Acts 45-year history most recently following the unusual though not unprecedented non-decennial redistricting effort of 2003. More on that saga in another chapter. Long story very short that knot wasnt fully unraveled until the 2006 elections and here we are back at the drafting table again. If redistricting didnt involve such weighty and impactful import Id say let the games begin... A former mayor & State Senate Communications Director Mike Asmus managed the 2010 congressional campaign of Donna Campbell who remains in the hunt for 2012.