In North Carolina, Democrats engaged in what looked so much like racial gerrymandering that an early version of Justice O’Connor described the result as bearing “an uncomfortable resemblance to political apartheid.” (Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630 [1993])
The Democrats said in effect, “Who? Us? When we assigned those voters we didn’t really care that they were black. All we cared about is that they are Democrats.” By the time this case bounced back and forth and returned to a Supreme Court (see here for a good descriptive chronology) on which sat a new (though arguably not improved) version of Justice O’Connor, the Supremes agreed. Writing for the new O’Connor-included five justice majority in Hunt v. Cromartie, 532 U.S. 234, Justice Breyer agreed with the Democrats:
“The evidence . . . does not show that racial considerations predominated in the drawing of District 12’s boundaries. That is because race in this case correlates closely with political behavior.”
But now that Texas Republicans are behaving in a manner that is virtually identical to what the Supremes approved for North Carolina Democrats, the Texas Democrats are crying foul. U.S. Rep. Ruben Hinojoso (D, Tex) said that a new redistricting map just approved by the Texas House “represented one of the greatest acts of political apartheid ever visited upon Hispanic Americans and South Texans.” He said this even though the Republican plan does not reduce the number of minority representatives in Congress at all.
The Republican plan does, however, substantially reduce the number of Democratic representatives. But if the argument is that blacks can’t be represented by Republicans, that depriving them of the ability to elect Democrats is discrimination, wouldn’t one also then have to conclude that whites can’t be represented by Democrats, that depriving them of the ability to elect Republicans is discriminatory?
Isn’t this stretching the concept of discrimination beyond the breaking point? The logic of the Democratic argument is that we should abandon representation based on geographic districts and substitute racial and ethnic representation.
In any event, Rep. Hinojoso obviously thinks it’s hunky dory for Texans — who have been voting Republican, usually by margins of 55%-60% — to continue being represented in Congress by the 17 Democrats and 15 Republicans who are there now.
Two points: first, the Democrats indeed over-gerrymandered on a racial basis. What happened, as I see it, is that the Republicans correctly figured that the Democrats would soon be left with only their black representatives. Then the conservatives and O’Connor threw those maps out, and picked up even more seats.
Having said that, the districts O’Connor threw out were no more tortured than gerrymanders in other states for purely partisan advantage.
As far as Texas, three Democratic representatives serve majority-Republican districts. I guess this shows that not only will whites vote for blacks and v.v., sometimes people will vote for incumbents of the other party if they are satisfied. The particulars of the new Texas map (which has perhaps the most tortured boundaries I’ve ever seen) are partly to get these Democrats to run in districts with different voters whom they have not represented, and who are less likely to support them. In one plan, Austin is divided into eight slices like the very center of a pizza, all dwarfed by suburbs and exurbs. If the plan works, the Republicans will hold 21/32 seats, which by your own accounting is more than their share of statewide support.
Unfortunately, even under Governor Davis, California requires a 2/3 vote for redistricting, so our plans are drawn to protect incumbents of both parties, rather than give the GOP a taste of its own medicine.
And as a last point, one-man one-vote is another example of the hidden influence of race in American history. At the time of the decision, Illinois (if I recall correctly) had ten times as many residents in its most crowded district, drawn on the basis of the 1900 Census, as in the least populous rural downstate district. I don’t find it surprising that the former, with its much-diluted vote, was the “Bronzeville” neighborhood of South Side Chicago (about 37-48 Streets), a crowded all-black ghetto.
Partisan gerrymandering is not pretty, no matter who does it. My only point in the post — to which you don’t directly respond — is that the Repubs in Texas should be judged by the same standards as the Dems in North Carolina. (By the way, the NC 12th was a bit more extreme than most, often being no wider than the highway linking black neighborhoods in different cities)
In any event, as I’ve argued in the past, the Repubs are perfectly capable of being as hypocritical as the Dems. The original race packing in this generation was their idea, after all, so as to whiten the surrounding the districts. The Dems went along because they couldn’t oppose plans that would elect more blacks, even if fewer Dems. Now, however, they (the Dems) have come up with arguments in several cases that take even my breath away: they have argued (in Virginia and NJ and maybe elsewhere) that it is racist not to put enough blacks into some districts so that they can at least elect a Dem, but it is also racist to put any more blacks into those districts than is absolutely necessary to do so.
My preference? Bar taking race into account al all. (Surprise, surprise). If that’s not possible because of the racial bloc voting (recall how we correctly called George Wallace a racist for harping on bloc voting?), then I’d consider going along with the new calls to outlaw partisan redistricting as well.
Multi-seat districts with proportional representation. Only winner takes all elections make Gerrymandering an option. We’ve known the cure for half of forever.
Oh, but wait… That would be TOO representative, in that it would actually make it feasible for people to vote for other than Democrats or Republicans without wasting their votes. The Demo-publicans may fight pretty viciously, but one thing they’re agreed about is that nobody else is to be allowed a chance.
John, I think you’ve identified the wrong problem: instead of opposing the Texas plan as un-small-d-democratic, the Democrats have fallen into old, bad [?]habits of opposing it as anti-minority. As a philosophical argument, I quite agree this leaves something to be desired. As a tactical measure I can understand it, as an attempt to use the Voting Rights Act to frustrate the Republican plan.
The Republican plan has not one several districts running along highway medians (as far as 200 miles!), and the purpose seems to be not to group together voters whom you could argue have commonalities of interest (say, inner-city ghettos), but to make sure incumbent Democrats are running in as unfamiliar and hostile a district as possible.
Brett, I’ve long thought that the State Senate should switch to PR. I’m a little worried about the small-party proliferation if we went whole hog.
“What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.” The Democrats are screaming about having done to them the same thing they’ve been doing to Texas Republicans for decades.
None of it is pretty, but at least the Republicans had some grace and dignity as a group when they were getting the shaft.
The Democrats have really torn their copybook with even a lot of their own party in Texas by their whining and childish behavior that also wasted a lot of the state’s money. We Texans are tired of the whole lot of them, but I think they’re too stupid to realize it. The next election is going to be fun to watch – their disbelief at what is going to happen is going to be comical.
I live in Brazoria County, south of Houston, and one of the more hotly contested areas for redistricting. So now I’m going to end up being represented by Ron Paul, a pseudo-Republican libertarian who is rabidly anti-government and just about anti-everything except putting religion back into government. I grew up a Democrat, as that was the only party in most of Texas that even had a primary election, so everybody registered Democrat. As a registered Republican (at least in the last few elections), I’ve been voting Paul down for as long as I can remember, but he’s got his clique of supporters that keep sending him back. Ditto for Tom Delay, whose badness is of a different flavor. Would I rather have a Democrat in either or both of those seats? Not after the party’s behavior this year. It’ll be a cold day in hell before I vote for any of the current crop of Democrats. A pox on both their houses!