REDISTRICTING IN most states is an exercise of political muscle, with the party in control focused on protecting incumbents and expanding its dominance. But legal and constitutional factors also play a role.
The Voting Rights Act, enacted in 1965 to address rampant discrimination against African American voters, demands that states protect the ability of minority groups to elect candidates of their choice; for many years, this has meant creating election districts that clump minorities together so they form enough of a majority to see their preferred candidates win office. Yet the Supreme Court has slapped back as constitutionally offensive some efforts that result in absurdly shaped districts and snake through distant parts of a state to capture the requisite minority voters.
Texas grew by some 4 million people over the past decade, according to the 2010 Census, thanks in large part to an influx of Hispanics. The state garnered four additional congressional seats, bringing its total to 36. But when Republican lawmakers redrew the election map, they kept the number of Hispanic-majority districts the same. The plan was signed into law this summer by Gov. Rick Perry, the Republican presidential hopeful.
Several minority advocacy groups, including the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, sued the state in federal court, arguing that it violated the Voting Rights Act by not maximizing the number of Hispanic-majority districts. The Justice Department has objected to the Texas plan under a different provision of the law that forbids states and other jurisdictions from reducing minority representation; the department argues that some of the Hispanic-majority districts have been redrawn to dilute the impact of Hispanic voters.
Hispanics are not monolithic when it comes to voting. Although Hispanics nationally tend to vote Democratic, in Texas and elsewhere they often vote Republican. They also sometimes vote for non-Hispanic candidates who they believe best represent their interests. The reverse, unfortunately, is less true; in renewing a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in 2006, Congress found a disturbing level of racial polarization in certain states and jurisdictions where white voters were unlikely to cast a ballot for a minority candidate. Judge John Bates, a George W. Bush appointee to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, this week upheld the provision against constitutional challenge, concluding that it was needed to combat “the modern existence of intentional racial discrimination in voting.”
Viewed through this lens, it is hard to reconcile Texas’s decision not to expand the number of Hispanic-majority districts in light of the population growth and the proscriptions of the Voting Rights Act. Texas may prove in court that it had a legitimate reason for not doing so, but what that reason might be is not evident to us.
Loading...
Comments