they look like random shapes perhaps a
kaleidoscope or even
odd puzzle pieces they're actually the
united states congressional districts of
texas
if you look at them and you're thinking
well it should all be kind of like
somewhat contiguous and square but then
when you see one that kind of has looks
like a snake or something like that
you're kind of wondering what's the
logic behind that these shapes are a
major factor in determining our
representation in the u.s house of
representatives
which means they play a major role in
who's looking out for your best
interests in washington
and the shapes of these districts
they're not random this map looks this
way by design
thanks to a process known as
redistricting in texas
redistricting is done by our elected
state lawmakers
you have a situation where the
politicians are choosing the voters
when what we should be seeing is the
voters choosing the politicians
and in texas these maps have repeatedly
gotten lawmakers in trouble
over allegations of giving unfair
advantages to certain political parties
or voting groups it could be that lines
are drawn to disadvantage rural voters
or disadvantaged urban voters sometimes
lines can be drawn to
disadvantaged minorities for those of us
who have been advocates for the minority
communities latino and african
american communities there's a great
deal of interest to make sure that those
communities are
are adequately represented in the way
the lines are drawn
in this week's episode of ksat explains
we're focusing on redistricting
examining how this once a decade process
has become so contentious
and what will be different about this
year asap
explains ksat explains ksat explains
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on-demand in-depth perspective
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we're looking into concerns over voting
safety during a pandemic and the battle
over
mail-in voting a look at how the
protests and demonstrations have played
out in
our city and an examination of what it
means to be black in san antonio an
issue that you have likely felt the
effects of
rising property taxes the roots of
tejano run deep in south texas
we examine the cultural impact the music
has had in san antonio
well it is a complicated process that
will help define our political landscape
for the next decade
the texas legislature will take up the
task of redrawing the lines on our
state's congressional
and legislative maps
thanks for joining us for a new episode
of ksat explains
i'm myra arthur it's not exactly
exciting or a topic that a lot of people
rush to read about but it is incredibly
important to all of us redistricting
it's the time when our elected leaders
go from lawmakers
to map makers to put you into a group
that ultimately
determines who represents you at the
federal level by the end of this episode
you'll know how it works
and why what ends up on that map isn't
always the full picture
so let's start here what is
redistricting
it happens every 10 years every time a
new u.s census comes around
redistricting has to do with the
boundaries that are drawn
for our election districts so
anything that we elect by district
could be state representatives state
senate
congress school board city council
all of those districts get redrawn
every 10 years after the census to make
sure that there are
roughly the same number of people
from district to district and that
creates equality of representation
or at least that's the idea we'll get
back to that in just a minute
redistricting relies heavily on
population
some states that are not growing as fast
as others are going to lose
congressional seats and texas is going
to be the largest gainer we're going to
get three new congressional
seats by most projections going from 36
to 39
as of early february lawmakers and the
rest of us
are still waiting to find out america's
head count according to the 2020 census
but the u.s census bureau did put out an
estimate for the population of texas
as of july 1st 2020. 29 million
360 759
and that if that number if the census
count
is consistent with that then that would
mean that texas added about 4 million
215 000
new residents over the decade that would
also mean
texas added more people than any other
state over the last 10 years
which is why we're expected to get three
more representatives to speak for texans
in washington
but state lawmakers need the new census
numbers first
and this go round the data is delayed
the normal process was the census
results would be out by january 1st so
this past january 1st we would have
known how many
new or how many congressional districts
texas have
and then by the middle of february
people would have enough data
to really draw the plans well this time
the latest thing i've heard
is that we won't get the first results
until
april or may and won't get the final
information until the summer
so there's probably going to be a
special session of the legislature to
draw the plans
the hold up is a combination of things
first the pandemic
that slowed down how quickly census
information is usually gathered
plus this was the first time the census
was done online
that adjustment and a lack of internet
access for some people was another
factor
then there was the legal battle sparked
by former president donald trump
not wanting undocumented residents to be
counted in the census
then president joe biden took office and
said yes
undocumented persons should be counted
this is in a strange position because
if undocumented are not counted
texas will probably get one or two fewer
congressional seats
than would otherwise have now some
people would rather lose seats for the
state
than to have undocumented counted in the
various districts
but it's sort of cutting off our nose to
spite our face
and that's just a small part of the
controversy that can surround
redistricting and that timeline
it can get pushed back even further if
lawsuits are filed to challenge those
redrawn maps which is almost expected
these days
so how did this process become so
contentious
ksat explains producer lexi salazar
breaks down what's called
gerrymandering and where that concept
comes from
redrawing maps that determine
representation in dc sounds like a
neutral principle
but it's a process that quickly gets
heated and that controversy is nothing
new
it's been around as long as there have
been elections for years now political
parties in power have drawn district
lines to favor their parties
and we can expect the same thing when
texas state legislators get the census
results and are tasked with redrawing
the congressional map
what the map makers will be doing
in addition to trying to achieve equally
sized
congressional districts is
you know in our state achieve partisan
purposes
in order to advantage
in this case the republican party so
that they will
gain a larger share of the congressional
seats than they might otherwise
according to the distribution of boats
it's why these maps are filled with
seemingly random shapes
if you look at them and you're thinking
well it should all be kind of like
you know somewhat contiguous and square
but then when you see one that kind of
has
looks like a snake or something like
that um
you're kind of wondering what's the
logic behind that the logic is trying to
align people in terms of politics
it's been going on for years but with
more demographic information at
legislators fingertips
the line drawing has become more
methodical historically
it was hard to design a system that
would be
a pro democrat or pro republican when
there was general understanding of it
but now with the increased data the
decision makers can
draw maps that are quite clear
as to whether they're going to be
pro-democrat or pro-republican
it's called gerrymandering
gerrymandering is a term
that people came up with to describe
when district lines are drawn in a way
that somebody considers to be unfair
gerrymandering is likely a word you've
heard before probably in a high school
government class
the term comes from 19th century
massachusetts governor elbridge gary
gary had a long political career he was
the signer of the declaration of
independence and the fifth vice
president of the united states
but he is perhaps best known for signing
an infamous redistricting bill
the democratic republicans the party
gary belonged to controlled
massachusetts state legislature
lawmakers drew the state senate
districts to benefit the party
according to the smithsonian until then
districts had followed county boundaries
the new senate map was filled with odd
shapes one that was said to resemble a
salamander and it drew opposition from
the federalist party
but gary signed the redistricting bill
in february of 1812
a satirical cartoon featured in the
boston gazette depicted the districts
into a mystical looking animal
dubbed the gerrymander the term stuck
but at some point people stopped
pronouncing the word with the hard g
there's an argument to be made that we
should all be saying gary mandarin
but that's for another episode of case
that explains so what exactly does it
mean to draw districts in a way that's
unfair
how does gerrymandering work we
demonstrate with tetris
in an ideal world i think that we would
see congressional districts
that attempt to represent communities of
interest
and the idea there would be that regions
or cities would all be represented by
a voice in congress but instead what we
frequently see
is an effort to either group
certain kinds of voters together or
divide them
those are the two main tactics of
gerrymandering grouping certain kinds of
voters together
or packing constituencies or dividing
them
cracking constituencies take a look at
this the group of yellow and purple
tetris blocks need to be divided into
four groups there are some
straightforward ways to divvy them up
like this or even this or this
but let's say the yellow party is in
power and they want to dilute the
influence of the purples
they could divide the blocks this way
making sure to pack in as many purple
blocks into one group as possible
dividing the remaining purples into
groups with yellow majorities
now let's compare the results of the
first way of grouping with a more
strategic way and gerrymandering is as
effective in theory as it is in practice
take this prime example this barbell
looking shape is congressional district
35
a district that lloyd doggett has
represented in the u.s house since 1995.
the district links downtown san antonio
with parts of austin
the idea there was to concentrate
democratically leaning voters into that
district and
they achieved it because lloyd doggett
wins with
uh super majorities uh meaning that
there are relatively few republicans in
the district
and that allowed them then to uh
you know more evenly distribute
republican voters in neighboring areas
in order to achieve a larger number of
wins at smaller margins
gerrymandering has been going on in
states around the country for years
under both major political parties it's
a practice with real consequences
when you have unfair redistricting
really anybody can be hurt by that it
could be
that lines are drawn to disadvantage
rural voters
or disadvantaged urban voters sometimes
lines can be drawn to disadvantaged
racial minorities
a major consequence a lack of adequate
representation in congress
we have a growing number of black and
hispanic
representatives uh from texas but
uh you know non-hispanic whites now make
up about 41 percent of the population
but the vast majority of the
representatives that we send to
washington
gerrymandering can also dilute the
impact of a community if a single city
is cut up into pieces and those pieces
are combined with pieces from another
community
to create an entire district lloyd
potter is the demographer for the state
of texas
he's been part of redistricting hearings
in the state senate and says this is a
complaint he's heard
from more than one person the idea is
that if you have a community
that you know wants to have a politician
that's accountable to them and looking
out for their interests
and that community is then carved up
through this process
they then are are not you know they may
not be getting
representation and when gerrymandering
creates so-called safe districts
districts where one party is
overwhelmingly favored in elections
it kills competition and there's not
really any need to have a
debate or discussion about the issues
because it doesn't really matter
in terms of the outcome of the election
if you're in a district that's very safe
uh then you rely on your supporters
and you take them for granted and you
can ignore everybody who you don't think
is going to vote for you
because you know you're going to win
anyway and that's not a good model for
representation
so the question is is there a better way
to draw the map
one purely based on population and not
politics
some seem to think so in fact not all
states leave their elected lawmakers
with
the task of drawing the congressional
maps colorado california and hawaii are
among the states that leave
redistricting up to a non-political
commission
and state demographer lloyd potter
believes that theoretically
texas could do redistricting in a much
more mathematic way
there are actually a number of both
political scientists and geographers
who have kind of gone through this and
developed almost a formulaic way of kind
of
completely nonpartisan it's just kind of
like you know running
an algorithm against the data
and the geography and you know defining
districts
that way but as far as actually making
that happen
it doesn't seem likely anytime soon
essentially
both parties would have to agree to it
and they'd have to
go through a legislative process to
define that process
and i just don't see either one of them
seeing that as being in their best
interest
so for now the partisan way the maps are
drawn seems to be here to stay
and like in years past it seems that
this go-round will be contentious once
again
every year since the voting rights act
passed in 1965
federal courts have found that texas
lawmakers disenfranchised voters
when drawing the maps r.j marquez
explains our state's history of voter
suppression
and what will be different this year for
nearly five decades after the passage of
the voting rights act
texas was one of several states covered
by what's known as pre-clearance
pre-clearance is a very powerful piece
of legislation that said
that states like texas and other states
that have histories
of racial discrimination basically have
to get the permission of the federal
government before
any changes can be made to election laws
the idea was that with pre-clearance in
place there were safeguards against
lawmakers drawing maps
that would suppress or disenfranchise
hispanics and black voters across the
state
but it didn't stop lawmakers from trying
in fact texas has not made it through a
single decade since pre-clearance has
been required
without a federal court ruling saying it
violated federal laws
the legal battle over the 2011 maps
lasted nearly to the end of the last
decade
while that battle played out texas
needed interim legislative and
congressional maps
a federal court in san antonio drew up
the interim maps for the 2012 elections
and a year later the state legislature
made those maps permanent
but there were challenges for years
along the way civil rights experts say
one of the reasons lawmakers were
racially gerrymandering was to dilute
the impact of the booming latino
population
in texas since texas started
redistricting over 10 years in the 1970s
in every single round the courts or the
justice department have found that texas
discriminated against latino voters
that's primarily because in texas latino
voters have been a growing population
and texas has had some hesitancy about
creating districts to reflect that
growth
fairly but it could also be another
racial group
that experiences discrimination and
redistricting like
african americans or asian americans
which we had
examples of discrimination there in the
last redistricting round as well as
latinos
this year the landscape of texas
redistricting is expected to shift
dramatically because of a landmark
decision
in 2013 by the u.s supreme court to
strike down pre-clearance
when you had pre-clearance the maps had
to first
be at least given a look at by the folks
of the justice department
and whether it was a democratic
administration in washington or a
republican
administration in washington and six
years after pre-clearance was struck
down
texas voting rights groups were dealt
another blow the supreme court ruled in
2019 that federal courts were powerless
to hear challenges to partisan
gerrymandering and so
for democrats or anyone who's looking
out for minority populations because of
gerrymandering
they're going to have to argue in
federal court that
those maps are racially discriminatory
which can be a difficult thing to prove
with that decision and no pre-clearance
protection for the first time since 1965
texas is entering unchartered territory
it's concerning for people fighting
voter suppression
and those who are keeping an eye on
things say it's setting the stage for
another drawn out battle in the courts
to not have those protections on the
front end means that those
democrats in the legislature and those
representing minority communities in the
legislature
which of course would be
disproportionately would be democrats
they have to do their due diligence on
the front end
in the legislative process and they
can't depend on washington anymore on
the front end of this
we still don't have those census results
yet and we don't exactly know when the
redistricting process
will actually begin but the experts we
talked to in this show
encourage you to pay attention and if
you'd like to take part in a virtual
town hall
focusing on all regions of texas that is
happening
on february 27th we have a link to
information on how you can submit a
public comment and watch that hearing
it's all in the article for this episode
on ksat.com
explains thanks for joining us for our
show we'll see you right back here
next week
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you