Since the Constitution talks about having a census every ten years, some have interpreted this to mean redistricting can only occur every ten years, making Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s mid-decade redistricting plan unconstitutional. You know who says that idea is bunk? The United States Supreme Court.
Texas finds itself once again embroiled in a familiar political storm. Republicans control both chambers of the legislature and the governor’s office and are considering revising the state’s congressional map before the next census.
Democrats and their allies in the press are portraying the move as a threat to democracy. “Mid-decade redistricting!” they cry. “Republican partisans drawing Republican seats is an outrage!”
But Republicans are simply engaging in the same political hardball Democrats themselves played for decades when they were in charge, and the courts have repeatedly stated that the practice is perfectly legal.
In 2003, the Republicans gained the majority in the Texas Legislature after 150 years of Democrat rule and Democrat favored district lines. Texas Democrats had redrawn district lines in 2001 to send as many Democrats to Congress as they could. When the legislature flipped in 2003, the Republican majority wanted to draw a new congressional map that would send more Republicans.
To thwart the will of the legislature, more than 50 Democratic House members fled across state lines to Oklahoma to prevent a quorum and stop the redistricting bill from advancing. Their absence stalled the process for weeks and forced Gov. Rick Perry to call multiple special sessions.
The spectacle drew national media attention but ultimately failed. The Democrats returned, the map passed, and, of course, they sued.
When that case, LULAC v. Perry, reached the Supreme Court in 2006, the justices addressed the core question directly: Is there anything in the Constitution that limits redistricting to once per decade? The answer was a resounding no.
The Court concluded that “nothing in the Constitution prevents a state from redrawing its congressional districts more than once during a census cycle,” so long as it complies with equal population and federal voting rights requirements.
The ruling didn’t just settle the Texas dispute but confirmed that mid-decade redistricting is a legitimate tool available to any legislature with the votes to pass a new plan.
Snip.
“Redistricting is an inescapably political enterprise,” the Justices wrote, “which federal courts should make every effort not to pre-empt.” In Abbott v. Perez (2018), the Court went further to say that redistricting is a “local function” and “federal-court review of districting legislation represents a serious intrusion on the most vital of local functions.”
And to reinforce the right of legislatures to complete their constitutional duties, the Supreme Court in 2024 declared the obvious: the good faith of state legislatures “must be presumed” in matters of redistricting.
In Alexander v. S.C. State Conference of the NAACP, the Court ruled that state legislators have taken the same oath of office to uphold the Constitution as judges and every other office holder and have a “strong presumption” of acting on good faith. If the redistricting plans do not involve a constitutional or statutory defect, the lower courts must let the plan stand unaltered.
If that’s not enough for anxious Democrats, the Court in Rucho v. Common Cause (2019) held that state legislatures may redistrict on the basis of partisanship. Partisanship does not involve constitutional issues for the courts to review.
So that’s that.
For over two centuries, legislatures have gerrymandered congressional districts for partisan advantage. Indeed, the word “Gerrymander” dates all the way back to 1812, named after a district created under the leadership of Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry.
For the overwhelming majority of that two century history, Democrats have been the ones wielding the gerrymander pen, reaping the partisan advantage of lopsided representation. Now that Republicans are finally in a position to do the same, they want to cry foul.
Democrats made their bed, now they can lie in it.
The deserve everything that’s coming to them.