{"id":75026,"date":"2025-08-28T14:34:59","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T21:34:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=75026"},"modified":"2025-08-28T14:34:59","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T21:34:59","slug":"battle-lines-being-drawn-in-texas-and-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=75026","title":{"rendered":"Battle Lines Being Drawn in Texas and California"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By<\/span>Sunita Sohrabji<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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As Texas, California and several other states redraw new Congressional District maps, Asian American, Black and Latino advocates fear the power of their votes will be diluted.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A rally to end gerrymandering outside the Supreme Court on 3\/26\/19, as the Justices hear a Maryland and North Carolina case on gerrymandering. (Victoria Pickering photo\/Creative Commons license)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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New redistricting maps in Texas and other states risk silencing the very communities driving America\u2019s growth, said Texas state Representative Gene Wu Aug. 22, as his state Senate approved new gerrymandered maps that could create 5 additional Republican seats in Congress.<\/p>\n

Black, Latino, and Asian American voters face deliberate vote dilution through partisan redistricting tactics, said Wu, speaking at a news briefing organized by American Community Media.<\/p>\n

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Texas state Representative Gene Wu.<\/em><\/p>\n

As the Texas state Senate took its vote, the California state Legislature also approved a measure creating new Congressional districts heavily favoring Democrats. California\u2019s measure will come before voters in a special election Nov. 4, whereas Texas\u2019 maps are effective immediately.<\/p>\n

Critics<\/h2>\n

But California\u2019s measure,\u00a0announced by Governor Gavin Newsom<\/a>\u00a0Aug. 14, has already received criticism, most notably from the League of Women Voters of California. In an Aug. 13 letter addressed to the governor, LWVC said the \u201ctemporary\u201dactions proposed by the measure were unlikely to stay temporary.<\/p>\n

\u201dOnce you break a safeguard, you don\u2019t just risk one or two or three elections; you set a precedent that future politicians will use again and again. This precedent would invite future gerrymanders in California, including from political actors whose policies we may deeply oppose.<\/p>\n

\u201cLong term damage to democratic norms will outlast any short-term gain,\u201d wrote the LWVC. \u201cYou don\u2019t save democracy by imitating those who seek to destroy it \u2013\u00a0 you save it by inspiring voters with bold ideas and principled leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, on the evening of Aug. 26, the letter was taken down from the organization\u2019s website, as mailers from the group \u201cProtect Voters First\u201d started appearing in voters\u2019 mailboxes. The flyers quoted portions of the letter and attributed it to LWVC president Gloria Chun Hoo, who had also penned an op-ed for\u00a0The Sacramento Bee.<\/a>\u00a0LWVC said on its website that it is not affiliated with \u201cProtect Voters First.\u201d<\/p>\n

Texas and Beyond<\/h2>\n

\u201cTexas now has the dubious honor of having basically the most extreme congressional gerrymander in the history of voting rights,\u201d said Dr. Sam Wang, director of the Electoral Innovation Lab at Princeton University. \u201cCalifornia is about to come in a close 2nd. These two states represent a real low point.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Dr. Sam Wang<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Four other Republican-majority states are considering redrawing their maps: Florida, Indiana, Missouri, and Ohio. And 3 Democratic states \u2014 Illinois, Maryland, and New York \u2014 have hinted they will do as well.<\/p>\n

Congressional maps are traditionally drawn every 10 years \u2014 after the Census \u2014 and aim to reflect the new demographics of a district. The demographic story of Texas is undeniable, said Wu, adding that nearly all the state\u2019s growth has come from communities of color. \u201cThe Latino population has exploded, the Asian American community has doubled, but somehow we\u2019re supposed to believe there\u2019s no room for new districts that reflect those changes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Republicans\u2019 Harmful Policies<\/h2>\n

\u201cRepublicans need to cheat because they know that the policies that are happening right now that are causing massive price increases across the board. Coffee, grains, all these items have doubled in price in the last few months. People are losing their jobs. Tourism is down by 50% in many areas. Many businesses simply cannot stay open. And these policies are just beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re headed straight into one of the probably worst recessions we\u2019ve seen in a long time. And Republicans know that they are solely to blame because it is their policies and their blind support of (President) Donald Trump that is causing it. So they decided that the only way that they could survive is to cheat,\u201d said Wu. The political leader urged communities to fight back against what he termed \u201ctrue authoritarian rule.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf communities around this country do not start getting ready to fight and to stand up to this at every opportunity, our country is gone,\u201d said Wu, the Democratic leader in the Texas state House of Representatives.<\/p>\n

\u2018Packing and Fracking\u2019<\/h2>\n

Wu and Thomas Saenz, President and General Counsel at MALDEF noted the process of redistricting known informally as \u201cpacking and fracking,\u201d is designed to blunt the impact of minority votes. \u201cIn South Texas and in Dallas, they\u2019re taking Latino communities that have built up power over time, but are more spread out,\u201d said Wu.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo they take this one chunk over here and push them into a majority white area. So their voices will no longer matter. Then they take this chunk over there and push them into this majority white area. And so their voices won\u2019t matter either. They can vote all they want, they\u2019ll never be able to change the outcome of any election,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n

Saenz noted that Texas existing maps were already gerrymandered to favor Republicans and dilute the power of the Latino vote. He believes Texas is now violating the federal Voting Rights Act, with the support of US Attorney General Pam Bondi. The AG, said Saenz, has deliberately misinterpreted a\u00a02024 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling<\/a>\u00a0which found that coalition districts are not protected by the Voting Rights Act. Bondi has interpreted that ruling to state that creating coalition Congressional districts violates the Voting Rights Act.<\/p>\n

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Thomas Saenz.<\/em><\/p>\n

Growth of Latinos in Texas<\/h2>\n

\u201cThat is false,\u201d stated Saenz. \u201cIt is impossible not to create coalition districts in a state like Texas with significant populations of Latinos, Blacks, and Asian Americans often living in close proximity to each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201dIn the intervening years between the census in 2020 and today, the growth of the Latino and other communities of color in Texas has outstripped the growth of the white community. So (Texas Republicans) have had to violate the Voting Rights Act even more because there is an even larger community of Latinos and other people of color in Texas that they must grapple with,\u201d said Saenz.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if we can\u2019t legally stop this transparent manipulation of the redistricting process, it can be overcome if every person who\u2019s eligible to vote, particularly in communities of color, comes out and votes on Nov. 3, 2026. Maximizing turnout can overcome all of the manipulation of the democratic redistricting process that is going on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFair maps can and have resulted in real change, leading to responsive leadership to address inequities in all areas of life, from healthcare to education, environmental safety, infrastructure, and more,\u201d said Sara Rohani, Assistant Counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. \u201cThey are really the base building blocks of our democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Sara Rohani<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Shelby vs. Holder<\/h2>\n

\u201cThe population growth in this country over the last decade has been driven by voters of color, and new electoral maps should reflect greater electoral opportunities for Black voters and other voters of color,\u201d she added. But such efforts have been hampered by a 2013 ruling \u2014\u00a0Shelby vs. Holder<\/a>. Prior to that ruling, states which had a history of racially discriminatory practices in redistricting had to get federal pre-clearance before their Congressional maps went into effect.<\/p>\n

The Shelby decision ruled that states were no longer required to get pre-clearance. \u201cSo with that, the court opened the door for a bevy of suppressive voting laws and racial vote dilution tactics that have severely harmed Black voters in this country,\u201d said Rohani.<\/p>\n

Redistricting in 2020 reflected the Shelby ruling: states drew discriminatory maps that would not be scrutinized either by the Department of Justice or a three-judge panel in the District Court of DC before they were enacted.\u00a0The LDF filed suit in several states to protect the Black vote, and is still battling lawsuits and appeals in Alabama and Louisiana. It will defend Louisiana\u2019s map before the Supreme Court on October 15th.<\/p>\n

Racial Fairness<\/h2>\n

\u201cFair representation isn\u2019t optional in this country. It\u2019s the right of all Americans to equal voting power. It\u2019s a central pillar of our democracy and throughout history. And clearly to this day, voters of color have been excluded from the democratic process,\u201d said Rohani, urging communities to organize to ensure they can vote for candidates who truly represent them.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny observer has seen that all of these voting rights are undergoing great change. And many would say from a racial fairness standpoint,\u201d said Wang at the Aug. 22 ACoM news briefing. \u201cYou might imagine that in a rational world, there would be standards for racial fairness in redistricting, and they would be applied evenly across the states. That is not the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201dIt\u2019s entirely possible that racial gerrymandering may make a comeback in the next few years,\u201d said Wang. Like Rohani, Wang noted that\u00a0Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act<\/a>, which protects against vote dilution and depravation, is going to come under heavy challenge.<\/p>\n

Independent Redistricting Commissions<\/h2>\n

\u201cThe Voting Rights Act has gone from being nearly unanimously renewed on a bipartisan basis back in the 1980s to being radioactive for one entire political party,\u201d said Wang. He noted that racial fairness and representation might be better achieved at the level of state legislative line drawing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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