The Texas congressional redistricting map is seen on August 9, 2003, in Austin, Texas. | Source: Jana Birchum / Getty
It really can’t be emphasized enough that the GOP has become the party of winning by any means necessary, even if it means brazenly weaponizing systemic racism—which it always does.
Texas is one of several Republican states that has been engaged in legal battles because white politicians decided there were too many predominately Black voting districts in their states and felt the need to break them up the way cops break up large gatherings of Black people when white people start getting nervous. According to CNN, a county redistricting plan in Texas that would have intentionally split up a Black voting district to create a predominately white one was struck down by a Donald Trump-appointed judge, who deemed the plan to be “a clear violation” of the Voting Rights Act. The redistricting plan was the same racist Republican political strategy that worked in Florida, and more recently, in Louisiana, where predominately Black voting districts that were designed to combat historic racism against Black voters were dismantled by GOP legislators—who demonstrated modern racism against Black voters.
Unfortunately, the voters of color—who, along with the Biden administration, challenged the Texas GOP’s map—are now holding their breath while an appeals court decides if the judge’s decision to reject the map will be overturned giving yet another victory to Republican lawmakers who hate critical race theory but are shining examples of why it exists.
From CNN:
For roughly 30 years, Precinct 3 of Galveston’s County commission – the governing body of the county – was drawn to group together Black and Hispanic communities, which together make up nearly 39% of the county’s population and mostly vote for Democrats. After the 2021 Census, the Republican-led county commission broke up that district, locking in four majority-white districts instead.
US District Judge Jeffrey Vincent Brown last year struck down the new map, saying that how the commissioners went about their “obliteration” of a majority-minority district was “stark,” “jarring,” “egregious” and “mean-spirited.”
Among the commission’s actions were to hold its lone meeting about its redistricting plans 27 miles away from the county courthouse that usually hosts major commission meetings and to exclude the only Black member at the time (and its only Democrat) out of the map-drawing process.
However, due to some eyebrow-raising procedural maneuvering last year by the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals – with the Supreme Court refusing to intervene – the contested map will be in effect for the 2024 election as the 5th Circuit considers reversing the 35-year-old-precedent that was the foundation of Brown’s ruling.
So, just to recap: A predominately Black and Hispanic voting district existed in Texas for three decades undisturbed—just minding its own business like Black and brown people try their best to do in Karen’s America—until Republican lawmakers decided it could no longer stand and created another white district in its place. A judge who was appointed by the MAGA messiah himself could still see how racist the new map was, so he struck it down—yet it’s somehow still in effect in November. And now, a court might decide that the Voting Rights Act wasn’t violated at all in the bid to gentrify a Black voting district in a state that will still be red as hell whether the district exists or not. (Seriously, this is just white supremacy for the sake of white supremacy on a political level.)
CNN reported that on Tuesday, “the conservative appeals court will hear arguments to decide whether the Voting Rights Act requires redistricting plans to protect the collective political power of multiple minority groups, in what are known as ‘coalition districts.’”
“Recognizing that communities of color often suffer the effects of discrimination together is what’s at stake here,” said Valencia Richardson, an attorney for the Campaign Legal Center, which is representing the voters who are challenging the map.
Again, these battles over intentionally racist congressional maps are happening across red-state America, including Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and the aforementioned states. It’s no accident that none of the long-standing predominately white districts in these states are being scrutinized the same way. It’s no accident that when Black districts are broken up, they’re almost always absorbed into predominately white districts.
It’s almost as if whiteness is the default. Go figure.
SEE ALSO:
Federal Judges Rule Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ ‘Race-Neutral’ Congressional Map Is Constitutional
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