Gerrymandering fight intensifies in the US ahead of midterm elections

According to The Texas Tribune, Democratic Party lawmakers in the Texas legislature have left the state to prevent a quorum, aiming to block the Republican plan to redraw the state’s electoral district boundaries.

Under one of the proposed options, the new electoral map would provide an even greater advantage to the Republicans who already control the state.

“This decision was made in accordance with moral values,” said Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu. “Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, is deliberately playing the race card to steal the votes of millions of Black and Latino Texans.”

According to The Hill, the lawmakers who left the state traveled to Illinois, New York, and Massachusetts.

Republicans could gain five seats

If the new map is approved on July 30, Republicans could likely deprive Democrats of five seats in the US House of Representatives.

Currently, Texas holds 38 seats in the House, with 25 of them controlled by Republicans.

Democrats also criticize Republicans for violating the traditional practice of redrawing district boundaries. This process is usually done once every ten years following the census.

The last US census was conducted in 2020. According to established rules, the next opportunity to redraw districts would arise after the 2030 census, although this is not legally mandated.

Democrats will not return to the state

Texas Republicans had planned to approve the new map during a 30-day special session of the local legislature that convened on July 21. It is now anticipated that local Democrats will not appear in the state until this period expires.

However, the state governor can convene a special session as many times as he wishes. In this case, Democrats would theoretically need to stay out of Texas until November 2021, when candidate filings for the midterm elections begin.

Experts who spoke to The Texas Tribune believe such a scenario is highly unlikely.

Threat of arrest

Under local laws, the Democratic lawmakers who left the state could face fines starting at $500 and even arrest.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton stated on his X (formerly Twitter) account that he proposed the members be arrested and brought to the capitol building in Austin.

Illinois Governor, Democrat J.B. Pritzker, pledged to protect the party members who came to his state in every possible way.

Trump’s midterm election plan

The effort by Texas Republicans to redraw the map as early as 2021 is linked to pressure from their party’s leader and former US President Donald Trump.

Trump aims to increase his party’s chances ahead of the midterm elections scheduled for November 2022. Historically, the president’s party almost always loses seats in the House of Representatives in such elections, while often maintaining its position in the Senate.

Discussions about the extraordinary redrawing of electoral district boundaries are also ongoing in other states. This is true for Republican states like Missouri, Ohio, Florida, and Indiana, as well as Democratic-led states such as Illinois, New Jersey, New York, California, and Maryland.

In some states, such as California and New York, there are special independent commissions established for this purpose. While it is possible to bypass these commissions, the complex procedures involved vary from state to state.

Furthermore, even if the map is successfully changed, the decision can be challenged in court.

Electoral engineering: What is gerrymandering?

In the US, the redrawing of electoral district boundaries, known as “gerrymandering,” has become a common practice for both parties. The system works as follows: specific voter groups are either concentrated into one or two districts (“packing”), or new boundaries are drawn that divide the opponent’s electoral majority (“cracking”).

For example, Republicans might place as many Democratic-voting constituents as possible into a single district. Conversely, they could redraw the boundaries to turn a large group of Democratic voters in each district into a minority.

This significantly alters the structure of seat distribution in the House of Representatives, which is based on a plurality voting system.

For example, in the 2018 midterm elections, Democrats in North Carolina won only 23% of the seats despite receiving 48% of the votes.